In today’s story, a friend who is an artist agrees to paint a painting of her friend’s dad, but it takes her years to complete the painting.

Now, her friend doesn’t want to pay her for the painting, because it’s far more expensive than she’d imagined or can afford.

Let’s see how the story unfolds…

AITA for not paying for a painting I asked my friend to do?

My (27f) friend, Jordan, (28f) is a wonderful artist.

I love her work, so I told her that if she ever considered doing commission pieces, I wanted to be her first customer.

She said okay and I sent her a picture of my dad who passed away as a reference.

I wanted to give this painting to my mom as a gift. This was back in early 2018.

Jordan said she would start on it when she could, but that she was busy.

I just thought she did not want to do any commission work yet and just left it at that.

She assumed the painting would cost about $200.

A few weeks after our conversation, Jordan posted on social media saying that she was open to do commission pieces and posted how she would charge for those pieces.

I messaged her again and she said that she got my order and was starting the piece for me.

Per her post, I assumed the piece would be around $200.

She also said she was charging her clients around that much, so i should expect to pay about the same.

She said she didn’t want me to pay until after she was done, so I didn’t.

Six years later, she still hadn’t finished the painting.

For the last 6 years, she would post the other commission pieces she had done.

When i asked about mine, she would say she’s working on it but that she hasn’t had the time to finish it.

She often lost her job, was looking for a new place to stay, etc. I understood that times could be hard so I waited.

The reason I didn’t just stop asking her was because she would sometimes send me snapchats of “sneak peaks” of the painting so I knew she was working on it little by little.

Jordan finally finished the painting, but it cost a lot more than she expected.

Well, flash forward to last weekend, she finally gave it to me.

It is a beautiful painting of my dad and I cried looking at it.

She then told me it was $700.

I was not prepared to pay that much.

She can’t afford the painting, but Jordan is sticking to her price.

I told her that when she started doing commissions, she was charging her clients $200-$300.

She responded saying that she realized her work was worth more, and also the cost of supplies had gone up since then, plus the amount of time spent working on it.

I thought it was unfair to charge me so much given I waited years for this painting.

Also within the last 6 years, I had gotten married, bought a house, and have two young children.

I do not just have $700 to spare on this painting.

She told me that it isn’t her fault that I can’t afford it and refused to give it to me until I could pay her.

I told her to just keep it since I didn’t have the money for it.

She called me a jerk for wasting her time on this and left. AITA?

I think Jordan should stick to her original price of around $200 since that’s what she told her friend the painting would cost.

Let’s see how Reddit responded…

This reader thinks Jordan is the one who is in the wrong.

Another reader thinks Jordan should’ve told her ahead of time about the price increase.

This reader agrees that Jordan shouldn’t have changed the price on her without warning.

According to this reader, a professional artist wouldn’t do what Jordan did.

This reader agrees that Jordan is the one to blame.

I can’t imagine waiting six years for a painting!

If anything she should lower the price for the inconvenience.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.