Struggle With Time

What is Time?

Is this a question for a physicist or a philosopher? I'm not sure. I'm not even sure if time is relative or not, but sometimes it sure feels like it is. Recent experiences certainly seem to prove that time is relative. The recent quarantine or stay at home orders have had most people feeling like time moved by much slower than usual. Did you have the sensation early in the quarantine timeline that two weeks seemed like four weeks?

Have you ever wondered if time is only a modern construct? Prior to the onset of mass productions, time was even more relative than it is now. People didn't set appointments by time but by day. They arranged to meet on a certain day, but not at noon on July 5th. The time of year was much more important than the time of the day. With factories and mass production beginning, people needed to be at their shift at a certain time, whereas farmers needed only start their day at sunrise and end at sunset. Is time only a fairly recent construct?

Regardless of the seconds and minutes were being marked before the invention then widespread use of the clock, time still moved regularly with the changing of the seasons. The day is divided up into smaller units just as the year is divided up into smaller units. As a society we now measure time. 

One Thing You Can't Get Back is Time

You can make more money, replenish your pantry, build a new house, get a new job, paint a new painting, etc, but you can never get time back. Time is always marching forward, whether we are good stewards of it or not, whether we like it or not. In many cases, time is the most valuable commodity that we have available to us. We can't make more of it and we can't get back what we've lost. We have to be good stewards of time each and every day.

Artists Need Time

One thing Artists need is time, more importantly, time at drawing and painting. A painter needs to create a lot of paintings to really learn how to paint. Then he or she needs to spend even more time perfecting his or her craft to become a really good artist. A big part of it is time at the easel, but not all of it.

To become a master, an artist needs to spend time not only practicing but also be a life long learner. Practice, life long learning, and more and more practice. Why is this so important?

Art is a Bit Like Chess

You can learn the basics of painting in a short time, but it takes a lifetime to master the intricacies of creating great pieces of art. This is the same thing often said about chess; however, one could learn to master chess before they could learn to master painting. 

Everything boils down to time, doesn't it?

I have been working against time as soon as I started to learn to paint. I only began to apply myself to learning to paint in five or so years ago. Mind you this was after completing medical school, residency, many years of working as a physician. Many people start to learn to paint much earlier in life. With a full-time job and starting later in life than most, I've been behind the eight ball. I have had to work harder at time management than most artists. 

I essentially work a full-time job as a psychiatrist and a part-time job as an artist. How many people can say they hold down a full-time and a part-time job at the same time? It takes this much commitment to overcome the time handicap. While it appears on the outside that it has been difficult to work on both my regular job and my art, but I don't even think of my art as work. I love every minute I spend in my studio or even writing this posts for this blog.

Time certainly makes for a worthy adversary, but I'm up for the challenge! 

Pandemic Changes

COVID-19 CHANGES THE WORLD

Who knew the changes that 2020 would bring to the entire world? When was the last time the entire world was affected by something this large? This simple viral protein has dramatically altered the entire globe in ways we couldn't have predicted. These changes happened so rapidly that many of us are still reeling. Our everyday lives have also changed. Many of us are working from home instead of going into work or home schooling our children. It's no exaggeration to say many of our lives have been upended.

People have been trying to cope as best as they can. It has been challenging to find new ways to cope when many of our coping skills may have been taken from us: visiting with friends and family, going to the gym, traveling, going to concerts or festivals, etc. Many of us have had plans which we've had to change or cancel. We've all certainly had to adapt to many changes recently.

FLEXIBILITY IS THE KEY

Being flexible and willing to make changes is key to surviving and even thriving in these challenging times. This is as true for artists as for others. Many artists have adapted readily to these circumstances. Being flexible is so important to managing the stress of change. 

Like other artists, I've cut out travel to paint. This is a beautiful time to paint the Ozarks, but I've decided it's best to stay home at this time. I've even had concerns about visiting the local park to paint because I thought many other people would be at the park. Prior to this time of social distancing, I enjoyed people coming up to talk or look at my painting. I'm concerned that people's curiosity will be greater than their social distancing. Since I have an elderly relative living with me, I feel that I need to think about her more than my desires. 

MANY CHANGES

While many things have changed, the inside of my house has remained much the same. I'm sure many of you have noticed that as well. It's oddly disconcerting that our walls still look exactly the same as they did last week. Rather than alternating on working on plein air or landscape paintings with still life paintings, I've been exclusively working on still life works. In this setting of isolating for the good of others (my elderly relative, my neighbors, and my community), I needed a change in something.

