The Guarduan Unlimited wonders whether an artist can be dedicated to their creation and still have a happy home life and does one have to give something up when kids come along?

For painter Chantal Joffe, 37, mother of two-and-a-half-year-old Esme, parenthood could not have been more fruitful. In June this year, she won the Royal Academy’s £25,000 prize for “most distinguished work”. Joffe is based in east London with her partner Daniel Coombs, also an artist. After her daughter was born, Joffe says, “everything seemed much more vital. You’re much closer to the edge of something. It seemed to me that you felt more alive. People will probably vomit when they read that, but that’s how I’ve found it.”