Studio Feed

If you scroll back to studio drop 29, you'll see where this piece began - with an acrylic underpainting that completely surprised me. I was just in total flow, and it felt like something I'd never experienced before with paint and inner vision.

You know that feeling when you've been trying to speak another language for ages, translating every single word in your head, and then suddenly it just clicks? You're actually thinking in that language, flowing with it naturally. That's exactly what this painting felt like.

I hadn't touched pure painting flowers in so long, I genuinely didn't know what would happen. But working on this piece, these expressive colors just poured out of me.

This is my take on Anne's Roses - a composition I've been exploring for years - but with this expressionistic style I didn't even know was living inside me.

After that initial acrylic layer, seen in SD29, I went in with oils, and now she's complete.

For me, this piece carries my continued artistic evolution. It's the expansion of my visual language - the same through line, but me evolved at another level.

This piece is available now. Contact studio@elizabethpage.art for details.

A continuation of my tree series, this piece came from the continued search for that moment when light hits your eyes between the branches. Everything pauses for a second, and you can see nothing and everything all at once—suspended in light.

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This piece is available as of 3/26/26— contact studio@elizabethpage.art for details.

Salt River Horses is part of Re-Enter Nature, and it came together the way this work tends to — through following something I didn't fully understand. A mark that felt wrong, wiped away, and suddenly the whole atmosphere shifted. Forms kept appearing and dissolving — animals, landscapes, shapes that wouldn't settle. I stopped trying to define them. That's where the piece lives: not in what you're looking at, but in how you're seeing.

I'm mid-session on Cottonwood and fully on the edge. No reference, no clear vision for how it resolves — just the next mark, and then the next. I'm learning that sometimes I have to get more lost in a piece before the clarity comes through. More chaos, more color, more paint — until something to work with emerges. My logical brain has no idea how this is going to resolve. I'm learning to be okay with that.

There's the obvious way collectors matter — and then there's the deeper way: I often understand my own work through the experience of it being received. A conversation with one of you recently made that undeniable.

Asking about When Trees Breathe led us back to the 60×60 Cottonwood I'd abandoned — and in tracing that thread I realized the two were connected to something personal that needed to resolve first. Somewhere in that conversation, it did. This morning I walked into the studio and saw Cottonwood clearly for the first time. Thick, chunky white paint for the light. The opposite of leaf — opaque, built up, physically present.

I'm ready to go back in. You helped me get there.

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That Mountain Chain is just finished, re-entered and reinvented as part of the Re-Enter Nature series. What I love most is the ambiguity — people see whatever landscape lives closest in their memory. As I worked, it started looking like creosote, then prickly pear, and I made a choice to stop defining it. That's new for me. I used to want you to know exactly what you were seeing. Now I'm interested in the space where you can't be sure — because that's where the real connection to nature lives. We're always trying to classify, separate, distinguish. This work asks you to just be in it.

Soft Turns on Hard Edges has been waiting — I knew it wasn't finished. Today I went back in, reworking the bottom half, and somewhere in that process accidentally created the atmospheric mountain skyline I've been trying to figure out for a commission. The layered evening light, the hazy distance — it's been escaping me in gold and silver leaf for months. I wasn't even trying for it today. That's exactly when it arrived.

Three things were different today — the wrong brush, a dark background instead of light, and acrylic instead of oil. Each one forced me out of my usual way of working. All three together cracked something open. Marks I've never made before started coming through, and I don't quite know what they are yet. I'm setting these aside for a week to let the newness settle — but I think something just shifted.

Anne's roses have followed me since the beginning. I came in with a plan — and then forgot my brushes. One brush, acrylic instead of oil, and suddenly everything opened up. Now I have this underpainting I love and no idea what comes next. Which feels exactly right.

When Trees Breathe began with a hike, a specific composition, light splitting through branches. But somewhere in the making I stopped returning to the reference and just went deeper into the piece — remembering. Reds and pinks came in that were never in the photo. All the times I've ever seen light move through trees arrived at once, because it's always the same light.

I also noticed I was stepping back less. Just trusting the hand. And when I did step back, it was right. That trust is something I've been chasing my whole life as a painter — what it means to work from inner eye rather than outer reference. It's becoming clear that everything I've ever seen and felt is already in me, available whenever I need it.

This piece is also opening a door back to the large 60×60 Cottonwood I set down a while ago. The threads are pulling together. I'm not there yet — but I can feel it coming.

I photographed When Trees Breathe twice and called it finished both times — knowing something was missing but having nothing left to do. Then a sheet of abalone shell arrived, from the heart of the shell, with tight patterning and a blush of pink. I opened the package and knew: the trees weren't done yet. One broken fragment landed perfectly along a line in the tree, as if I'd planned it from the start. I hadn't. It was just waiting.

