Watercolor painting of a museum specimen nautilus fossil cross-section on 300 lb cold press paper. Working as a volunteer fossil preparator at an awesome natural history museum, I have learned that dinosaurs and other ancient animals have an enduring connection to us in our world today--fossils are messages from deep geologic time that talk to our present, and extend to our future in the universe. Living things have permanence through change, preserved as rock, another dimension of 'living in the present'. Watercolor is the perfect medium to capture the beauty and diversity of fossils, combining study of paleontology and exploring fossil visual imagery. Working in the paleontology lab at the museum, and also at quarry sites throughout Utah, I have collected charcoal matrix which is removed from around the bones. I mix watercolors with the ground charcoal, so that the subjects of the paintings are truly tens of millions of years old.