Their photo. Their likeness. Your deadline.
A commission is a promise: the client hands you a photo of their dog, their late father, their house, their family, and you agree to give it back as a painting that looks like the thing they love — by a date, for a price. The whole job turns on two things a browser can't help with alone: getting the likeness right, and getting it done. Grid Maker Pro covers both ends. Plan the proportion and framing for free with all 82 overlays, then use the AR app to anchor the client's own reference photo over your paper or canvas and trace the likeness accurately at scale. Freehand and the grid method build the skill; AR is the production accelerator that lets a confident artist take on more paid work without missing the date.
Artists who paint from a client's photo.
If someone pays you to reproduce a picture they supply — and they will judge the result against the original, side by side — this is your workflow. The subject changes; the job is the same: match it, and deliver on time.
Pet portraits
The eyes and the muzzle carry the whole likeness — the owner knows their dog's face better than their own.
Memorial portraits
Often a low-resolution old photo, and the one job that has to be exactly right — there is no re-sitting.
House portraits
Rooflines, windows, and proportion the owner will spot instantly if a single line is off.
Family portraits
Several likenesses in one frame, each one a person who will be looking hardest at their own face.
The two things a commission lives or dies on.
A personal piece can be as loose as you like. A commission has a client who compares it to the photo, and a date you quoted before you started. Accuracy and turnaround pull against each other: the more you re-measure to get the likeness, the longer the piece takes and the thinner the margin gets. Here is the honest shape of it — and the third route the AR app adds.
Re-measuring the likeness eats the margin
The freehand and grid methods work, and they build real skill. On paid work they also cost time.
- Freehand block-in is the mark of a strong artist, but a subtle likeness can take several attempts, and a memorial or family piece leaves no room to be almost-right.
- The grid method is accurate and needs no device, but ruling the reference and the surface into matching cells, then copying square by square, is measuring time before any paint moves.
- Every hour spent proving the proportion is an hour not spent on the flesh, the fur, or the light — the parts the client is actually paying for.
Anchor the client's own photo to the surface
The Grid Maker Pro AR app pins the client's supplied reference over your real paper or canvas through the phone camera.
- Look through the screen and the photo sits locked on the surface at the size you're painting. Trace the landmarks by hand and the proportion is right on the first pass.
- The likeness lands early, so the long hours go into value, colour, and edges — the finish the commission is really sold on.
- The reference is one the client owns and handed you to reproduce, which is the ordinary, defensible commission case (see the copyright note below).
- It runs on-device. The client's photo never leaves the phone — the same privacy promise as the free web tool.
Plan free. Trace the likeness. Finish faster.
The order matters when a client and a clock are both real: settle the framing where changes are free, lock the proportion accurately, then spend your good hours on the paint. The free browser tool owns the planning; the AR app owns the transfer. Three moves.
Frame it in the browser
Drop the client's photo into the free tool and stack composition and proportion overlays. Seat the subject in the frame and agree the crop before a brush touches the surface.
Free web tool · all 82 grids
Anchor it to the surface
Open the AR app at your easel, point the phone, and pin the client's photo to the paper or canvas. It locks at the size you're working — no grid to rule, no measuring pass.
AR app · paid
Paint the good hours
The likeness is already true, so the sittings go into flesh, fur, and light instead of into re-measuring. You hit the date, the client sees themselves, and you can take the next commission.
Your brush · your finish
Free overlays that verify the likeness.
Before you trust the trace, and after, the grids let you check the proportion against the client's photo — the landmarks that carry a likeness, and the frame the piece will hang in. These overlays live in the free browser tool. For the deeper head-construction technique behind portrait likeness, the portrait artists guide goes further. Leon Battista Alberti described squaring a design up through a gridded veil in 1435;1 the principle behind transferring a reference accurately has not changed, only the tools have.
Proportion & head grids
Verify the eye line, the set of the features, and the landmarks a client checks first, against their photo.
→Rule of thirds
Seat the subject and the focal eye in the frame the client will hang, before you commit the crop.
→Golden ratio
Balance the subject against the negative space so a small portrait reads as a considered composition.
The AR app does the thing a browser can't.
The web tool plans and checks. The app transfers. Built by Sujith Puthran, a working artist of more than fifteen years, the AR app locks the client's reference photo over your real paper or canvas and lets you trace at scale on-device. The 82 composition grids stay free forever in the browser — the app is the separate, paid product for the surface itself, and it never paywalls the planning.
