Welcome, lovely humans, to The Painted Presence Project, where I plan to paint in silence for ten minutes a day for thirty days on the same 11 x 15 inch piece of watercolour paper. While this studio diary will only include images, there are full length videos available on Patreon! 

Day Two

Today, I came to the page anxious about some interpersonal stuff (kids, amirite?) and a desire to drop all that off my shoulders, even if only for ten minutes.

I couldn’t feel the “next impulse” I usually count on to get me started, so I defaulted to gold paint. If you know me at all, when I reach for gold, what I’m really reaching for is some sense of the divine. It shows up *a lot* in my paintings because I am, at heart, a devotional painter. Witchy, yes, but also attuned to the great all there is.

I’m glad I reached for that bottle because that was all I needed to get me moving across the page.

Marks made in shimmering gold, I moved on to splish splashing on some acrylic ink in a muted grey that looks like aubergine to me, and muted violet that looks like pomegranate juice. A little white ink finished us off.

I noticed when I was done that I was hesitant to leave it as it was. There were some “this is really messy” thoughts underneath the urge to keep going, though, so when I blew out the candle, I sent up a prayer to the Invisibles that they’d look after it for me. “Bless this mess.”

Art mirrors life, my loves.

Bless *this* mess.

See you tomorrow.
xo Effy

P.S. By *this*, I mean *me*, in case that wasn’t clear. 😉

Here’s A Gallery of DAY ONE Painting Sessions by my participants on Discord.

P.S. Again:

Folks who are in my classes over on Into The Wild (my teaching network) or Patreon are getting video content every day throughout the course of this challenge. Folks who are subscribed to my YouTube channel will be getting video updates weekly or so. There may be stuff going up on TikTok. There will definitely be posts going up on Instagram. 

Of course, this spot right here will ALSO serve as my studio diary, so I hope you’ll bookmark the site, and hey! EVEN BETTER! I hope you’ll sign up for the e-list, which I’ll use to let you know when a new post goes live. If you want the project PDF, here you go!

If you are up for a challenge and you want to join me, I’ve got you, fam! Here’s the project PDF which contains everything you need to know to join in.