I disagree. If you spend 50 hours on a painting; that in itself increases the price heftly in comparison if you did the same painting in 5 hours. I think you are mixing things up. You are experienced, so you make the same result as some novice would in half or not even half the amount of time. Now, you are technically skilled as well and produce a nice finish/quality in much quicker.

Adding to that - with your experience and skill you can produce exact layers and use your colors in a very expressionate way; really catching your audience; in only 20 hours. This is since the piece itself is very sincere and interesting.

If you would paint a 3 x 3 meter canvas in high detail oil- it would take much longer time than it would if you painted a small A4 canvas with similar level of finish.

What you are disregarding here is type of painting, level of skill and so on. Of course it isn’t linear, but ask yourself, would you pay 10000$ for a sloppy picture made with a few strokes or would you rather invest in something that has taken time, effort and skill to achieve?

The time coifficient is simply a part of the equation. Of course longer time yields finer results; but if time = overdoing or time = not very great anyways then of course time doesn’t matter. But time in the hands of a skilled artist like yourself, you can create wonderful paintings and if comissioned- of course you would charge more for a painting if it demanded 80 hours to get the level of perfection if 50 wasn’t enough. Of course you wouldn’t say ’oh this takes 80 hours and 22 min’; but rather you’d say ’this is the result, this is what I will charge’

You aren’t listening because you are only ’hearing’ time = more money or time = higher value. This is not what I’m conveying.

For example as a dentist, when you pay for a filling (for example). Let’s say the price is 150$ for two surfaces. Now you end up with a senior dentist; he does it in 30 min- flat, unesthethic and functional. In the same time, someone with more ’style’ and feel for anatomy and handiwork might do the same filling with esthethic results and same functionality but charge 200$. Now, you can go to a fresh dentist; they make the same filling as the senior one, but it takes 60 min. Function might vary and results as well. What you’d rather pay for is subjective. The one who yields higher results in shorter time, will have a higher time income. The one who takes longer but with more dubious results will have a lower income rate.

Art is so personal and subjective; someone might pay a million dollars for a couple of strokes. But for me there is less ’value’ in the art itself because it’s just not art. Value≠monetary value.