How long have you been drawing? When I was 10-11 years old, I felt the urge to express myself. I couldnít express myself in words because I was rather shy and timid. But my brother, who was two years younger, and I managed to get hold of an unused roll of newspaper and sat drawing at the kitchen table opposite each other every evening. We tried to stimulate or outdo each other with our creations. But later on in life, my brotherís attention was diverted by his guitar and I was left to draw alone, not often but still on quite a regular basis. When did you first know that you wanted to become an illustrator? When I was in the last grade of junior high I started making drawings (situation sketches) that gave me the feeling that I was an illustrator. So I spent a lot of time in libraries and searched for the illustrators in everything that I read. Have you studied formally? What? I went to the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, from which I graduated in 1979 in graphic design, because illustration was not an official subject. On Friday afternoons Piet Klaasseís (illustrator, artist) classroom was very busy with students who were - unofficially - doing their illustration assignments. Who are your clients and how did they find you? Mostly through contacts here and there. However, recently I have been getting work through public relation activities of my own. How do you start a job and where do you seek inspiration? Usually I read through the serious, heavy weight commissions as soon as I receive them, so that I can start thinking about them or react to them. Other, lighter weight commissions I usually try to read through the day before I start working on them. I always start by making very simple, loose sketches, inspired by what I have read and in most cases these bring satisfactory results. Sometimes I have to sweat a little. In what media do you prefer to work? When working manually, I prefer using pen and Indian ink and acrylics. However, sometimes it is a bother that acrylics tend to dissolve the ink lines. When working digitally, I use a tablet and a pressure-sensitive pen, preferably in Painter or Freehand.		When is a drawing finished? 1) When I am satisfied. 2) When I have to start on the next commission. 3) When I have passed the deadline. 4) When the drawing is finished. These four possibilities are in random sequence. What work have you been most satisfied with? Fortunately, the work that I make at present pleases me most. However, though I can be very satisfied about a certain illustration, after a time I usually feel estrangement. I am especially pleased when I notice that there is a certain progress or development. What kind of project would you still like to tackle? I would really love to make work that I am very satisfied with and that other people react to.
		sources of inspiration: 1] brilliant illustrators / artisits like Gerald Scarfe 2] intens childrenbookillustrators like Teh Tjong Khing and Philip Hopman 3] contemporary illustrators like Zoltan Korai, Jeroen Klaver, Femke Hiemstra, Tjalling Houkema en to me still 'good old' Sylvia Weve 4] reactions to my work portrait photo: Peter Smith