QUESTIONS & ANSWERS About Time: Q. How long does it take to do a drawing from a photo? A. It usually takes me about a month but I can do it quicker if there is a need. Q. How long does it take to do a baby portrait from life? A. It usually takes an hour or two from when I start until I hand you the finished baby portrait. Q. How long will a charcoal baby portrait last? A. The portrait should last for 100s of years. But it will be important to frame it with acid-free materials. Many craft stores now sell pre-cut mat boards that are acid-free. Your finished drawing will also have more information with instructions on the back as to how to frame the charcoal portrait, etc. About the Actual Drawing: Q. Can you put the baby’s name and birth date on the drawing? A. I will not put the baby’s name on the drawing because my handwriting is not that great. But some people have a professional calligrapher write the baby’s name and birth date on the mat when they have the drawing framed. As for the birth date--I don’t mind writing D.O.B. 9-24-2009 (or whatever the date may be) in small print in the area where I sign my name and put the current date. Q. Is your work copyrighted? A. Yes it is. But I will give you permission to make prints of your charcoal baby portrait for family and friends—as long as the prints are for personal use and not for-profit. Q. If the baby portrait is in charcoal, won’t we have to worry about it smearing? And how will it be protected until we get it framed? A. You will not need to worry about your portrait smearing because I spray a fixative over it that prevents it from smearing. Once that process is done, I place it (along with instructions as to how to take care of the charcoal portrait) in a plastic bag to protect it. At that point it should be safe until you get it framed. Drawing in the Hospital: Q. If you come to the hospital to draw my baby how long will the process take? A. I usually spend about 30 to 45 minutes in the room trying to capture the baby’s image. Then I take another 30 minutes in a quiet place outside of your room to finish the drawing. Finally, I’ll take it outside to spray it so it won’t smear. Once those steps are done I put it into a plastic bag to protect it and bring it back to your room so that you’ll have it that very same day. Q. How much of a hassle will it be for us to have you come in and draw our newborn at the hospital? We are expecting it to be a pretty crazy time and we don’t know if we can handle an artist too! A. Usually I don’t need the parent’s help when I’m working on a portrait. I like to do the drawing while the baby is asleep in the bassinet on my left side. In this way I can have one hand on the baby to comfort it if I need to, and the other hand will be free to draw. It is not uncommon for the parents to be fast asleep by the time I’m finished with the baby. But if the baby is hungry and fussy, the mom may have to feed the baby before I can finish the drawing. In those cases, I always bring something else to do to occupy my time if I have to wait. In other words--there is honestly no way of knowing how it will go. Portraits of Twins or a Multiple Birth: Q. What if we have twins, or even more babies? Is there any discount? A. I charge full price for the first baby, and will give a 20% discount for each baby after that. In other words, the biggest discount on any one baby will be 20%. Q. Can you draw all of the babies on one piece of paper? A. I can if the main photo we use has all of the babies in it--exactly the way you want them. I can’t pull together a drawing using a twin from one photo, and then the other twin from another photo—just because it would be too hard to get the sizes right in relation to one another. Q. Is it a good idea to do the portraits of all the babies on the same sheet of paper? A. I personally think that they should be drawn separately so that some day each individual can have their own drawing. Family Issues: Q. What if I have other children, won’t they be jealous if the new baby has a charcoal portrait and they don’t? A. That is a hard question. On one hand, some parents like to treat each child as a unique individual and are content having a charcoal portrait of one, and something that is special in another way for the other child or children. But on the other hand, many parents want to establish the same family tradition for all of the children. In those cases I often do charcoal baby portraits of the older siblings from newborn photos that the parents send me. Q. What if we get divorced—how can we possibly divide up the baby portraits? A. Unfortunately this question does come up. I can indeed make a new drawing for you as long as I can see the original or have a good print of the original to work from. I don’t enjoy the process of copying another drawing but they do turn out well. Also, I can make a beautiful print for you if by chance I have kept an original photo, or scan of the drawing(s) in question. Future Contact Information: Q. What if I have more babies in the future—are you likely to still be in business at that point? A. I am committed to continuing drawing newborns as long as I can. I don’t intend to move or go into another business outside of art. Drawing babies is a form of relaxation for me and I can’t see quitting. Even if I did go in another direction with my art, I’ll always enjoy the process of drawing newborns. In fact, I’ve already stayed with it for 20 years and am starting to draw a second generation of babies. Q. What if I lose your business card over the years and don’t know how to find you when my other babies arrive? A. You’ll always be able to google my name, Edie Cohn, and find my website or whatever projects I am currently working on. Also, I think it is very, very unlikely that I will ever move from Durham, NC. Technical Questions: Q. How do I send photos to you using my email account? A. I’m not a real ‘techie’ person, but I can tell you how I do it. My first method is by sending it as an attachment. My second method is: save the photo onto your desktop and then drag the file (icon) on to the text part of your opened email letter. Once it pops up in your letter it will be ready to send. If you have any trouble doing either of these processes just let me know and I’ll be glad to help you further. If you scan the photo, it should be saved in a ‘jpeg’ format and have a dpi of any where from 75 dpi to about 200dpi. It doesn’t matter if the photos are in color or black and white. My email address is available in the ‘contact me’ section.