This is what I'm learning — calling something finished, even when it isn't, and trusting the discovery to arrive on its own.

This piece began as Boulder Play — a study I shared in Studio Drop 20, created without reference. What carried forward was the atmosphere. I was chasing that powdery lift in the sky — clouds that feel suspended rather than placed.

Most of the work unfolded in subtle shifts of air and tone. I thought it was finished. I photographed it. And in the act of seeing it through the lens, I saw what was missing.

Paper.

Within thirty minutes, I layered it in. The surface shifted immediately— dimension, texture, a new kind of depth. The landscape moved from suggestion to presence.

More of these dream landscapes to come.

Cloud Edges surprised me. While reviewing Horizon in Seasonal Salons, I remembered how hard I tried to create sharp, abstracted cloud forms — pushing against my natural vocabulary of soft transitions and atmosphere. The more I aimed for hard edges, the more the piece resisted. It stalled under expectation. Horizon took three months. This piece came through in two days. Only in the final moments did I realize: these were the edges I had been reaching for all along. They emerged not through striving, but through allowing the material and form to lead.  It’s one of my favorite kinds of discoveries — when something long desired arrives naturally, without force.  Sometimes what we chase appears only after we stop directing it.

*note from Elizabeth after the fact* I looked at it a few days later and, it's not done! I'm not sure what it needs, so it is retired for a while until the next step comes to me.

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There's a piece I've loved for years — a mountain chain, big boulders, a valley opening in the distance. It's been in shows. People have loved it. It lived on my wall. And somehow, standing in front of my studio closet, I saw it differently. That's the one.

This is part of ReEnter Nature, a growing body of work born from pieces I thought were finished — framed, photographed, done — until something in me said not yet. I go back in. Paper, material, mother of pearl. The work gets bigger than me, which is the point.

This particular piece has a history of its own. An early one, from when I was still learning how the materials moved over time. The blue leaf faded — I didn't know it would — and I got to watch it change. Which feels right, actually. It's always been a living thing.

Now it's coming home with me again. I don't know the direction yet. Maybe the boulders. Maybe the bushes. The action will tell me — it always does.

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I walked into this session with a clear idea — a red abstract palette inspired by another piece. That decision was made before I touched the surface.

Once the molding paste met the vessel, everything changed.

The first upward stroke established vertical movement and scale. The composition revealed tall mountains with minimal sky, and the original color plan dissolved.

The risk in that moment was abandoning the initial vision. But the material was already leading.

Direction often emerges through action — not before it.

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Another collaborative vessel begins. Watch as the base layer establishes vertical motion. The feeling of the tools, the palette knife, the paste, the paint, scraping over fired clay informed every next decision.

This 18 x 36 vertical piece surprised me this morning. I walked into the gallery and it was upside down — and it looked fantastic. I could suddenly see it complete: forms in the foreground, the middle ground, disappearing into the distance. And I felt it asking me not to reach for a reference.

This is new territory for me with landscape. I've always worked from photos, the same way I used to with florals before "Rest on My Shoulders" broke that open. I wasn't planning to work this way, but here it is, asking me to trust the emotional memory already living inside me.

The vulnerable part is holding it loosely as it grows bigger — not letting that logical brain make it precious. Just letting it reveal itself, trusting what wants to come through.

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I just finished Past the Saguaros (18 x 24, mixed media). I kept thinking about how saguaros feel like they’re talking to each other — like friends on a hike — and how they’re always these bold landmarks.In this piece they stand right up front and invite you to look past them into the sky, where I used this wild, patterned metal leaf that doesn’t really “match,” but with the saguaros in the picture, everything belongs.It’s newly finished and currently available — if it feels like a yes, you can always reach out to ask about it.

This piece is currently available; use the contact form or email: studio@elizabethpage.art to inquire.

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Join Me on the Mountain is an 11 x 14 mixed media painting with gold leaf, silver leaf, abalone shell, paper, and a lot of love.

I worked on and finished this piece while my dad was in the hospital, when my heart felt achy and everything was a little heavy. The mountain became a place of respite for me: head in the clouds, surrounded by blue, blue sky and the iridescence of abalone shell. The invitation, for me and for you, is to step onto that mountaintop for a moment, let the heaviness fall away, and rest in the beauty there.

The Path Unseen and Taken is a 30 x 30 mixed media painting in oil with gold, silver, and mixed metal leaf. I built everything around the sky first — layers of 16k white gold and a soft, dyed “blonde” silver leaf, with clear abalone shell so it feels natural, luminous, almost quietly lit from within.

The cactus forms grew up around that light, with small touches of mother-of-pearl scattered through the painting. There’s a path you can see in the center, and then it disappears — a way forward that doesn’t show you where it ends.

