About Kirstin Joy

Kirstin Joy is a watercolor artist based in Cape Town, South Africa, known for her paintings, sketchbook work, and an audience she's built by sharing the real, unpolished process behind them rather than just the finished pieces.

She was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and attended The National School of Arts, where she was always painting and drawing — often on the walls of her parents' house, long before it was a career. At 18, she moved to Cape Town to study fashion. It was after college that painting pulled her back — first through hand-drawn chalkboards and signage, then wall murals for private clients, and eventually into building a life around watercolor and sketchbook practice full-time.

Today, Kirstin Joy Art is less about finished technique and more about the practice itself — showing up to a blank page, working through the pieces that don't come together, and documenting that honestly rather than only posting the wins. That's the idea behind her ongoing project painting her way toward buying a house, one piece at a time, and the writing she shares on
https://substack.com/@kirstinjoyart.

She currently lives and works in Cape Town, where she continues to paint, post, and figure most of it out in public.

Find her elsewhere:
[YouTube@kirstinjoyart] · [Instagram: Kirstinjoyart] · [TikTok: @kirstinjoyart] ·