Stacey-Ann Cole of Creativesque

Today I am featuring the talented and all round lovely person, Peterborough based fellow artist and friend, Stacey-Ann Cole of Creativesque.

Tell us about yourself?

I am a Mother of two and also an Artist who works from home.  In previous lives, I’ve worked as a secretary and a bookseller but Art is my recently rediscovered passion.

Tell us about what you do?

I create colourful and inspirational watercolour art, often with an Afro-Caribbean theme but I also dabble with making handmade greeting cards and bookmarks.

What current projects are you working on?

I’m currently working on getting more of my paintings printed onto a variety of media such as greeting cards and bookmarks.  I’m also working on some hand-drawn greeting cards featuring collage elements.

What piece of work or project are you most proud of?

I think that I’m most proud of recently launching my first set of printed greeting cards featuring some of my watercolour paintings.  They have been quite well received and it makes me happy that my work is now available in a format that some of my customers may find more affordable.

Who or what inspires you?

Spirituality and nature inspire me as well as being a part of the online handmade community.  I am especially inspired by the mothers out there like me, who are juggling looking after children, the home and sharing their talents with the world.  Other inspirations are anything vintage, retro and eco-friendly.

When you aren’t fully occupied creating what are you doing?

Most of my time is spent looking after my children and our home. My youngest hasn’t started nursery yet so I try to paint in between doing her favourite puzzles on the floor with her and feeding her her favourite food: yoghurt!

How do you balance your creative pursuits and family life, work etc?

I balance it all by putting my kids first and fitting my creative and business activities around them.  I used to do this in a very unstructured and ineffective way but I’ve recently been more focused on setting boundaries and it’s working well.

I find that as long as my children have my undivided attention for periods of time every day then they’re happy for me to work a little bit in between.  Especially when we have fun things planned for later like our occasional pizza and dvd nights!  I’ve also become an expert Zelda: Twilight Princess player on the Wii J

Most evenings, I attempt to work for an hour or so after they’re in bed but my youngest still wakes up regularly so it’s not uninterrupted work time really!

Are you trying anything new, new skills, mediums etc?

I’m incorporating more collage into my work lately and mixing it in with my illustrations and drawings.  Next I want to learn how to include collage into my watercolour work too.

What do you hope to be doing in five years time?

I hope in 5 years time that my business has grown significantly and that I’ll be on my way to earning a good living from my work. I would also like to branch out into fabric design and designs for homewares, which should be fun as it’s quite different to what I do now.