My first Dutch picture book...illustrated by me!

So, this isn't any real news, that I worked on Boom en Kraai some months ago and I also shared photos of the launch and signing session last weekend, but of course a bit more in-depth article on my blog is always nice and here it is!

The printed illustrations have a bit more contrast than on my computer screen, but it still turned out very beautiful, bright and really just like any other picture book of high quality. The weight and size of the pages and the book is also just what I like. This is thanks to the author Susanne self, in cooperation with the printer I guess.

Some pictures:

 

The launch was a small gathering at a really beautiful location (very fitting to the book itself) and it was really special, signing all the books, receiving compliments and seeing people enjoy reading the book. Definitely also very cool to meet the author in real life and give her a big hug!

 

I'm very happy that I was part of all of this and I'm looking forward to illustrating books like this many more times (which will hopefully happen)!

Time for a give-away!

I'm giving away illustrated egg cups, it's almost Easter after all!
This time the give-away will happen on Facebook. Check this link.

Boekie-boekie entry

About an hour ago a lot of young illustrators received a list of the nominations for the start-award of the (Dutch) Boekie Boekie contest. I wasn't on it. But actually I'm pretty glad with what I made, so I want to share my illustrations nonetheless :).

These are supposed to be illustrations of stories written by children, the stories will be published alongside the winning illustrations in the Boekie-Boekie magazine (which won't be mine..). Of course I can't spoil the stories yet, but who knows what stories you can think of seeing these illustrations ;).

Edge

For Illustration Friday

"Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. 
It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. 
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?
Actually who are you not to be?" - Marianne Williamson, 
from 'A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles'

Martins Castle

Today I finished a sketch that I made some weeks ago. First I wanted to make this something like a haunted castle, but I wanted to give it a bit of a Dutch twist. See the children there, they are walking with lanterns. This is a Dutch tradition (well at least in some part of the Netherlands) called Sint Maarten (Saint Martin). It's a bit like halloween, but kids don't dress up... they create their own lantern (or buy one) and walk around in their neighbourhood, ringing doorbells, singing songs and then you're supposed to give them candy.

In the neighbourhood that I grew up in, a bit on the countryside, the distance between houses can become quite large so the only thing guiding you in the dark is your lantern and the lights of the houses, it can be quite scary but also very fun! I imagined these kids in the illustration to have the same kind of experience. Next to that: I just love the warmth of light out of the windows on a dark and cloudy autumn eve. Enjoy!

Things I posted elsewhere

I still had to post this here just in case you aren't on facebook, tumblr or twitter. Some things from last weeks....there's an extra though!

I've got to stop drawing things on the left side of the image o_o;;

and here: I drew this as a sort of alternative resume page on my website, but I'm not happy with it, it's a bit too chaotic. I'm going to do something else, but in the meantime I can show you this:

Book (for IF)

I had fun sketching this on my iPad tonight, it's for Illustration Friday with the theme 'book', which is very nice because in the Netherlands the national children's books week begins tomorrow.
The boy looks like a younger version of my boyfriend.

On a side note: I'm actually pretty happy at the moment, not only because of this sketch (I planned on sketching more), but because my boyfriend and me got engaged last friday. I feel so blessed and fortunate!

A list with useful links for illustrators

Some weeks ago I thought it would be good to make a list of all the stuff I thought were useful in my illustration career, not only for myself (I can easily lose track of these things) but also for others to easily find a lot of tips and information at one place.
You can find the list here: http://illubis.blogspot.nl/

If anyone has any other tips, like books or websites or anything, let me know please! I'm open to any other contribution or contributors. I hope this way we can help other (starting) illustrators as well.

P.S. I just started the list so not everything I ever read is already on it...

More green

Even more new work! I made a cover and a border illustration for a booklet for IVN, commissioned by Bart ter Haar. The main theme was the transition from a grey dark city to a bright green natural environment!

  

And this was the border: 

 

It was actually the first time I had to do an illustration job in a short(er) timeframe, so I had to work at night but it was a good experience! Also, yay green and nature and trees :) made me happy, hope you guys share the same feeling!

Newssplash!

I've been busy last weeks (and glad to)! Since at least two illustration jobs are done now I can finally show you guys some things that I made!

