Day 81/100: Emily Day
Encouraging an Emerging Australian Artist Who Invites Us to Celebrate All the Small Moments of Beauty Around Us
For my 100 Days of Encouragement Project, I’m celebrating Emily Day, an artist based in Brisbane, Australia, who elevates the beauty of everyday moments through her paintings, textiles, and workshops.
She describes herself as an emerging artist, but honestly, she’s got over 10.7K followers, has produced product lines for textiles and gifts, and has collaborated to create bespoke food and art experiences to share her love of the beauty in domestic arts. So, I’m thinking that she’s pretty much already emerged!
With a Bachelor’s degree in Design and a Masters of Architecture from Queensland University of Technology, Emily employed her skills in corporate settings until she spent a year traveling in Australia and abroad with her husband.
On their 6-month road trip around the southern coastline of Australia, she started to sketch, paint and collect a journal of color swatches every day. By the time they returned home, the pandemic lockdowns had just started – it was the impetus she needed to turn her painting hobby into a full-time career.
Now, in her apartment in inner-city Brisbane, she has taken over the living room as her home studio. Between her multitude of canvases, her very-active 16-month old daughter, and their 11-year-old rescue dog, it is a full and interesting version of domestic reality meets artistic inspiration.
Florals have always featured in her work, even when she thinks about the paintings she did as a child. When she started painting on the road trip, she was drawn to capture the native florals and foliage that she was spotting on her daily hikes and walks along the coastline. These wild, unruly, and beautifully sculptural elements are still something she’s inspired by. But once back home, and after having a baby in the middle of a pandemic, she has been much more housebound. Today, her florals tend to be more still life arrangements.
Working predominantly in acrylics, her work aims to capture and celebrate the aliveness of a moment in time. In this way, she hopes to encourage both herself as the artist, and us as the viewers, to be completely grounded in the present.
Emily finds the whole process of completing a painting very meditative. It begins with foraging florals and foliage and arranging them to form an engaging composition. Then she moves on to mixing colors – often muted hues that have a calming feel about them. (Though recently she’s been exploring brighter and more saturated colors in some of her work.) She slowly layers loose brushstrokes until she has captured the look and feel of her inspiration source. She frequently draws on her design training and skills by stitching together photos, sketches and memories in her mind to arrive at a finished composition.
Her work can be found in regional galleries around Australia, and she also sells a lot of her work directly to collectors.
On Sundays, she releases her Sunday Still Lifes at 5pm AEST. These are two complementary views of a still life she’s created, and she sells them through Instagram. The first person to comment SOLD gets to buy the first painting; the second person to comment SOLD can purchase the second painting. She’s been doing it for over 90 weeks and she consistently sells out her little gems. She appreciates direct sales, because she loves the chance to hear the story behind why someone connects with her paintings.
She’s also just released a line of tablecloths and tea towels. And if all that were not enough, she’s embarked on an adventure with friend, Kate Quinn, called BLOOM. They are offering a series of art and food experiences in beautiful and unique destinations, which you can learn more about at @bloom_art_experiences .
How You Can Be an Encouragement
Please check out Emily’s offerings on Instagram and her website, follow her, and send her some encouragement today by commenting on one of her posts or sending her a direct message.
Instagram: @e_milydaystudio
Website: www.studioemilyday.com
© Emily Day
