Adorn The Flaw

by Effy Wild | Nov 20, 2025 | The Painted Presence Project

DAY TWENTY

You know those days where life hits you with an unexpected blast of social confusion, anxiety, or that awful moment when you realize you’ve made an honest, clumsy mistake?

Yeah. Me, too. I know those days INTIMATELY. *Gigglesnorts*

On those high-anxiety days, your creative practice is going to be easier to ghost. You might find yourself wanting to skip it so you can go hide under a rock somewhere, but that’s not going to help. I promise you. And expecting your creative practice to fix everything isn’t going to help either.

What it will do though is give you an opportunity to sit with whatever happened, take a few deep breaths, and let whatever it is you’re feeling flow through you. Terrifying, I know, but I’ve studied this and I practice it. If you let it arise and fully discharge it gets to *leave you*. If you suppress it, you’re stuck with it for much, much longer.

I came to the table today needing to shake off a massive dose of anxiety. Instead of fighting it, I decided to apply the antidote directly to the canvas. My intention was clear:

Adorn The Flaw.

Notice I didn’t say “fix it”. I didn’t say “erase it”. I didn’t say “banish it into the outer darkness and command it to never darken my door again”, though that would be very tempting. I said “Adorn”, and what I mean by that is “love on it”. Whisper sweet nothings to it and tell it everything is going to be okay, because true fact? IT IS.

I pulled out the gold paint (my cue to the universe that I need a little divine intervention) and went to work. I focused on the figure, adding gold to her crown and dark sepia shading around her features and leaves.

But the core move was this: I intentionally highlighted the figure’s wonky eye. I tended to it.
 I wasn’t fixing it. I was offering it compassion, using the highest-value paint I had to say, “Yes, you are imperfect, and I cherish you.”

When we make an honest mistake—in art, in life, in a social interaction—our impulse is to hide it, paint over it, or carry the anxiety of it all day. Adorning the flaw is a deliberate counter-move. It forces you to offer self-empathy to the part that feels awkward, wrong, or messy.
 It gives you permission to say: “I messed up. I apologized. Now, I’m going to honour the humanity of that mistake, making it a feature, a cherished part of my story.”

What is the ‘wonky eye’ in your life right now? What flaw, mistake, or moment of imperfection are you ready to stop fighting?

Don’t fix it. Don’t hide it. Adorn it. Center it. Make it soup and give it a cuddle.

Let it be part of your story.

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!

Are You A Surgeon or Jeweller?

by Effy Wild | Nov 19, 2025 | The Painted Presence Project

It’s Day Nineteen and I Have Thoughts

Some of us create with an end product in mind, and some of us create because the act of creation gives us life force. If we’re doing the latter, it can feel really important to edit as we go with our end goal in mind. But that’s NOT what we’re doing here. What we’re doing here is getting comfortable with uncertainty. We’re befriending silence. We’re engaging with the painting as though it might be a portal we can fall into, or out of which someone or something may come through.

If we get stuck on correcting what’s wrong, we run the risk of ending the session drained. Whatever is coming through might say “well, to hell with you then if I’m not good enough”, because, hello. Wouldn’t you? If you turned up by invitation to hang out with someone and they immediately started fussing with your hair or fixing your eyeliner, you’d be none too pleased. ESPECIALLY if you’re new to each other. Later, maybe, that kind of tending can be received as an act of love, but too soon and you’d shut down.

I could have spent my (precious, sacred) ten minutes fussing today. In fact, I was tempted, because, AND I KNOW YOU CAN RELATE, it’s hard for me to live with something once I’ve perceived it to be “WRONG” somehow. But this practice is teaching me a lot, and today I leaned HARD on what I’m learning.

I decided that the anatomical issue with her eye drifting too far from the bridge of her nose is not a RIGHT NOW problem. I opted to leave that for NEXT WEEK ME, or maybe even NEVER ME. I turned my attention to what’s RIGHT instead and focused on deepening the embellishments with some Pitt Pen instead of trying to “fix the eye”.

