Moving Blogs: I'm somewhere else

Today I was about to redesign my website but in the end, I actually kinda liked my own design better than the wordpress designs I found on the web. Sometimes I have an old-fashioned kind of style and I like it better when it looks like I made it. Anyway I was also thinking of starting a new blog on the wordpress-website-to-be, but in the end it all costs a lot of effort to keep too many blogs. I've blogging on Tumblr for almost 3 years now and I like it there. It's more personal but that also makes my blog a more 'honest' place and that's okay. So
from now on I won't be blogging here anymore.
You can find me blogging at
PETRAVB.TUMBLR.COM

Thanks for following me at blogger anyway :).

Fanart Friday

Sometimes it's hard to keep up with all my blogs (haha maybe I have too many).
Anyway, for those people still reading here (not that I know who you are..), I've made some fanart the last weeks, I thought I'd share 'm here as well:

This one is from Frozen, the latest Disney movie:

And this one from Wreck-it-Ralph

I like making fanart because it's fun to do but it also is still making art ^^.
Both movies are copyrighted by Disney of course. Did you see the movies and did you like them? Do you think creating fanart is appropriate as a professional illustrator?

Newsletter #6: Fall/Winter 2013 is out now!

Read my newsletter here!

Vote for my fabric design!

I've joined the spoonflower fabric design contest. It's a weekly contest so I think there are still two days left to vote. This time the theme was 'ugly christmas sweaters'. Sounds fun right? Right!
Voting is simple, just click this link: www.spoonflower.com/contest_voters_temp/new?contest_id=225
, vote for your favourtie fabric and click submit. My fabric design appears randomly on the page, so you have to look for 'berkumpje' and for this picture :

It would be really awesome if you could vote for me :) thanks anyway!

30-day challenge!

Oh hey all!
I totally sometimes forget about this blog because I have tumblr and it's easier to be more active there. Also, friends and family seem to be on facebook a lot so I don't see a big reason to blog on my 'real' blog anymore.
However, for all those people still reading this and are not on the other platforms: I'm doing a 30-day drawing/art challenge! I'm on Day 6 now so I have made six 'random' pieces of illustraiton/art/whatever. And I want to keep doing that everyday until 21 december. Yup! I want to get my creative spunk going and decided it was a good idea. And it was because I really like doing it ^^! So check it out on my tumblr!

Time

It's been a month now since I stopped working at my parttime job and moved to Groningen. It took a while to get used to being at home and not working most of the time. I have been busy with illustrations/designs of course, but less than before. I've got lots of time on my hand now...so hello there, I'm available for paid freelance work again!
I decided to proceed with my illustrating business because, well because I still like drawing and painting and illustrating things but I'm not going to take on every job from now on and I've got to be sure that it really is what I want to do.

My last job was designing a logo for 'De Lichtdichter' a photographers duo that uses unconventional material to print their photos on. They still knew me from the art-tent at the Elf Fantasy Fair in 2012. I was happy that they really liked my painted look to design the logo with and I'm very happy with the result!

Next to that I've been looking for a job but it's pretty hard to find in the North of the Netherlands. I was kind-of offered a job in Amsterdam but I turned it down because: Amsterdam (and they weren't willing to compensate for travelling costs)...and I just moved here. It's too bad there is not so much illustration/design/game stuff going on around Groningen (that I know of) though Nick has been getting more connections lately because of his job as a game design teacher and it's been fun thinking about working on game art again, so hopefully something will come up. I miss being creative with other people...in real life I mean. I need that personal level of communication in my work if I want to stay happy. To do that I need to meet more people, so I guess that's my next step.

New 2d game art & a new home

I'm working together with Binary Pulsar Studios to develop a game and I made some isometric 2D art (buildings) for them I uploaded some weeks ago to my portfolio/website. I really like the result and it was fun to do so I thought I'd share it on my blog as well!

Talking about buildings, we moved back to Groningen and live in a new apartment now. It's pretty nice...close to the city and close to family and friends. And I have my own work space now (a room of my 'own'), woohoo!
Let's see if it helps me finding a better way to work as an illustrator/designer. I still haven't fully 'picked up the pencil' yet, since I also need a new side job as well. I'm taking my time to get some rest and time to think, although some people already have asked me for some commissions and I also signed up for a course that has nothing to do with graphic design at all :) .

Taking a Break and other plans

Dear followers, readers, friends and whoever reads this.

I decided that it's time for a break from illustration work.
What that means: I won't be taking official illustrative commissions for the moment, until...I don't know.

Weekend to Brussels

Hello all! I've been so busy with other stuff, work and arranging things for the wedding that I haven't had the time to write a blog post. So I decided I wanted to draw/doodle/sketch and write a short report of our 'honeymoon', which was a weekend trip to Brussels. Here it is. Sorry, yes it's in Dutch :p I'll try to explain it in English afterwards.

  

    

  

Basically, Brussels is a nice city. We didn't know if we should speak English or Dutch instead of French. It's pretty expensive as well (but mostly the drinks). Also, be patient with the waiters...in most places they were kinda slow and not so observant, sometimes we had to shout multiple times to get their attention. We didn't bring chocolate because it was super hot outside and we were afraid it would melt, but otherwise I think I would've bought a lot of it. The Comic Strip museum wasn't that interesting unfortunately, but I had lots of fun just shopping around in the main street (near Munt). If you're there in the summer, try to look up if Mini-Europe (in Bru-park near the Atomium), still has the firework show on Saturday night, it's worthwhile!

