A Slower Way Into Painting

Many people feel drawn to paint, but don’t know how to begin.

It can feel uncertain—where to start, what to paint, whether it will work. Over time, that uncertainty often becomes hesitation.

Painting with Presence offers a different way in.

This is a slower, more grounded creative experience where attention comes before technique, and a painting emerges through observation, curiosity, and response.

Painting with Presence is a five-part creative immersion held at The Gentle Wild.

Rather than focusing on performance or perfection, this series invites you into a more attentive relationship with the creative process, where painting becomes a way of noticing light, movement, colour, and form as they unfold.

This is not about producing perfect paintings. It is about presence.

How It Unfolds

  • 🌿 Arrive

    Each session begins with a brief grounding practice to help you settle, notice, and arrive fully in the experience.

  • 🌿 Explore

    You’ll work through guided painting exercises, small studies, observation, and reflective experimentation.

  • 🌿 Develop

    Over time, your painting grows through attention, curiosity, and creative decision-making.

The Creative Arc

Throughout the series, you’ll explore painting through a sequence of nature-based studies:

Water — Flow & Movement
Exploring rhythm, release, and intuitive mark-making.

Colour — Growth & Expression
Discovering how emotion and perception live within colour.

Sky — Light & Stillness
Working with openness, atmosphere, and subtle transitions.

Integration — Wholeness
Bringing all elements together into a unified final painting.

These are not simply technical exercises. They are ways of seeing, where the natural world and your own inner experience begin to inform one another.

The Experience

  • Four Weekday Studio Gatherings

    Four guided weekday sessions, two hours each, introducing the Painting with Presence approach through observation, colour exploration, and creative practice.

  • Completion Studio

    One extended six-hour session devoted to deepening, integrating, and completing your final painting.

  • Small Group Format

    The series is intentionally small to allow for thoughtful engagement and individual attention.

What Makes This Different

This is not a traditional art class.

There is no critique, no pressure to perform, and no expectation of a perfect outcome.

Instead, the focus is on learning how to see more clearly, respond more intuitively, and develop trust in your own creative process.

Every brushstroke becomes part of a conversation, between observation, feeling, and form. This practice is designed to support awareness as much as artwork.

What People Notice

People across Sherri’s creative gatherings often describe a shift—not just in what they create, but in how they notice, reflect, and connect through the process.

  • - Barbara B., Calgary, AB

    “There’s something in the experience that’s hard to explain...
    thoughts and feelings begin to take shape on the canvas in a very real way.
    It felt like I was bringing something personal to life through the process.
    A meaningful and memorable way to create.”

  • - Anonymous

    “There was a deep sense of gratitude that came from the experience.
    It helped me deepen my sense of meaning and notice both myself and others more clearly.
    It also felt like it was okay to simply be open to the experience.”

“Thank you for allowing enough time and thoughtful, heart-centred activities to expand the subtleties of my senses. I learned so much about myself… and was reminded that I am nature, not just in it.”

— Sandy D., Calgary, AB

Who It's For

This series may be a good fit if you…

  • feel drawn to painting but aren’t sure how to begin
  • want a quieter, more meaningful creative process
  • enjoy slowing down and working with attention
  • are curious about how light, colour, and perception shape a painting
  • appreciate reflective conversation in a small group setting

Experience level

Both beginners and experienced painters are welcome.

Learning style

This experience supports multiple ways of learning, including auditory, visual observation, reflective writing, sensory awareness, and hands-on experimentation.

What's Included

Included with registration

  • Canvas
  • Painting with Presence workbook
  • Guided sessions and facilitation

What you bring

Participants bring their own painting materials. A recommended supply list is provided upon registration. The workbooks specify acrylic paints with suggested colours, brushes, palette knives, a mixing surface, rag or paper towel, and water container, while canvases and practice surfaces are provided.

Series format

  • 4 weekday studio gatherings (2 hours each)
  • 1 final weekend studio immersion (6 hours)
  • Small group format

What You'll Leave With

By the end of the series, you will have:

  • a completed painting developed over time
  • a deeper sense of your own creative rhythm
  • a more grounded, attentive way of approaching the painting process
  • a practice you can continue beyond the workshop

Painting with presence is not only something you do here. It can become a way of paying attention long after the series is complete.

Facilitated by Sherri Phibbs

Painting with Presence is facilitated by Sherri Phibbs, artist, bestselling author, and experiential learning facilitator whose work integrates nature, perception, and creative practice.

At The Gentle Wild, she guides experiences that invite people into quieter ways of seeing, sensing, and creating.

Investment

Series Investment: $625 CAD

Canvas and workbook included.

Participants bring their own painting materials. A recommended supply list is provided upon registration.

Begin Where You Are

If you’ve felt drawn to paint but have been waiting for the right way to begin, this may be it.

Reserve Your Place

Small group format, typically 4–6 participants