Mother, Artist…
A year ago, Paola Santiago Clarito was a housewife who was managing her home and taking care of a daughter. In her spare time, she would draw and paint and she would share these in her social media accounts, but she did not know what she wanted to do with all her finished artwork.
Then one day, a friend tagged her on Facebook which led her to a page on adult coloring books. It was a “lightbulb flashing over her head moment” because it gave her the direction she needed for her art and it helped define who she wanted to be as an artist. Paola released her 1st adult coloring book, Nostos, last August. It was one of the first few locally produced adult coloring books and it instantly became a big hit. It led to a featured segment for Paola in the TV5 show Happy Wife, Happy Life and a live guesting on CNN Philippines. It also landed her a feature in the Expat Magazine.
Paola Santiago Clarito is a 27 year old graduate of Physical Therapy from the University of Sto.Tomas. She started her career working in hospitals as a licensed PT, but there was always that lingering feeling she was meant to be doing something else, something that would stir her imagination, something that would unchain the limits of her fantasies and creativity. She eventually found her real calling not in the confines of a hospital but in the less constricting world of the arts.
She started doodling back in college when she had classes that bored her, but she began to take her craft more seriously when she became a mom to her daughter whom she named Lilo. She taught herself how to draw and paint, often turning to Youtube to watch instructional videos and practicing the things she learned during her spare time, which was usually after midnight when her little daughter and her husband would be snoozing in dreamland.
NOSTOS: OUT OF THIS WORLD COLORING BOOK
She has sold paintings, shirts with her own designs, and 3D butterfly clocks. She has also done commissioned artworks. But Paola has established her mark in line art and in the designs she has made for adult coloring. She even has gone international. She recently signed a contract to be a guest artist in the online coloring pages service Blue Star Inspire where her designs will be made available to subscribers. Blue Star is the San Antonio-based company that publishes the number coloring book in the United States and the top selling line of coloring books in the world. Paola also recently released a follow-up book, Nostos 2: An Out of This World Coloring Adventure, which she released this March and is available on her Facebook page, Art by Paola Santiago Clarito. Check out more of Paola's work: ART BY PAOLA SANTIAGO- CLARITO