Then, I grabbed the copper. I laid it down thick and opaque over the hair. I needed new ground—a place to rest my eyes without the distraction of all the marks and visual noise from the original quin gold glaze underneath.

Then I added gold details.

In other words, I stopped trying to perform surgery on her face and started adorning her crown instead, and the moment that choice was locked in through action, there was a massive shift in the energy. The draining problem of BuT tHe EyE iS WrOnG disappeared, because the focus was on deepening and illuminating.

I had a purpose, and that purpose was made manifest in that layer of copper that brought this goddess even further FORWARD, eye wonk and all. The life force in today’s practice came from touching down AROUND the flaw. Letting the flaw BE. Emphasizing what was BEAUTIFUL today.

And doesn’t that sound like it could apply to our lives?

Yeah, it does.

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!

A Need To Know Basis

by Effy Wild | Nov 18, 2025 | The Painted Presence Project

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!

This morning, I noticed some serious eye wonk, but blessedly, it’s NOT MY EYES THAT ARE THE PROBLEM. *cackles* No, it’s hers. One of her eyes is way too far away from the bridge of her nose, and I’m really not sure what to do about that, so I’m leaving it as is for now. If it continues to bug me, I’ll do something about it. Maybe a bit of collage there and then a new eye that’s better placed. Who knows. I’m definitely operating on a “need to know basis” and right now, I don’t need to know.
I touched down with a bit of tending today. Whites of the eyes, highlights on the nose and mouth. Shading. I made heavy use of my beloved Pitt Pens in Dark Sepia, Cinnamon, and Indian Red.

The black gesso I applied to the portal I’m seeing between her face and hair is a brand I’ve only just started using since Liquitex costs an arm and a leg to get shipped to me. It’s not the best black gesso I’ve ever used, but it does the job. No brand name mention because I can’t give a glowing review.

I am no longer regretting the modelling paste embellishments. I think if I keep adding little details here and there they will come to life. Shading, highlights, a bit of sparkle. We’ll see.

I’ve got twelve days left, and a lot can happen in twelve days PLUS if I’m not finished with her on day 30, there’s nothing stopping me from continuing on!

Personal Update:

Spilling Over

by Effy Wild | Nov 17, 2025 | The Painted Presence Project

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!

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of working on something that WASN’T The Painted Presence Project and that was really interesting because I could feel how the project has shifted me. I’ve become much more patient with whatever wants to come through. I don’t want to rush. I don’t want to push. I want to touch down with whatever the next mark or colour is without worrying at all about what comes next.

This is bringing me so much peace.

It also means whatever I paint takes longer because without the constraint of that ten minute timer, painting feels luxurious. It feels expansive. And it makes room for my inner visionary who just wants to stretch out and spill over into the painting process.

I didn’t expect such an obvious and lovely consequence of painting the way I am for the project, but here we are.

Today was mostly about glazing with Quinacridone Gold.

I touched up the eyes and mouth a bit with a brush tip pen as well.

And now I get to work on something else for a longer stretch! *Does a happy little hip wiggle*

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!

Icon

by Effy Wild | Nov 16, 2025 | The Painted Presence Project

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!

I spent some time refining her features and adding a bit of shading with an India Red Pitt pen. It felt good to make some sense of her eyes, and reshape her mouth.

I added pupils with the black brush tip pen and then lightened up the area around her iris with gold paint.

She’s starting to look like an iconic portrait now, and while that wasn’t my intention going in (I had no intention going in!) that makes me happy. I haven’t done an iconic portrait in a very long time. My taste for those waned with my vision through the ever worsening cataract saga, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever paint one again, but here she is. An icon.

No time for more today! My eyes are finally working well enough that I can work for more than ten minutes at a time so I’m filming a lesson for my Sweet Trash folks over on Patreon. It’s so good to be able to do that, y’all. I’m so, so grateful!

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!