Grid Maker Pro AR
Anchor a client's photo to your paper or canvas and trace the likeness by hand at scale — no grid to rule, no lightbox, no projector. Android on Google Play, with iOS planned. No account to start, and the reference photo never leaves the device. The free tier gives you three AR traces of your own photo every month plus all 82 overlays, so you can test it on a real commission before paying.
Free tier 3 AR traces / month + 82 overlays · Paid $29.99/yr · $6.99/mo · $79 lifetime
What commission artists reach it for.
Owners send me one phone photo of their dog and expect the eyes exactly right. I used to redraw the muzzle three times before a stroke of colour. Now I frame the crop in the browser, anchor their photo through the app, and trace the landmarks true in minutes. The likeness is locked on the first pass, so the two days I have go into fur and light — and I can say yes to more pieces a month.
A memorial is the one commission that has to be exactly right, from an old photo, on a promised date. The grid method got me there but the ruling and measuring ate the margin. Tracing the family's own supplied photo with AR moved that time into the actual painting. It is the transfer grid I already trusted, without gridding the paper — and the photo stays on my phone.
The questions commission artists ask.
How does AR tracing speed up a client commission?
On a paid commission the deadline and the likeness are both fixed, so the time you save is time you take back. The Grid Maker Pro AR app anchors the client's own supplied photo over your paper or canvas through the phone camera, so you draw the landmarks — the eyes, the muzzle, the roofline, whichever the piece turns on — accurately at the right scale by hand. The proportions land on the first pass instead of being re-measured five times, so the long hours go into value, colour, and edges rather than into fighting the drawing. It is the centuries-old transfer grid, without gridding the paper.
Can I legally trace a photo my client sent me?
This is general information, not legal advice — check your own jurisdiction or a lawyer for anything that matters. In the ordinary commission case you are working from a reference the client owns and has handed you specifically to reproduce, which is very different from tracing a stranger's copyrighted image off the internet. Good practice: work only from photos the client took or clearly owns, put that in your commission agreement, and keep the exchange on record. The app runs on-device, so the client's photo never leaves your phone — there is no server to upload it to.
Does tracing the reference mean I never learn to draw?
No, and it is worth being honest about the trade. The freehand and grid methods build the observational skill every commission artist needs, and nothing replaces that practice. AR tracing is a production accelerator for paid client work, not a substitute for drawing ability — it locks the proportion so a confident artist can finish more pieces to deadline. Many working painters build skill freehand and reach for the trace when the clock and the client are both real. Use the free proportion grids to check yourself either way.
Which free grids help most on a commission?
Start with a proportion or head grid to verify the likeness landmarks against the client's photo, then the rule of thirds or golden ratio to seat the subject in the frame the client will hang on a wall. The proportional transfer grid squares a small reference up to a larger canvas the old-fashioned way if you prefer no device. All 82 overlays are free in the browser with no signup, and the deeper portrait technique lives on the portrait artists guide.
Is the Grid Maker Pro AR app free, and what does it cost?
The free web tool with all 82 composition grids is free forever, in any browser, with no signup. The AR app is the separate paid product that anchors a reference over your real paper or canvas and lets you trace at scale — the thing a browser cannot do. Its free tier gives you three AR traces of your own photo each month plus all 82 overlays, so you can test it on a real commission before paying. Unlimited AR is $29.99 a year, $6.99 a month, or $79 once for lifetime access. It runs on Android via Google Play, with iOS planned, and starts with no account.
References
- Alberti, Leon Battista. On Painting (Della Pittura, 1435). Penguin Classics (1991). ISBN 978-0-14-043331-3. The velo — the gridded veil for transferring a design up accurately, the ancestor of every commission transfer method.
- Loomis, Andrew. Drawing the Head and Hands. Viking Press (1956). The standard construction reference behind portrait likeness — the head as a solid form, not a copied outline.
- Hale, Robert Beverly. Drawing Lessons from the Great Masters. Watson-Guptill (1964). ISBN 0-8230-1401-5. On measured, landmark-based drawing from observation.
- Bouleau, Charles. The Painter’s Secret Geometry. Harcourt, Brace & World (1963). The canonical study of compositional armatures and proportion in painting — the framing a commission is seated in.
Take on more commissions without missing the date.
Frame the piece for free in the browser with all 82 overlays, then anchor the client's own photo to your paper or canvas with the AR app and trace the likeness at scale. No grid to rule, no upload — the reference stays on your device.