I don't know if it was the incoming storm, boredom, or completing still life after still life, but I decided to change up my palette. I had been using a relatively low chroma palette of seven colors plus white and switched to a high chroma palette of three colors plus white. The Pandemic Tornado painting ended up being the first painting with this palette. I really liked the palette and kept it for the next painting and then the next. So far it is sticking with me. 

TELLING THE STORY

One of the jobs of artists is to tell the story of our lives. This pandemic is the biggest story of our lives. This is bigger than anything else we've faced and, hopefully, ever will face. One of the interesting parts of pandemic is that so many people hoarded toilet paper at the outset that there was a shortage of toilet paper. I think many people have wondered what toilet paper has to do with a viral respiratory illness. 

I find this interesting twist in this pandemic is one of the more interesting parts. This is why I wanted to capture this moment in a painting. Homemade hand sanitizer and toilet paper, now a hot commodity. This painting not only told the story of a pandemic, it was also interrupted by an EF-3 tornado in Jonesboro. I went downstairs to our safe room with our dogs for the duration of the danger. Initially it was like most tornado watches/warnings, as you can see below, but as the meteorologists covering the storm became more and more concerned and told everyone in the path of the storm to seek shelter, it got serious. The storm had produced a tornado prior to Jonesboro and another tornado was produced a short mile or two past our house. 

How do you tell the story of the tornado interrupting the pandemic still life? I'm not sure, but one of my facebook followers suggested adding a tornado in the background. The more I think about it, the better it sounds. How else do you tell the story of putting a pillow over your head while kneeling on the floor hoping the storm passes over without dropping a tornado? I can't think of a better way. I may put this back on the easel to add a subtle tornado in the background. 

POSITIVE CHANGE

Many times when we are faced with change in our lives, even upheaval, we find some part of the change helpful. May be we are all washing our hands more, this can't be a bad thing. May be shaking hands will not be a custom we continue to practice going forward which may cut down on the rate of infection from the flu by 50% going forward. One positive change I've seen is in my painting palette. Spontaneously I decided to change it, and I really love the change. What I thought would be for a painting or two (at most), is looking more and more like my permanent palette every day. 

What positive changes are you seeing in your life as a result of the pandemic? What positive changes would you like to see going forward? 

Advantages to Using Lead in Painting

Longevity

One of the fascinating things about an oil painting is that it has the potential to last centuries if created using techniques and materials which tradition (and more importantly science has confirmed) have proven to be the most durable. Note that an oil painting has that potential, but is not guaranteed. Many things can go wrong in the creation of a piece of art that would interfere with it's longevity. 

Linseed oil is not the ideal binder. If one could create an ideal binder, it would be a bit more flexible than linseed oil and less apt to crack. Of all the binders we have available to us, linseed oil is the best choice. It is what most pigments are ground with.

Longevity is important in works of art for a couple of reasons. First, if we only created art for the person buying the art (i.e. not for future generations), then longevity wouldn't matter. Second, though Van Gogh only sold one of his paintings during his lifetime, his work was ahead of its time and they now hang in museums around the world. Because he did not paint with materials which interfered with the longevity of his work, we can now experience his work. We can admire his vision of the world and see the world differently. 

After viewing his Starry Night, didn't you gaze heavenward and look upon the stars differently? After seeing his way of painting sunflowers, didn't you look at sunflowers in a new way? I know have on both accounts and feel that I'm a better person for having been changed by Van Gogh's painting and his vision. If art was only created for the buyer, then this experience and many like it would never  be possible. 

Flexible yet Tough Film

Paint films created with linseed oil do become brittle with time and may be more likely to crack with age. Linseed is not the perfect binder, but it is the best that we currently have. The pigments can affect the properties of the binder. For instance, some pigments, such as alizarin crimson are slow driers and dry much slower than other pigments. Burnt umber pigment dries very quickly. Lead white also affects properties of the paint film, but in a different way

Lead carbonate, the most common form of lead used in lead white paints today, contributes ions and creates connections within the paint film, making it stronger and more flexible. These connections not only extend to that paint film, but if the painting was created in layers, it also extends to the other surrounding layers as well. No other pigment does this to the oil binder. 