First of: a board game called Frogs! I've been commissioned by Woodbine Street Games to illustrate their game about frogs hopping over a pond. And it was so much fun to do, I'm so glad they asked me!
Here are some things I made:

I especially like the lilypads and water pieces that I made, but the frogs were lots of fun to draw too.
You can buy the game online at Game Crafter. If you're interested in more news from Woodbine Street Games, check out their Facebook page here!

Comparing...there's more to life!

A week ago I was back in Groningen for a farewell party of one of my former classmates. It was great to see so many faces again and good time to catch up with everyone, since most did go their own way after art college. Me being away for a year, not talking to everyone left me a bit blind in where I stood...and it also made me crave to know about what is 'good' and 'success' and what not. The thing is, you decide that yourself.

Results

After some weeks I'm busy again and I got mail from http://www.lichtmetbericht.nl/ that the memorial/funeral cards I illustrated are printed and now for sale (on that same website).
Look at these:

I think they turned out lovely, I hope many people find hope and remember love and good times with these paper lights! http://www.lichtmetbericht.nl/ also got a lot of other designs for sale, hopefully they'll reach many hearts.

Illustration / sketches from last month(s)

I owe you guys some illustration I made last month and posted elsewhere.

Summer holiday is already over!

This is the last day of my summer holiday, I 'only' had three weeks off (this is very short comparing what I used to have as a student). Sigh...working life. But...I had a great time!

A look into the process

Some weeks ago I finished an illustration I made for the background of the Hire an Illustrator website.
In December they asked if some of 'their' illustrators wanted to create a seasonal background and I decided to contribute. However, it is not up yet, they've been planning to do some sort of rotational background later this year. I'll keep you updated about that.

Well, I decided to keep a record of the progress of this illustration. Often have I seen it on DeviantArt and blogs and I always find it very useful and just fun to see and learn. I don't know if others think the same, but I just gave it a try. So here it is (it might take a while to load since I put it all in one image):

And this is the final version (the real thing is a bit larger though):





I'd love to see more process-showing things by others, but it's also taking a lot of time so I understand why it's not thát common to do. However, when I was creating the whole process image I discovered that it's actually a good way to learn and evaluate...so I might do it more often in the future, if I get the chance.

The art of motivation

Find it hard to keep yourself motivated as a (starting) illustrator/artist? Feel like you're the only one?
The following things might help!

Let it snow...

I'll be travelling to the North of the Netherlands tonight and I'll have a week off next week (yay, finally time for drawing!!), hopefully I'll be blogging interesting things in 2012 as well. Happy holidays everyone!

Christmas menu cards to print for free!

What's better than having a really nice dinner during the Christmas days? And you know what would make it even better... Christmas menu cards of course! 

Whenever I used to have that special Christmas dinner at my parents' place, we (my five siblings and me..) wanted to make something really fancy and menu cards were definitely a part of that. Now we're celebrating Christmas day at my boyfriend's mother's place I don't have the chance to make those menus. So that's why I made some for my followers and readers to print for free instead. Enjoy!

My christmas cards designs at kaartje2go

Exciting news everyone!
Kaartje2go, one of the biggest and best known Dutch greeting cards websites will be selling cards with my illustration/design on them! I know for international readers this might be not that exciting, but I might have something coming up for you guys as well!
In the meantime you can see the new christmas cards I made last month here!
Hopefully lots of people will see and want to send my cards to their friends, family and other beloved people.


For now it's mainly christmas cards but in the future I will certainly upload more designs there. Also a nice fact is that people that are new to Kaartje2go can send their first card for free!

Draw/sketch apps for iPad review: Procreate vs. SketchBook Pro

- Edit, this review is a bit old and since both apps had updates, especially Procreate has undergone some good changes, they have more brushes which you can edit (only if you want to). In the last part of this review I said I couldn't put drawings in the photos map....which is nonsense, since a while now I can, so maybe I overlooked that part.-

Since a short time I’m the proud owner of an iPad 2. Not only my boyfriend (who is a nerd and gadget lover) did want one for a long time, I was also (and still am)convinced that the iPad is a worthy addition to my illustration hardware. I use it for digital sketching and as a digital mobile portfolio, and ofcourse when you’re mainly creating illustrations digitally it comes in handy to have a tool that shows your art just like you made it. You don’t have to print out things, I can easily connect it to my computer and update my portfolio folder.

The sketching part is however even more interesting, because the iPad is a fine piece of technology on which you can run applications that are as good as on your normal desktop computer.

My iPad is even bigger than my Wacom drawing tablet! But is it as good as a normal sketchbook?