What does income affect in Aspiring Artist?

In Aspiring Artist (Kongregate link) there's mention of "income", but I don't know what it does.

Question: What does income affect in Aspiring Artist?

I think I've worked it out. This area shows how much money you have:

Money comes in underlying units of 1 white circle. Here, 1 red circle is worth 100 white circles, 1 green circle is worth 100 red circles, and so on. Thus the above is the same as saying I have:

123577920777153.1

units of money. The color scheme used to denote money has no significance; it could be any other set of colors without affecting the game. In this case, the color scheme is chosen to match the dye-creating rectangles (see below).

So when it says

I'm earning 94.33 worth of brown circles per second, or equivalently

943300000000

units of money per second (after rounding).

Income is increased by having paintings (both the current incomplete painting, and previously drawn ones). Paintings are drawn using dye. And dye is created by these ticking rectangles:

Despite the matching colors used to indicate money, these do not generate money directly, but they instead create dye: the dye is used to generate paintings, and the paintings generate income.