Have you always you been drawing?
Yes, from the first moment I could hold something in my hand.
When did you realize that you wanted to become an illustrator?
From the moment I learned that how I was expressing myself was called 'drawing' or 'illustrating'. I was very young at the time.
Have you studied formally? what?
The Academy for Visual Arts in Arnhem, which is now called a Hogeschool (college of higher education).
Who are your clients and how did they find you?
How: Clients usually come to me through work I have done in the past.
Who: Publishers and the PR departments of companies.
How do you start a job and where do you seek inspiration?
I first read or listen to the briefing. Then I ask myself why what is being asked of me must be made. Then I try to ascertain whom my client wants to reach with his/her plan. From this I can determine, in my own view, what should be made. When that corresponds with the briefing, it also becomes the source of my inspiration.
In what media do you prefer to work?
I don't have a preference, as long as it allows me to draw lines and cover surfaces.
When is a drawing finished?
When I say it is.
What work have you been most satisfied with?
I still find the illustrations in 'The Wanderings of Aeneas' and 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' very satisfying to look at, but the small black and white illustrations in 'Last Stories of the Century' are also very dear to me. N.B. all are sold at good bookshops in the Netherlands.
What kind of project would you still like to tackle?
A small book the size of a child's hand that is full of comforting stories and small coloured illustrations. It should be a thick book, some two hundred pages long, with a linen binding and ribbon bookmark.
1] 'Egg cap': Heath Robinson, English illustrator with outrageous ideas: from his book 'My line of life' 1938
2] detail from 'The daughters of Edward D. Boit' 1882: John Singer Sargent.
3] 'Sketch for the groupportret of the family of Thomas Morus' 1527: Hans Holbein.
4] detail from 'Girotondo' 1985: Wainer Vacari, Italian painter.
portrait by Ingrid Joustra
