Interview with Ink artist Emily Day
‘Can we stay here a while’ a winner amongst our Ink Art Gin fans!
We sat down with Ink Art Gin’s People’s Choice 2023 Winner Emily Day to find out more about her gorgeous art and where she finds inspiration. Read on to find out more about her relationship with art and nature, how she almost missed the deadline for the competition, and how travel and light inspires her art practice.
Congratulations on winning the People’s Choice Award Emily! What was your inspiration behind ‘Can we stay here a while?’
I had just had my second baby, so I was in the very fresh postpartum days, but one day I was feeling strangely inspired and creative. Poppies were just starting to come into season, and after spotting a really lively bunch of some, it inspired me to sit down in the studio one day and try to capture them. It was actually the first oil painting I’ve finished in about five years (I usually work in acrylics), so it felt like a pretty special piece. The start of a new season in my practice almost!
What made you enter the Ink Art Competition?
Funnily enough, my good friend and fellow artist Kate Quinn actually encouraged me to enter it! It has actually been my bucket list dream to have my art on a gin bottle (which a lot of artists would say), so I managed to enter the competition at the very, very last minute (I think an hour or so before it closed!). Since I had been in baby land, I hadn’t been online much, so I’m so glad she reminded me to enter. This painting seemed like a perfect fit and I’m so honoured that it received the People’s Choice Award!
What was it like when you found out you’d won the award?
I was meant to be putting the baby to sleep but I saw the message, screamed and ran out to tell my husband. It was such a fun moment! Ever since then we’ve been planning a gin cocktail afternoon with friends, haha. I feel very lucky to be painting full time, and love my job, but receiving the People’s Choice award feels very validating and people have since sent some really lovely messages in support of my work, so I’m very lucky.
Your art has a gorgeous Australian botanical feel to it. Have you always painted this subject matter?
Australian botanicals have always been the primary subject matter that I’ve been drawn to. When I was a hobby artist (and a child!) I always painted florals and still life arrangements, however it wasn’t until I went on a 6 month van roadtrip around the Southern coastline of Australia just before Covid, where I really started to sketch, study and paint the florals and foliage I saw along the way.
Does where you live affect what you create?
I live in Brisbane, and at the moment relatively inner city, so I feel like my art is almost a form of escapism for me. I’m really lucky to finally have a studio that’s slightly detached from my home (after working from my dining room table for a few years), so once I step into my studio away from the chaos of semi urban life (with the added layer of having young children), I find it’s a place of solace and really conducive to creating works that feel very present to me. My space is perched up quite high and overlooks the mountains to the West, so I feel like that view, the abundance of natural light and observing the seasonal colours around me sub-consciously comes into my work. Since moving into this space, I really feel like my use of colour has changed and become a bit bolder.
Tell us more about your creative process.
Apart from this piece, I usually work on about 6 paintings at once. I find that once I get stuck on elements in one painting, I can always jump to another one that is in a different stage, so I can create a bit of flow with my work. If something isn’t working, I find it’s best to turn it around and face a wall for a week, look at it with fresh eyes and have it hanging in the studio for another few weeks, and then generally the answer to what it needs is quite simple after a bit of time has passed.
I like to start with sketches and ideas jotted down in notebooks to create a body of work, then work on some fast, watered down layers of paint to block in the composition, to create a lot of movement, then I build on those initial marks with thicker, more intentional brush strokes, building the layers and detail until I think a piece is done.
When is your favourite time of the day to create?
Strangely I feel most productive from the afternoon into the evening. I absolutely love dusk – it’s my favourite time of the day and I feel really energised by the changing sky outside my studio. Unfortunately, this doesn’t align at all with parenting small children, so I think I’m going to try to apply this thinking to very early in the morning and create more at dawn… wish me luck!
Tell us more about your Sunday still life series!
Oh this is my absolute favourite series, and I never would have thought that it would go for so long! It’s been running for over 130 weeks now (not quite continuous – as I’ve had two children in that time) and I’m going to be picking it back up in November.
It was the start of lockdowns in 2020 and I decided to make the leap to painting full time because after my travels, jobs in my industry had really slowed (I’ve got a background in architecture).
I hadn’t painted a still life for years so because I was quite housebound, I decided to commit to a weekly practice of painting a still life arrangement, basically whatever I could get my hands on. It didn’t matter how simple it was, I wanted to use it as a way to study different florals, explore other compositions and also experiment with colour theory.
I posted it on Instagram and someone bought the first one, so I decided to release it for sale every week after that! I was blown away with the response so after a year or so I decided to add in a second painting, so I was capturing the same arrangement, from a different angle. It’s really a testament to the concept that art is not necessarily about pure talent, but about consistent practice, and I’m so so grateful that I decided to do it – it’s definitely honed my skills.
All round favourite Ink Gin cocktail?
I am a fan of punchy cocktails with a citrus base so I think I would have to say an Ink Negroni!
Imagine sharing this favourite cocktail with anyone in the world – alive or not, who would it be and why? What would you chat about?
I think I would say CJ Hendry actually. I’m not sure if she would also choose a Negroni, but I’m just becoming increasingly fascinated with her work and what motivates her – she seems open and honest but also a bit cheekily mysterious as well, so I think she would be so interesting to talk to. I like that she is her own player in the art world, so I think I would like to talk to her about that very unique perspective of art and the commercial world of art – I’m so curious!