These connections created by the donation of electrons by lead creates strong and flexible bonds at the molecular level. This helps to reduce the brittleness of linseed oil and creates a more stable paint film. It is as if lead white is the yin to linseed's yang.

Made to Last Centuries

Painting with lead white will not guarantee that a piece of work will last centuries, but it certainly increases the likelihood significantly. Painting on a rigid surface, such as a panel, also helps. Avoiding problematic pigments such as alizarin crimson (which is considered fugitive or fades in 100 years or less in most cases) or zinc white (which can cause delamination). To read more about the problems with zinc white, click here. 

Using lead white is one of the many steps I take to try to create a painting with at least a reasonable chance of surviving centuries. When you acquire a piece of art, you are not just acquiring it for yourself, but also for future generations. Some people use it as an investment, while others use it to leave a legacy to a museum. Some people simply want their lives and their heir's lives to be enriched by owning a piece of fine art in their own home. What ever your reason for acquiring art, I know it is not just for you, but also for others, and that is why I take the steps I do towards creating beautiful and sound works of art. 

References

Traditional Oil Painting: Advanced Techniques and Concepts from the Renaissance to the Present, Virgil Elliott, Echo Point Books and Media, 2019.

If you enjoyed this article, consider signing up for my monthly newsletter. You will receive one or two emails per month with links to articles like this one. You will also receive updates on upcoming events, behind-the-scenes look into my paintings, and first look at my newest paintings. I almost forgot...You also receive a 15% discount on my newest paintings.

Maslow, Art, and Psychology

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

This is commonly taught in psychology 101 courses in high school and college. Abraham Maslow ranked human's needs in order of importance or order of need. He organized human needs into a triangle with the most basic of needs at the bottom (such as food, shelter, and clothing) and the ultimate goal or motivation for humans being self-actualization. Self-actualization means that the person is realizing or working towards realizing all their potentialities as humans. Maslow's theory  helps to define our motivations on a basic level, but in the simplicity, is a deeper understanding of human motivation. We are all searching, seeking for the same thing: to expand our horizons and to grow as humans to reach our full potential. Some people are still working on the basics such as clothing or food, while others are working on acceptance or confidence. The most advanced of persons are working on the final step, realizing their full potential as a human.

One might ask at this juncture, why I'm discussing a social psychology theory of human motivation on a blog about art? Or you may wonder how does art help with human growth? While it does not help with meeting basic needs such as shelter or more advanced needs such as confidence or self-esteem, it does play a part in self-actualization.

Art as a Trans-formative Influence

Art, fine art, is enlightening and inspiring to our souls. Creating and appreciating art is one of the things that separates humans from other primates and mammals. Fine art demonstrates what humans are capable of doing, creating and thus inspires the viewer on towards greater things themselves. It can be a motivating factor to our further growth as humans and individuals.

From Maslow's theory, we already have that motivation inherent in our beings, but with our hectic schedules, sometimes we learn to shut that drive off. We have kids to feed, bills to pay, friends to connect with, still need to sleep sometime, then wake up to do it all over again. This need for self-actualization sometimes gets put off to the back burner, then forgotten. Appreciating any type of fine art, whether at a concert, a play, or a museum, can re-ignite the passion for personal growth. Certainly having an original piece of art in your home, that you can see and be inspired from daily is a distinct advantage. I've found it is best to experience the art in person. The music seems alive and much sweeter when heard in person than from a recording. Being present in an auditorium, watching a live play is so much more fulfilling than watching a movie, distanced by time and space.

Original Art Work Versus Prints

For some works of art, such as the Mona Lisa, or Rembrandt's The Night Watchmen, having a print is the only way to hang the painting in your home. I have a print of my favorite painting, Las Meninas by Diego Velazquez. Seeing these paintings in person eclipses the print. So much detail in the artist's expression is lost in the photograph. I love viewing a Sargent's painting, both from afar and up close. His brush work is so beautiful up close, but so loose and descriptive farther away. You miss most of the awe in this quality when looking at a print. While few people could own even a Sargent painting, many people can afford paintings by current artists who are creating art now. If possible, having the original piece of art is always preferable, but when it is not possible, such as Madame X by John Singer Sargent, then a print is the only option. 

