We recently connected with Natasha Napier and have shared our conversation below.

Natasha , appreciate you joining us today. Any thoughts about whether to ask friends and family to support your business. What’s okay in your view?

My business started when my friends and family would ask for custom work. Initially, I’d make small paintings for gifts. This grew into making digital designs and pet portraits. Friends would request designs for their baby showers, weddings, and other events. By painting and then bringing it into photoshop, I could create a unique design.

My custom pet portraits are my favorite example of friends and family supporting my business. Originally, close friends reached out for a portrait to give to a loved one on holidays or birthdays. Additionally, after the death of a pet, friends and family asked for a pet portrait to remember their beloved companion. I began sharing these on social media and the requests quickly increased! Through word of mouth and social media, I had many others reaching out for pet portraits. This has become one of my most popular listings.

I enjoy these pet portraits for personal reasons, too. For example, I recently created a painting of a beautiful horse for a close friend. It brought back so many memories for me, as she and I used to ride our horses together when I was young. This friend has been one of the few who has consistently supported my art through custom requests and purchasing original artwork and prints.

Knowing that close friends and family have my art in their homes and are able to enjoy it and have others see it brings me great joy. Having grown my business to now have customers from all over the United States also gives me great satisfaction.

Natasha , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Growing up, I always loved to create. Eventually I studied Fine Arts and Painting at the University of Houston, with a focus on large scale abstract painting. In 2015, I started my career as a high school art teacher (digital art) upon graduation. I love teaching my students to be creative and witnessing them explore ways to express themselves through art. I am currently in my 8th year of teaching high school digital art media.

Over the years, I have had friends and family reach out for small commissions that I would work on during weekends or after my day job. Eventually, I decided to start an online shop on Etsy to sell some of my smaller original works. I named it “Crea Creations”, using my maiden name since it tied in nicely with the word “creations”. I began making prints to supplement my original paintings and also incorporated digital designs that customers could download and print at home.

My products include a variety of options, but mostly center around botanical subjects and animals. My love for the outdoors, gardening, and florals in particular are reflected in my watercolor paintings. I have loved drawing flowers since my childhood. My mother and grandmother both maintained beautiful gardens, andI’d enjoy time surrounded by their flowers. In fact, I always called my mom’s yard “the jungle”! Flowers draped her swing set, climbed the fences, and bordered the edges of the yard and windows. I would take countless photos to reference my drawings and paintings while I studied at school. Eventually, when I had a house of my own, I began my own garden and enjoyed the task of tending to my plants and watching them grow. I find tranquility and relaxation as I work under the sun, listen to the birds, and observe the beautiful colors.

My work has never been dull. I love to experiment with color and surprise people. Over the last few years, my art has expanded to incorporate custom pet portraits, wedding dress portraits, and digital cards. The pet portrait requests keep increasing, especially around the holidays. Customers send me their favorite photos of their beloved pets and I create a watercolor painting in their likeness. During the holidays I offer a card and pet portrait painting combo so that customers can print a digital card to send to their loved ones. I believe my pet portraits stand out from others because they always capture the charm or personality of the pet. I try to find an aspect to hyper-focus on that will really catch the viewer’s eyes. Also, I keep the background simple with a subtle shadow to make the pet painting pop from the surface through the use of contrast. In addition to pet portraits, I also work with customers on custom paintings or digital designs such as logos, posters, wedding invites, and more!

As an artist, I create bodies of work that gradually evolve over time. Currently, I am working on creating a series of botanical insects. I love the idea of combining something often seen as ugly (insects) and showcasing them with radial designs of flowers and leaves. You will find beetles, bees and other insects showcased within a complex kaleidoscope of seasonal florals and botanical elements. Currently I am finishing a moth on a large sheet of torn watercolor paper.

I greatly enjoy the moments when I find time to paint, and love being able to share my art with others through Etsy and social media!

Have you ever had to pivot?

The most pivotal moment in my life is when I began to have health issues. Dealing with an invisible and chronic illness has been incredibly challenging in all aspects of my life. Instead of being able to find a cure, I have had to embrace that living with a chronic illness involves constant symptom management, coping, and/or adapting in order to move on. The hardest part having the same expectations of my body, when in fact, my body could no longer handle those expectations. There were moments where I felt uninspired from the exhaustion of pain or just trying to cope and manage my new way of life. This was very difficult, as painting and being outdoors had always been a coping mechanism.

Due to this change in my health, I stopped creating large scale work. It was simply too large and too difficult to manage. This was frustrating, but I switched to smaller scale paintings and changed my media to watercolor, allowing me to better manage my health and eventually enabling me to paint again. I am able to paint for short periods of time as I wait for layers to dry. It is therapeutic and calming, as it forces me to slow down.

Although this was a difficult time in my life to manage when it all started, I have persevered and continue to strive to express myself creatively and enjoy nature in ways that I am still capable of. A little more limited, but still capable. It has led me to experiment more with digital media and combine my love of painting and working with digital art to create a huge shift in my art business. I have been able to expand my skills and cross over into the design world. I have created digital paintings, illustrations, logos, posters, and many other products in the last year or two, expanding my portfolio.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist is witnessing personal growth and touching others’ lives with my art. As an educator, I teach my students to grow personally and artistically throughout their high school years. My personal love of experimentation is always embedded within their lessons to teach them to be unafraid to try new things, mess up, and build confidence in themselves. I love witnessing their evolution and growth as they become confident young adults with amazing artistic skills! Sometimes I forget to see that in myself, as I also slowly evolve and change, growing new skill sets and trying new out of the box ideas as a small business owner.

These last several years, I have loved receiving personal feedback, stories, reviews, and photos of those whose lives I slightly touched with a small painting. Being able to give someone a little piece of remembrance or joy and happiness can be so rewarding. The art journey can seem difficult at times, as you compete with so many others out there in the world. It can make you feel vulnerable and question if you are good enough. However, the personal feedback and stories I receive bring me a sense of purpose and rekindle the energy to continue creating, making, experimenting, and sharing these works of art.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://natashajcrea.wixsite.com/natasha-napier
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/crea.creations?igshid=NmNmNjAwNzg=
• Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/ncreacreations/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natasha-napier-8925ba228
• Other: https://www.etsy.com/shop/CreaCreations