As a child, Emily Stedman often felt like an outsider. Though what people said may have had one meaning, she observed that their gestures and movements sometimes indicated other meanings. She watched the interactions between people, as expressed through their body language. In her paintings the people are unrestricted, exposed, and accessible to each other. Her goal is to portray figures manifesting honest, vulnerable emotions through their actions. The convention in European paintings from the Renaissance on, has been to present the female nude coquettishly flirting with the spectator, or patron, outside of the picture. In Emily Stedman's paintings, the figures encompass each other.

Emily Stedman paints figures in watercolor, guiding models through various improvisational sequences and scenarios. Many photographs are taken as they progress. She draws from those photos that catch her eye, and when a drawing has the cradle of an idea she begins to paint on the watercolor paper. She doesn't pre-mix the colors, but applies them directly to the paper and allows them to mix on the paper. The watercolor paint separates into different areas as it dries creating rivulets of color.