Artists Kim McGill Stuart and Penny Treese are selling this painting to raise funds for terminally-ill Southern Sweets owner Nancy Cole.

Two artists who once taught art classes to Southern Sweets owner Nancy Cole and her husband are selling a painting to raise funds for Cole who is terminally ill.

Cole is home on hospice care after several years of cancer treatment. A Crowdrise account was set up to help her family pay for round-the-clock nursing care.

Kim McGill Stuart and Penny Treese are auctioning off a collaborative butterfly-themed encaustic painting on eBay to go toward the fund. More on what encaustic painting is in a moment.

Stuart said in an email, “A couple of years ago Nancy Cole and her husband were brief encaustic painting art students of myself and Penny Treese. Nancy’s energy and passion for painting was memorable. Seeing this story just broke our hearts and we would like to help her quickly meet funding goal.”

Stuart herself is a cancer survivor, according to her website. She and Treese, a Decatur artist whose work is featured in galleries around the city, are both encaustic wax artists. Stuart described encaustic painting and the artwork that is up for auction in an email:

Encaustic painting, also known as hot wax painting, involves using heated beeswax to which colored pigments are added. The hot liquid is then applied to a surface prepared wood panel, though other materials are often used. For instance the piece we are auctioning is encaustic wax with a variety butterfly collages. Each butterfly is decorated with jewels and beads with their wings slightly lifted to create a shadow of flight.

Bidding on the painting goes until Tuesday, June 23.