Art and Self Actualization

Original creations of fine art pieces well executed and available to be viewed in person every day in your own home is a treasure indeed. Gazing upon an original art piece can be transformative. It is inspiring as well as stimulating. Fine art has the capability to stimulate what is the best and truest inside each of us. It raises our consciousness, improves our ability to see and appreciate the world around us, and ignites the noblest and best parts of ourselves. This inspiration helps to propel us towards our own self actualization. 

Find a piece of art you love that you can afford and make arrangements to own it. You will not regret this investment in beautification of your home as well as stimulating your inner drive towards self-actualization.

If you enjoyed this article, consider signing up for my monthly newsletter. You will receive one or two emails per month with links to articles like this one. You will also receive updates on upcoming events, behind-the-scenes look into my paintings, and first look at my newest paintings. I almost forgot...You also receive a 15% discount on my newest paintings.

Why I Avoid Zinc in my Paintings

Art as an Investment or Heirloom

Whether you are investing in art for you, for future generations, as a family heirloom, or as a legacy gift to a museum/alma mater, the longevity of that art work should be important to you. If you were going to invest in a stock, you would research to find out the history of the painting, who was leading the company, expected growths, etc. You would do your due diligence before purchasing a share of the stock. Art is no different.

While you want to make sure that the art is of high quality, you also want to make sure that the art was created on solid supports and of sound materials. What people seem to have forgotten about art, is that it is definitely a marathon and not a sprint. It's about if the painting will stand the test of time. Will conservators be able to maintain it over time?

Zinc as a Siren

When zinc was introduced on the market, it was shortly after titanium white, an opaque white pigment. It was billed as safer than lead, the traditional but toxic white pigment, and more translucent than the recently developed opaque titanium white. It could make soft, delicate tints of translucent color for lighter passages. Artists began to use it and soon it became used throughout the art world. Manufacturers began to add a bit of zinc to titanium and then to other pigments to make specialty colors such as kings blue. They also sold it as pure zinc white. It was ubiquitous in the art market. Even now, it can be challenging to find an oil primed ground without zinc or titanium white without small amounts of added zinc. 

Problems Began

Around the turn of the twenty-first century, art conservators began to notice some issues with oil paintings completed in the early twentieth century. More cracking and some delamination problems were noted. The conservators didn't have an explanation for this, only that some oil paintings of less than one hundred years old (young in terms of an oil painting), were aging faster or developing problems normally seen in paintings three to five hundred years old. 

The sentinel article by Mecklenburg and Tumosa demonstrate the potential risk to the longevity of the paint film when zinc is added to the paint mixture. They did not find a safe amount zinc in a paint film. Every paint film with any amount of zinc in it was found to become quite brittle in as little as 3 years. This makes it easier for the paint film to crack. It also showed that paint films with zinc in the mixture separated or delaminated. Delamination is a far more serious problem than cracking. We know that paint films crack over time, but it is uncommon to see paintings peel, separate or delaminate. This is a potentially destructive process. 

While I don't want this article to be a technical discussion about ions, pigments, and chemistry, I do want to be transparent about the research and where I'm getting the knowledge. If you want to learn more about the harmful effects zinc has on paintings, please read more here. Please see also the references list at the bottom of this article. 

The Choice

I research the panels that I use and use the best materials that I can find. Early on before learning about the harmful effects of zinc, I did use zinc and use oil primed linen panels (which used small to unknown amounts of zinc along with titanium white). Currently, I primarily use Natural Pigments Artefex lead white-oil primed smooth ACM panels. These cost almost twice as much as the next best competitor (zinc free oil primed panels) and five times as much as an oil primed linen panel (which uses both titanium and zinc pigments in the oil ground). 

You have chosen to invest in something you hope to have as a family heirloom or to leave as a legacy gift. You cannot do this if the painting will crack, crumble, or fall apart in a hundred years or so. I make this investment in materials for you and whatever you choose to do with your art acquisition.

If you enjoyed this article, consider signing up for my monthly newsletter. You will receive one or two emails per month with links to articles like this one. You will also receive updates on upcoming events, behind-the-scenes look into my paintings, and first look at my newest paintings. I almost forgot...You also receive a 15% discount on my newest paintings.

References:

https://www.naturalpigments.com/artist-materials/zinc-white-oil-paint-color/

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/mrs-online-proceedings-library-archive/article/deterioration-in-abstract-expressionist-paintings-analysis-of-zinc-oxide-paint-layers-in-works-from-the-collection-of-the-hirshhorn-museum-and-sculpture-garden-smithsonian-

institution/86E7882FF045EF63B3E5C71A8077F818

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/bac.2013.34.1.002

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-10100-2_11

Traditional Oil Painting: Advanced Techniques and Concepts from the Renaissance to the Present, 2019. Virgil Elliott.