This piece came through in a moment of taking a path in my own life without knowing the outcome, choosing to take the next step anyway, and letting my focus stay on the luminous sky.

Today I share a moment before stepping into The Celebration of Fine Art, when I wasn’t feeling fully in the flow and needed to honor that honestly. I reflect on starting small, trusting the process, and how patience, emotional depth, and lived experience quietly shape the work just as much as moments of confidence.

This one arrived without a plan, only excitement. A black dress, deeper and more monochromatic, with new forms beginning to surface as the work finds its own language.

What I’m learning, again, is how powerful it is to hold the vision without the specifics. When I release the plan, I become more present. There’s nothing to live up to, nothing to miss—only what wants to emerge. Each dress feels like a small but meaningful step toward a larger future I trust will take shape in its own time.

This piece feels alive, beautiful, and full of possibility. I’m grateful you’re here witnessing the collection come into form, and I can’t wait to see what arrives next.

During my hike today the cottonwoods and the light slowly put me back together after a very full stretch of life. I thought this collection’s next piece would be a sweeping desert vista, but instead the invitation was to rest, to wait, to listen.

This underpainting is rooted in that waiting. In letting the essence speak when it’s ready. In releasing the attachment I carried through Ironwood and choosing play, openness, and surprise instead.

I don’t know how Cottonwood will unfold—only that its energy is rest and renewal, and that uncertainty itself feels like the doorway.

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🎨 Your Creativity Prompt:(Choose the one that calls to you—or do both)

Option 1: Wait With Your Body

Find something in your life right now where you feel the urge to rush, decide, or push forward. Instead of doing anything about it, go outside. Walk. Notice what your body feels. Notice light. Notice shapes. Don't solve anything. Just let your nervous system reset—the way mine did under the cottonwoods. The answer will come when it's ready.

Option 2: Follow the Tingles

Close your eyes. Think of something you've been wanting to do but haven't allowed yourself to start. Where do you feel it in your body? Tingles in your toes? Warmth in your chest? A pull in your belly? Now: Do one small thing today that makes that sensation stronger. Not the "right" thing. The thing that makes your body say yes.

Sharing this new body of work these past two weekends has felt like standing in the middle of something arriving—exhausting, clarifying, and deeply joyful. Speaking about the pieces has shown me more of what they are, each one teaching me as it emerges.

The Collector Circle is growing alongside the work, its own quiet creation, shaping me as much as I shape it. I’m on the edge of my skill set in every direction, trusting the compass that brought me here.

A simple thank-you for witnessing this becoming. My heart is full.

As I near completion of Centuries of Growth, part of the Re-Enter Nature collection, I’m reminded that this whole series has been a practice in surrender. Every layer — the paper I once loved and later removed, the marks left behind, the broken pieces of Mother of Pearl — has been teaching me to follow what’s unfolding rather than what I planned.

Last night, I gave a talk about preparing the same way I paint: I know the first sentence, and then I trust the rest to come through. The studio works the same way. This piece, months in the making, has been my teacher in that discipline of presence.

Today, a broken shard of Mother of Pearl — once a frustration — fit perfectly into the mountain I’ve reworked countless times. It clicked into place like it had been waiting for me to trust enough to see it.

That’s the practice.

That’s the art.

Everything is always working together, even what breaks.

Cheers to Centuries of Growth, and to the devotion that brings every piece home.‍

What feels exciting about this isn’t just the piece itself, but the clarity that’s come with it. For a while, I was following pure instinct—playing with texture, light, and color—without fully knowing how these works fit within my larger body of work. Creating the Developing Collections gave them a home.

Now I see that I’ve been laying the groundwork for a future installation exhibit—one that invites viewers to move through layers of light and material, not just look at them.

In this painting, I removed some of the paper elements I loved experientially but that blocked the visual flow on a flat surface. What remains feels both resolved and open—like a breath of fresh air, clearing space for the next piece to emerge.

Finishing this one makes room for what’s next: Centuries of Growth, and new textural explorations still to come.

This session marks the completion of Ribbon Layers of Love — a piece that began as Stacked and evolved through a deep conversation between intuition, ego, and the creative act itself.

As I worked, I noticed an old story surfacing — the idea that I should be able to “get it right” the first time. Letting that go became part of the painting’s transformation. Once I stopped trying to control the outcome, the joy returned — the color, the rhythm, the play.

This session reflects on the difference between intuition and fear: how intuition feels clear, clean, and quiet, while ego complicates and questions.

It’s also an ode to what I once called “too muchness” — the fullness, the complexity, the wild harmony that lives inside both nature and my own work. Today, I see that bigness as my gift.‍

Ribbon Layers of Love is a celebration of that realization — that intuition, not perfection, is what brings a piece to life.

