Have you always been drawing?
I've always been drawing, from a very early age I have always had mountains of drawings piled up around me. My father is a cartoonist and in the weekends he would sit at the dining room table and draw. He gave us paper and ink and then we had to make very nice drawings.
When did you realize that you wanted to become an illustrator?
Three years ago, when I was on vacation in Itay and sat under a tree with a sketchbook on my lap drawing. I then realized that that was what I liked doing most of all. I used to do some illustration work but that was secondary to my work as designer.
Have you studied formally? What?
I studied at art college in Arnhem, and after that I did two years at the Atelies '63 in Harlem. I loved painting but became allergic soon after I finished my study and could paint no more. I tried just about everything: art commissions, interior decorating, writing, graphic design etc. Sometime I would be asked to do an illustration. The wine book "Under the Cork" by Niclaas Lei was my first success as an illustrator. But after that I started a bureau for Manic Creative Art Services "Lugtigheid and den Dulk" with a friend which had led a flagrant existence for about two years.
Who are your clients and how did they find you?
I get most of my work via-via, but there are several graphic designers that I work with on a regular basis. But I also get new clients and work through acquisition and through my web site. I work in various styles and make a diversity of things such as: illustrations for magazines, educational illustrations, cartoons and advertisements. During the last two years I also develop games with my brother, and we've made games for JUMBO and Nienhuis Montissori, among others.
How do you start a job and where do you seek inspiration?
If it is an illustration for an article, I get an idea pretty quickly, usually a couple of core words are enough even though it is better to have the whole article. I make the first sketches while I read it, and mail them to the client. In 99% of the cases, these sketches are accepted. If I don't have an idea right away, I wait until the very last moment and re-read the article in bed on the evening before the deadline. Then I get up very early next morning, go into the studio at 7 o'clock and make the illustration at one go. It always works.
I get inspired by Russian film posters from the 1920's, old match boxes, the New Yorker, Andy Warhol, Robert Crumb, Chris Ware, covers of pulp fiction. I am an information and image junkie. I would love to read all the newspapers and magazines from the whole world every day. I love to try out new things and find the right tone or style to match the commission.
In what media do you prefer to work?
I usually start working on paper, with a brush and Chinese ink. After that I scan the drawing and develop it further on the computer, an Apple G4 or my power book. I only work with Painter and so I think of myself just a bit as a real painter…
When is a drawing finished?
5 seconds before the deadline. Without a deadline I would go on and on. I have trouble stopping, just like the painter Bonard. He would get caught working on one of his own paintings while it hung in the museum. He'd smuggled in the paint and brushes under his coat. I feel something like that..
What work have you been most satisfied with?
I think our last game Kroko Loko. It's great that an idea that you get at the kitchen table is now lying for sale in stores. Hope that kids like it too.
What kind of project would you still like to tackle?
I'd like to make more educational things, or a picture book for children.
1] My dad, cartoonist & game inventor: I learned it at my mother’s knee.
2] Robert Crumb: I’ve been familiar with his work since I was a child, but it still amazes me.
3] Chris Ware: he’s a recent discovery of mine, I’m not really a comic strip fan but for Chris Ware I make and exception.
portrait: selfportrait
translation: Ellen van Boggelen-Heutink