LAND'S END, THE FINISHED PAINTING

Posted originally on 5/28/2019 10:04:43 PM by Cori Dyson, MD 
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Seeing PACE as a Workshop

Currently I see PACE (Plein Air Convention and Expo) as more of a workshop to learn new techniques, new ways of seeing, or new ways of getting paint on the canvas. Part of that learning is coming home and finishing the painting you started on site at home. This is like doing homework when you were in school. The teacher taught something new, such as long division. You didn't really master that until you went home and practiced and practiced it. This is why it's important to finish the paintings you start while at a workshop, or in my case, PACE. 

Land's End

This painting is one of those examples. I started it on site, and learned a great deal from starting it there. I started with a good value structure, good composition, and good idea. I wasn't able to finish it during the time I had. Part of that is I'm still working on speed and part of that was the cold did begin to get to me. My fingers were barely able to move by the time I was putting everything away. 

Taking what I had learned on location and in the demos/lectures, I needed to come back home and do my "homework", or finish the paintings. I'm so glad I finished this painting. In every painting, you learn something. This one taught me many lessons, and I'm so grateful to this painting for the many lessons. 

Learning

In order to really become a master of any craft, you need to learn from some of the best in that field. In psychiatry, that means reading journal articles, attending conferences, reading textbooks, etc. In art, that means examining the artwork of masters who had painted something similar to see how they tackled the problem or subject. In this case. the exact subject. 

Here is a painting by Bierstadt, one of the early Plein Air Painters of the Americas. He painted Land's End as well. His work is definitely the work of a master!

I love looking at his water! It is telling a story in and of itself. Also, the light on the water seems to glow from within. I love it! This is most likely a studio painting painted from one or more plein air studies, and memory. It is certainly gorgeous. 

Thanks for tuning in. Hope you enjoyed my painting as well as seeing how a master artist tackled the same scene. What would you like to read about in future article? Please let me know in the comment section below or send me an email. 

If you enjoyed this article, consider signing up for my monthly newsletter. You will receive one or two emails per month with links to articles like this one. You will also receive a free print of one of my paintings. Oh, and you receive updates on upcoming events, behind-the-scenes look into my paintings, and first look at my newest paintings. I almost forgot...You also receive a 10% discount on any of my original paintings.

Varnishing Paintings

Why Varnish a Painting

Historically, when most households were heated by wood burning, then coal burning, stoves, it was imperative to varnish the paintings to keep the soot from staining the paintings. Some people think that since we no longer need to burn fires in our homes for heat, that varnishing is not really necessary. Varnish is protective to the painting in many ways.

The first way is a simple physical protectant to the delicate painting. A good coat of varnish will physically protect the painting from dirt, dust,  and abrasion (scratches or gouges). It is easier to wipe dust from a painting which has been varnished, than an unvarnished painting. Dirt or other contaminants can embed into the painting, thereby making removal next to impossible.

The next way a varnish can protect a painting is through ultraviolet filters. Ultraviolet light damages the pigments and sometimes the binder of the paint film. Not all varnishes have this added, but those that do convey some protection from harmful ultraviolet rays to paintings. All pigments used in paints are rated according to their lightfastness. I use pigments rated I or II (which are generally considered lightfast in all to most conditions). Some artists still use alizarin crimson, which even with ultraviolet filters and museum lighting, will fade in about a century or so. 

Varnish also protects the painting from a chemical process of oxidation. Oxidation is a chemical process where the compound combines with oxygen and becomes transformed. Iron turns to rust through oxidation and linseed and walnut oil 'dries' via oxidation. The oxygen causes the linseed oil to form rigid bonds between molecules and slowly hardens over times. Too much oxidation can be bad as well. In time (decades to centuries) oil paintings left exposed to oxygen will continue past stable bonds and the molecular bonds begin to degrade.

Especially when paintings are on rigid surfaces, varnishes may add a stabilizing external framework to the painting. This helps to prevent cracking. On stretched canvas, it may contribute to cracking of the painting as the varnish ages and becomes more brittle and rigid. 

