HoW I WORK

In my drawings, I try to distort and represent the world on paper as I perceive it or as I remember it from childhood.

For every story, I look to create a certain personal style using lines, in which I try to wonder, like a child would, and draw the story as I would write it from my memory.

My style, in which my own memories and fantasies from childhood intertwine with reality and in which perspective and proportions are not always right or just ignored. Reality is always different from memory.

Attention to decorative elements, the beauty of nature, interior design, lines, composition and colour are important for my work. My work is a continuous quest for simplicity, the utmost expressiveness with minimal means.

I love working with graphite pencils, watercolour pencils and paint, felt tips, ink, acrylic paint, gouache and découpage techniques.

Besides writing children’s books, I am also a painter and photographer, but in principle I am a drawer and illustrator, and my education and my love of traveling, visual artists and writers has had a profound influence on my work.

The variation of writing and drawing is something I need, and which inspires me to form new thoughts about art and culture education and to express these in my classes. In a reflective approach to my work, I love to apply the principle of ‘lifelong learning and discovering’.

I try to tell children about the current urgent issues such as climate change and diversity. It is about being human in another world and how children experience that world.

The interaction I have with students nourish my ideas. Images and text are subject to transformation and I try to make my ideas as clear and accessible to a wide public.

At the bottom of this webpage, you can see a fairy tale box I created with revised fairy tales, such as ‘Little Red Riding Hood’.

Below, you can view a cartoon of the children’s book ‘Lieveling’

SEARCH FOR SIMPLICITY

The eternal quest for simplicity in writing and drawing makes me happy.

CULTURE EDUCATION

By teaching, you stay alert and keep your work fresh. Life is a learning experience.