This week, I’m reflecting on Stacked, a new 36x48 piece entering the Living Archive. After an uninterrupted studio session, I laid the first layer—and felt an unexpected twinge of disappointment. Why? Because it needed more. And somewhere, I’d set a quiet expectation that it wouldn’t. This drop is about softening the perfectionism that creeps in when past pieces feel effortless. Each work has its own rhythm and asks something different of me. Stacked is already revealing where I’ve grown—new techniques I didn’t know I knew until I reached for them. Not perfection. Evolution.

Reflecting  on Ironwood during a sunset walk—watching the light break through branches, seeing everything and nothing at once. It’s a meditation on movement, light, and loosening our grip on what we think a piece should become.This drop is about releasing rigid outcomes, allowing beauty to emerge through presence and surprise. After weeks of layering and overworking, I’ve returned to a place of trust with this piece—a reminder that ease and wonder come when we hold things lightly.

Chandelier Sky / Crystal Curtains - On how I completed this piece from a space of loosesness - zero expectations - in between paint drying.

I'm lying on my back outside after a full studio day, looking up at blue sky — staying the course, because it's always worth it.

Some days everything flows. Other days I'm hitting my head against the wall. Yesterday I went back to the boulder piece and it didn't work. But today I came back a little more loose, a little more playful — and there it was. Not the Monet Sky dream I'd imagined, but its own beautiful fantastic thing.

And here's what made it all worth it: bright orange leaf with Sunago blue on top. Something I've never done before. I guarantee it'll show up again — probably an entire piece born from the question of how you communicate blending with a material that won't blend.

That's what persevering is about. The discoveries only come through doing — sometimes when I feel like dancing, but more often when I'm pulling myself out of a hole, trying this and then that. The piece doesn't always resolve, but it's in those moments the real finds happen.

We also revisited Ironwood — drop into Works in Progress to catch up on that one. So glad you're here.

We have a friend in town, so we're driving through Cave Creek when I look up and see these Monet clouds — little puffs of shredded cotton ball, which we never get here. I'm thinking about those clouds and the Sunago technique, and then we drive through the boulders and I see it: that's my painting. That's the underpainting I already painted.

I hadn't been happy with how Chasing or Waiting first came down — it was missing something. But today I found my reference out in the world, after I'd already painted it. I snapped some photos. Heading back to the studio when Zack naps to see what we can get.

Starting a new piece and using the Sunago technique in the video above. Sunago is a Japanese technique where powdered metal flakes are sieved through a bamboo tube and sprinkled onto the surface (with an adhesive) then lightly pressed in with another sheet of paper. I do it a bit differently - and I think this whole piece was driven by my desire to use it. It is just so lovely. And- wouldn't you know it - this piece is in a stuck place again! Listen to the audio and you can see I was feeling quite open- truth be told- but was I really really? What began as a simple underpainting of mountains and sky refused to be “corrected” or controlled. So it stayed undefined. I talk about the process of listening more than leading, of recognizing when the work wants to stay mysterious. This session is a trust fall into form, an exercise in releasing the need for clarity and allowing the piece to emerge in its own rhythm. There’s gold in the not-knowing — and I’m learning to receive it.

This one is in it's in-between stages- trying to capture my favorite moment of light breaking through leaves, inspired by Andre Derain and his "Tree in a Landscape". When I went to photograph it after the first layer of leaf to show you all here, I held it up to the setting sun, with this Palo Verde, and it wasn't until I snapped the photo I realized how perfectly they lined up. Can you believe the magic? Also - it is very distict from the Derain painting! We cannot help but to paint ourselves (our experiences, our roots) into our work, even when drawing inspiration elsewhere.

This piece is delighting me — not just in its look, but in its feel. I reflect on why dresses, why this series, and what I think I’m trying to say through texture, pattern, and material. With touches of mother of pearl and paper, it becomes a meditation on femininity, the gaze, memory, and the quiet power of adornment. There’s always a story in the material — and this one is slowly revealing its own. I sense a larger project forming, but for now, I’m letting the materials lead the way.

This audio captures the energy of a piece coming to life in real time — untitled, full of cactus forms, and built on presence rather than planning. I share what shifted in me during this layer of leafing — the return to looseness, the freedom to pivot, and the deep trust in following creative nudges. It’s about more than the painting: it’s a reminder that the soft, quiet yeses we get — moment by moment — are always leading somewhere true. The more we follow them, the louder they become.

In this very first Studio Feed drop — recorded during a sunset walk with Zack — I welcome you into the heart of what The Collector’s Circle is meant to be. This isn’t just a membership with perks. It’s a space to nourish your creative aliveness, to live closer to beauty, and to remember the artist-heart that lives in you. These audio drops will be part reflection, part process, and part real-time rhythm. And this is just the beginning.