Welcome, lovely humans, to The Painted Presence Project, where I plan to paint in silence for ten minutes a day for thirty days, all 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!
It’s SATURDAY so I got a slow start today, but I knew, as soon as I looked at what I had before me, that it was time for a figure, but before I could do that, I wanted to push all of the (gorgeous) chaos back before I put her in there.
I started with Quinacridone Nikel Azo Gold fluid acrylic, which I used as a glaze. The way that looked over the white paint made me ridiculously happy, but I wanted to push back even more so I grabbed the Iridescent Fine Gold fluid acrylic and brayered that on.
At this pointed, I wanted to lick it. OM NOM NOM. Right? What is it about Iridescent Fine Gold that has me so thoroughly obsessed??
I used a Stabilo All pencil to sketch in the figure, and as soon as she put her arm out the way she did, I knew a bird had to happen.
These are common focal images in my paintings, and I welcomed them. It was almost as though an old friend showed up to reassure me that this was going somewhere, not to worry, and that I could relax.
She may stay. She may go. I’m open to either outcome, and I think that’s important because there are 22 more days left in this project, and getting attached to any one thing is not going to get me anywhere I want to be.
I think of this as a portal. I’m not in charge of what comes through. I’m not in charge of what takes its leave. I just *work* here.
How about you? How’s your process going? What are you doing when you feel resistance? What are you doing when you’re in the flow and that timer goes off and you want to toss your phone out the window and keep painting?
I hope you have a glorious weekend.
See you tomorrow.
xo Effy
P.S. 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!