For Immediate Release / November 30, 2022

Jillian Christian's Artistic-Side Blossoms

Jillian Christian’s art career began with the birth of her second child. 

Previously she’d managed a restaurant. While she loved the industry—it’s where she met her husband—she knew she wanted to focus on her children instead of returning to the bustle of that world.  

“I was very adamant that I wanted to stay home and help raise them,” Christian recalls.  

That also left room for her creative side to bloom. Art had been something Christian had dabbled in throughout her life, but never fully pursued. She started exploring styles, found herself drawn to a few in particular, and The Grapefruit Creative was born. 

Jillian Christian holding a large art work on wood panel. The art work depicts an assortment of colourful flowers  A circular art work, resting on a chair. The artwork depicts yellow and white flowers, green leaves and bright yellow lemons.

(The name came from her children too: a pregnancy app told her what size of fruit her babies were during their development, and “my little grapefruits” stuck as a nickname.) 

For the past six and a half years, Christian’s offered custom works as a visual artist. She specializes in hand-lettering, watercolour portraits, and—her main offering—textured florals: thick paint applied in tactile layers, to make the images rise up off the panels they’re painted on. The paint’s so thick, each one takes about a week to dry, but the results speak for themselves. 

“I am a big flower lover,” Christian says. “I love gardening and I love nature and all that kind of good stuff, but I really just like bringing them to life. The 3D texture really seems to make them pop and jump off the wood panel.” 

Christian found her styles through experimentation—she notes scouring the internet for inspiration—and trying to challenge herself. 

“I'm always finding new styles, trying to broaden my skill set and just do whatever I can so I don't get bored,” she says. 

It’s all proven quite a successful endeavor for Christian. Her works are carried at a range of stores and boutiques around town, and she’s a regular at local art walks, in addition to direct commissions she receives. Interest in her work has even maintained itself through the past few very disrupted years. 

A watercolour painting of a house.  A watercolour painting of a dog with the name "Louie" at the bottom.

“I was quite terrified when the pandemic hit that people just weren’t going to need art anymore,” she recalls. “But it's quite the opposite actually: everybody got stuck at home for so long that they realized that their walls were bare, and they needed art.”  

All kinds of art, it turns out—Christian was even commissioned to paint a cow skull. It was so large she had to paint it on her washer and dryer, “then try and lock my bathroom door so my kids couldn't get in there so it could dry,” she laughs. 

“It was terrifying, ‘cause I knew that this thing is very expensive and it's very large and I only have one shot at it,” Christian continues. “But it's super fun to challenge myself and get off my typical canvas and into something different.” 

The challenge was a success, though—her client loved the end result. 

Christian’s artistic practice hasn’t gone unnoticed by her children, either, and not just when she has to paint a large skull. Two of her three kids are now old enough to be dabbling in art themselves. 

“They love painting and creating and crafting and making giant messes for me to clean up,” she laughs. “I can now see them watching me as I work and I know that they're taking notes … It's neat to see.” 

By: Paul Blinov

 

To learn more about Jillian Christian's work, follow her on Instagram @thegrapefruitcreative.

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Last edited: December 1, 2022