Also, if you like anime or manga, they have two anime/manga stores in Brussels (Dong Co and Super Dragon Toys) and several comic book stores where they sell (French) manga but also have merchandise (but mainly from One Piece :/ ).

How to deal with a part time job as a freelancer.

A while ago I decided to try to write a piece, maybe a small book, about how to deal with a part time job as a freelancer. But maybe I'm just not the type for writing a book. I finished the start of it though and it's a big piece of text, if you're reading this blog casually then you might want to save the article or bookmark it).

Also: feel free to comment or if you have any ideas on how to proceed or any suggestions... anything is welcome!

How to deal with a part time job as a freelancer:

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.

Find your online medium

Here is something I learned and wanted to share:

Promotion by social media is a good thing.

Just don't do everything, every social internet platform.

It's ok if you're not (that) active on all of them. 

Just take those ones you like and the ones that you think will work for you.

Sounds simple, but it's actually more effective than using all of them and think that will work.

Trying is not bad at all, but just try to learn from it (and move on if it's not working for you).

A bit of history

Last week I had a conversation with my boyfriend/fiance about blogs, about what makes people get interested, about what is interesting anyway. And I said something to him about that I think what is interesting in this world, at least to me, is to have a small look in people's minds and show and share something personal. But I wasn't even doing a lot of that in my own life, or on my own blog. I thought about sharing something personal with a deeper explanation to the 'why' and all. And I thought about combining it with something like a theme. The theme is passion, fandom, inspiration. Or short: 'love' (this is totally not related to today being Feb. 15).

When did I began drawing? Not at any different sort of time than any other kid I think. I can't say something that a lot of illustrators can, which is "I have been drawing from whenever I could hold a pencil in my hand". I wasn't obsessed with it, I still don't think I am, but that might only be because my definition of 'obsession' is something like an unhealthy thing, whereas I think my love for drawing and painting is healthy. Well, usually.

Update

Hello all!

I'm a busy bee at the moment, I'm working on a picture book and am just over the half of the Chris Oatley Academy Painting Drama course. Which is amazing by the way, it gave me a lot of insights that are so obvious when you know. But you need to know and not a lot of resources on the internet or in magazines give you the reasons why certain things work in art and illustration. So it's already worth it :)!

A tip of the iceberg that is the homework for the Painting Drama course.

Next to that I've done some secret things that I can't really tell you yet about. Or maybe I can a little bit.
At the moment I'm writing (a short book, or a very long article, I don't know yet) about being a freelancer whilst having a part time job next to it. There are so many reasons why I'm writing it, but it's mostly because it is exactly what I am doing and I thought it was time somebody should write about it. There are SO many resources, articles and blogs out there about freelancing and succeeding in it, but nobody every really tells about how to handle that while you're having a part time job next to it. And I have firsthand experiences with it that I think could be very useful for a lot of 'starters' out there. I don't have any clue when the book is going to be finished though.

Some weeks ago I did some character sketches for the visual novel-game by Tim Bruls / GameFoqus called S.P.O.O.N., which is a story about futuristic cooking! Honestly a very original subject in my opinion.
You can read more about it (or play the first version of the game) here.
The idea is to make a more polished version of it later on, I'll keep you posted about that!

First character sketches for S.P.O.O.N.

And last but not least: I've updated my website a bit, I changed the sketch-section into an editorial section, since it's more relevant and recently I've been creating more illustrations for magazines and booklets as well!
Next to that it was time for a change of the concept art page, because it needed a better arrangement of subjects, which is hopefully a lot clearer now. Some new things I made for GameFoqus projects were added and I hope that I can add more concept art sketch work to it after I finished the Painting Drama course, already looking forward to it!

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 ;).

iPad for Artists

Do you have an iPad? Do you like digitally drawing or painting?
I think you will like a book that arrived here last week.

A while back, Dani Jones (a really nice illustrator from New England, who also seems to have quite an internet fame) called out for iPad art on her twitter account, so I sent her something and it ended up being used in this nice book called iPad for Artists that she wrote. I was so excited when I saw it in the mailbox, you can imagine.

This piece was made in the app Procreate, my fav. painting/drawing app on the iPad. I used my Boxwave stylus for it, but I don't think that is of a lot of importance.

You can read more about the book here, on Dani Jones' website , she also posted a sneak peek of it on her blog. Awesome!

Open source drawing software review: Krita and MyPaint

One of the most fun things to do as an artist (at least for me) is trying out new tools.

Either if it's something traditional like pastel crayons or markers or something digital like new drawing software.

The latter is something I actually use more these days. Not that I don't ever touch a real brush again but it seems to grow more and more as 'my' medium, next to the plain old pencil for sketching of course.

Now, drawing (and painting) software can be an expensive thing, but there are actually free alternatives out there. Most of you must have heard of GIMP. It's doing pretty good as an alternative for Adobe Photoshop, especially seeing that Photoshop costs A LOT of money.

Lately I have seen people using other software as well, and I became too curious not to try them. Those I'm going to review here: Krita and MyPaint.

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'

Printable gift tags for Christmas gifts

Hi everyone!
Yesterday I posted my latest newsletter, which you can read here!
In the newsletter I posted a link to some freebies I made yesterday:
some festive gift tags for your christmas present (if you give any..).
Here you go:


Have a nice christmas and see you in the next year!