A look behind the scenes with..
This week we take a peek behind the scenes with the creative Luci of @luci_sterre.
Could you introduce yourself? Who are you and what do you do?
Of course, I’d love to! My name is Luci, almost the same as your name, you just pronounce it slightly differently 😊
My friends and family actually almost always call me Luuk. I am 36 years old and live with my family in the centre of Alkmaar.
I paint, and have been doing so for almost 20 years now, and for a few years I have had a studio within walking distance of our home.
How did you get started?
I have actually always had a creative outlet; when I was very young it was more in the form of drawing doodles in notebooks or on my arm. When I was 19 I was told I was depressed, and a few days later my stepfather took his own life.
Despite the therapy I received, I understandably had a lot of feelings I couldn’t put into words, and that is when I started painting. Back then it was mainly abstract work with the occasional figurative element, and mostly just for myself. When, years later, I started painting from a happy place, I also dared to share it with people, and when I sold my first work to someone I didn’t know personally, I felt “this is what I want to do”, or rather, what I am meant to do!
Where do you get your inspiration?
Inspiration is all around us; I find it in the things I experience and the people I meet. It is mainly an energy that flows through me, not something tangible.
What is creativity to you?
Everything!
I couldn’t live without it. Even though it is overwhelming at times, I am so grateful that creativity is such a big part of my life.
Often, when I have something to process, it happens unconsciously through painting, and when the painting is finished I feel a lot lighter. That is also why I often find it hard to find the words to describe a painting.
What are your favourite materials to work with?
I mostly work with acrylic paint from the Amsterdam Expert series or from Winsor & Newton, soft pastels from Schmincke and water-mixable oil paint (actually with everything I have at hand).
Do you collaborate with brands?
It is a dream of mine to collaborate with creative brands, but at the moment I buy all the supplies I use for painting myself. I have recently started a collaboration with de Mulders (a shoe shop with a sustainable mission in Alkmaar), and I was lucky enough to receive some beautiful clothing from Lucas du Tertre.
What are your favourite colours and/or style?
That varies a lot; I can be really impressed by raw abstract works and by modern still lifes with an abstract twist and bright colours. I myself prefer to paint with every colour; “rainbow is my favorite color” suits my paintings well, I think!
What is it like for you to give painting workshops?
Beforehand I hadn’t expected to enjoy giving workshops so much! I put it off for quite a long time, thinking ‘what am I going to teach people as a self-taught artist?!’ I learned to paint by doing and as a way to get out of my head, so I learned unconsciously; how do you explain that?! Until one day I very consciously thought about every step I took and wrote it down straight away, and it became manageable for me. During the first workshop everything came together: my love of painting, working with people and creating an atmosphere. It is still special to see participants at the end of a workshop, a little amazed, with a gorgeous painting and a smile!
How do you take your photos?
I do everything with my phone, and I don’t like reusing material (or I forget I have it; unfortunately ‘organised’ isn’t in my dictionary yet), so my storage is regularly full.
In the future I would like to invest in a camera that takes photos and can film, so that I can keep my business and private photos and videos a bit more separate.
You already have quite a reach on Instagram, with 29.5K followers now. How did you achieve this? And I believe you switched from Dutch to English?
For a long time it was two steps forward, three steps back, and it took years before I passed 10K, which I thought was quite an achievement (and still do). After that it got a little easier, until at the beginning of this year several reels suddenly went viral, eight weeks after I had posted them!
My followers shot up to eventually 30.3K, a crazy number of people, right?! Now it is dropping a little again and that is totally okay; I am not everyone’s cup of tea and I don’t need to be. I also recently went through my followers very critically and removed almost 1,000 inactive accounts and bots.
Because of the surge in followers, a large share of them now comes from America, so I mainly write my texts in English, and sometimes I talk to the camera in English as well, but even in Dutch I often still find that awkward, so it depends on my mood 😊. If you scroll back a while in my feed, you will see that I switched to English once before and then back to Dutch. Who knows, maybe I will switch back again one day, but for now I am happy writing my texts in English.
How often do you post on Instagram now, and do you use posts, reels and stories?
I try to post a reel every day and share something in my stories; I see it as a visual diary that I share with the world.
Do you use any other social media channels to grow your reach?
Instagram is by far my favourite platform because of the engagement and the connections that come from it, but you can also find me on Pinterest, TikTok, Facebook and YouTube, where I share material I have also used for Instagram. I should really look into how my content should differ per platform, but to be honest I would rather have less screen time.
”Inspiration is all around us; I find it in the things I experience and the people I meet. It is mainly an energy that flows through me, not something tangible.”
Luci
What would you still love to do with your creativity/account? Dreams and desires? 😉
I long to find a little more stability in the business side of my creativity, and I dream of one day being able to travel with my family for exhibitions or other creative adventures.
What would you still love to learn?
I would really love to paint portraits. I occasionally paint figurative bodies and abstract portraits, but I am very critical of them.
Anything else you would like to share?
Keep believing in yourself and do the things that make you happy, and forget about the rest <3
Where can people find you?
On all socials @luci_sterre (will you send me a message if you found me through this interview? I’d love that!) or go straight to my website www.lucisterre.nl
Thank you for this look behind the scenes, Luci!
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