Some pigments are hygroscopic (the ability of a chemical compound to absorb or adsorb water). Depending on the humidity, these pigments can swell and shrink. These micro-changes to the paint film can, in time, cause cracks. If a painting is on a rigid surface, such as a panel, and a good varnish is applied, this may mitigate all or most of these effects. I have eliminated all umbers from my palette and am making the switch from yellow ochre to synthetic iron oxides for this reason. 

Another important reason to varnish, is pure aesthetics. Varnish brings back to life the colors, especially darker, richer colors, to life. It makes the painting look freshly painting again. After a painting dries, er oxidizes, some passages may look dull. Artists call this "sinking in". Some pigments cause this to happen more often than others, such as umbers. Once of the many reasons, I've removed all umbers from my palette. Even thought I'm no longer using umbers, some of my darker patches still look rather lifeless, until I varnish them. Then they come to life and sing again. I love varnishing my paintings as a result!

Best Time to Varnish

According to conservators and the author of Traditional Oil Painting, Virgil Elliott, the best time to varnish is between six and twelve months. This can be a long time to wait to see a painting come back to life. Since oxygen is necessary for the painting to oxidize or cure and varnishes block oxygen from the paint film, then varnishing early will impede the curing of the paint. When a painting is varnished too early, the varnish adheres to the top parts of the paint film. You may not think this is a problem. Varnish will yellow in time (hundred  to two hundred years or so) and will need to removed and replaced with a fresh coat of varnish. Conservators try to remove only the varnish, but sometimes, inadvertently, top layers of paint are also removed. When varnishing, you need to take this into account. By waiting to varnish, you allow the painting to cure and make it less likely that the varnish will adhere to the paint film. This minimizes the chances that part of the painting will be removed with the old varnish.

Best Varnish to Use

As I've been learning to paint, I've also been learning the technical aspects of painting as well. It has been a steep learning curve and as much as I've learned, I still feel very much the student. I will share a bit of what I've learned and how I've applied it to my paintings. One interesting fact that I didn't know, and doesn't seem to be common knowledge, is that varnishes have a relatively short shelf-life. Once the ingredients are mixed together (resin, solvent (generally odorless mineral spirits), and ultraviolet light stabilizer) the varnish is only at it's peak of stability for about a month. Anything after that and the ultraviolet light stabilizers degrade and are no longer as effective. the UV light stabilizer significantly prolongs the life of the varnish, and thus limits the number of times the varnish will need to be removed in the lifetime of the painting. Because of this, I prefer to mix my varnish when needed, and only use the varnish for about a month after mixing.

The second criteria that I use for choosing a varnish is ease of removal even after a hundred or more years. Some resins become harder, more brittle, and more difficult to remove with time. This requires conservators to use stronger solvents to remove the varnish which will be more likely to also remove part of the paint film. I have decided to use the varnish resin Regalrez 1094 because it does not cross-link with aging and is able to removed with a relatively mild solvent (odorless mineral spirits).

The only company who makes a varnish using the synthetic hydrocarbon resin Regalrez 1094 in a kit that you mix when it is needed is Natural Pigments. The kit comes with resin, odorless mineral spirits (OMS) and a UV stabilizer. The instructions are easy to follow.

Varnishing is Included, I Even Make House Calls

Whether you purchase the painting varnished or unvarnished, varnishing is included. I believe varnish adds aesthetic value to the painting as well as protects it for future generations. If you take a painting home before it is varnished, and if you live close enough, I am happy to come to your house and varnish the painting for you. I want you to have the best value for your investment, and varnishing provides that for you. 

My Paintings are Our Legacy

You may have purchased a painting because it went with your dining room set or with your new living room set. You may have seen it as an investment potential for you or your children. You may have also wanted something unique, handmade, and original in your home. Most likely you chose my piece for your home for some combination of these reasons. Now my painting has become your painting, or has it? We now have a shared legacy through this painting. Now we are partners because we both want to see this painting's value be protected from harm.  

References

Natural Pigments article 

If you enjoyed this article, consider signing up for my monthly newsletter. You will receive one or two emails per month with links to articles like this one. You will also receive a free print of one of my paintings. Oh, and you receive updates on upcoming events, behind-the-scenes look into my paintings, and first look at my newest paintings. I almost forgot...You also receive a 10% discount on any of my original paintings. 

Originally posted at coridyson.com on 10/16/18.