Sessions by the pond
What would it feel like to fully trust yourself?
In your art. In your decisions. In the way you move through your life.
This is where you find out.
Practicing Presence Painting
1.5 hours of quiet, paint, and nowhere to be, outdoors beside the pond in Culpeper, Virginia.
There is a voice beneath the noise.
It doesn’t speak in words. It speaks in sensation. In a quiet knowing. In the gentle pull of a hand toward what is true.
Most of us have learned to move too fast to hear it. We think our way through decisions. We push through resistance. We override what the body already knows. And the faster we move, the quieter that voice gets.
Practicing Presence Painting creates the conditions to slow down enough to listen.
This is not an art class. There is no instruction, no technique, and no finished product to evaluate. Sessions are held in intentional quiet, outdoors beside the pond, with each guest at their own station and space between, so you can be fully present with yourself.
Through mark making with a curated collection of brushes and tools, you begin to develop your inner listening muscle. The mind occupies itself just enough for what is true to surface. What moves through your hands onto the canvas is not something you decided. It is something you allowed.
It is complete on its own, for anyone who wants to discover their own voice, return to themselves, or find a way to be present that they carry home with them. It is also the foundation beneath my attunement paintings.
No art experience is needed. No explanation is required.
“In the quiet of creating, something inside me was created too. Somewhere in this painting, I met the person behind the person.”
Come to the Pond. See What Arrives.
You don’t need a reason beyond the quiet pull that brought you here.
Maybe something feels off, and you can’t name it. Maybe life has been loud for a long time, and you’ve lost the thread back to yourself. Maybe you’re curious what it feels like to paint without rules or judgment. Maybe you want to find your own artistic voice, instead of copying someone else’s. Maybe you simply want somewhere quiet to land. Whatever brought you here, there is a place for you.
You arrive at the pond. You settle in. Kick your shoes off. Feel the earth beneath you. You listen for the quiet nudges that guide you toward a color, toward a tool. And then you begin to move.
Sometimes with pressure. Sometimes with the lightest touch. Sometimes a drip finds its way down the canvas. Sometimes the paint builds thick and stays.
Sometimes your hand moves in wide sweeping circles. Sometimes in figure eights. Sometimes straight up and down, again and again, until something shifts.
Sometimes the marks are large and fill the space. Sometimes they are small and precise and land exactly where they need to.
Sometimes color is added. Sometimes it is scraped away.
You don't decide any of this. You follow it.
There is no instruction. No evaluation. No expectation of what should emerge.
What moves through your hands is not something you decide. It is something you allow.
“The stillness, calm, peace. My mind would try to chatter, but there was a beautiful grounding presence. Such a gift. I can still close my eyes and go back, hear the insects chirping and the birds singing. It was a beautiful pause.”
Come once, or come back
Some people come once and feel complete. Others feel something open and want to return. The inner listening muscle develops the way any real thing develops, through return, showing up again to the same quiet practice and noticing what begins to change. You’re welcome to come as often as you like.
Returning, even when life is full, even when you aren’t sure what you’re returning for, is its own form of inner listening. This is a place you can come back to whenever life gets loud, and you need a way back to yourself.
“Attending the Restore Peace outdoor painting session was so much more than a creative experience for me.
There was a moment when I was standing barefoot in the grass, surrounded by nature, with nothing demanding my attention and nowhere else I needed to be. For the first time in a long time, I was completely present with myself.
I’ve spent years saying that I wanted a different life—land, animals, a slower pace, less clutter, and more meaning. I’ve talked about it, dreamed about it, and imagined it. But standing there, I realized that wanting something and moving toward it are not the same thing.
That session gave me the space to ask myself a simple but powerful question: What action am I actually taking to create the life I say I want?
That moment became a turning point. It was the beginning of a decision to stop waiting and start moving forward. Since then, I’ve begun taking real steps toward the life I’ve always envisioned.
What Nicole has created isn’t just an art retreat. She’s created an environment where people can reconnect with themselves, find clarity, and hear the quiet truths that are often drowned out by everyday life. For that, I am incredibly grateful.”
The Practice
With no plan or outcome in mind, I let my hands move.
I placed my hand on the blank canvas, listened, and let what was moving come through. A few brushes and tools from around the house. No destination. Just presence and paint, and the quiet that comes when you finally stop trying to figure something out and let go of an agenda.
What arrived felt like deep connection, to myself.
Emotions moved through my hands without stories attached to them. Colors arrived that I hadn’t consciously chosen. Paint dripped like sadness. Bright, unfamiliar colors sprang up without warning. Something tried to form too soon and was met with grief when I covered it over.
My hands kept moving anyway.
I stopped just as form was beginning to take shape.
When I looked at the canvas afterward, I was struck by how many marks I had made and how much movement it held. The canvas was full of it. None of it planned. Nothing symbolic. Just what moved through my hands from what was moving in me. Without words. Without narrative. Without the need to make meaning.
Just raw processing.
I realized then that this was the foundation beneath everything else I offer, including my attunement paintings. The inner listening that makes release possible. The quiet that allows what is forming to finally be heard.
I had been doing this practice for years without knowing what to call it.
Now I do.
What to Expect
When: Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 10:00 to 11:30 am. Saturdays, 1:30 to 3:00 pm.
Season: The outdoor studio is open April through November. It closes from December through March and reopens in April.
Where: Outdoors beside the pond in Culpeper, Virginia.
Your station: a bench, table, easel, palette, acrylic paints, and a curated mark making kit of brushes and tools. Everything is moveable, so you can arrange your space in whatever way feels right. An umbrella at each station blocks sun or light rain.
Small by design: up to six guests, each at their own station and set apart, so the space never loses its intimacy.
Everything provided: no art experience, no preparation. You only need to arrive and stay with yourself.
Weather: in severe weather, I’ll reschedule your session.
Cost: $55 per session.
Find Your Way In
