Petra's sketchblog

Moving Blogs: I'm somewhere else

noreply@blogger.com (Petra) — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 21:13:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Petra) — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 11:32:00 +0000

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!

noreply@blogger.com (Petra) — Wed, 11 Dec 2013 15:36:00 +0000

Read my newsletter here!

Vote for my fabric design!

noreply@blogger.com (Petra) — Wed, 11 Dec 2013 06:43:00 +0000

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!

noreply@blogger.com (Petra) — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 12:31:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Petra) — Sun, 03 Nov 2013 16:39:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Petra) — Tue, 01 Oct 2013 09:56:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Petra) — Tue, 27 Aug 2013 18:42:00 +0000

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.

Reason is that after two years trying really hard to establish myself as an illustrator commercial-wise and creating art for others, I feel like I have lost most of my motivation to make art/illustrations in general.

Being an illustrator means so much more than just making art, and I guess I'm not that good at the business side. For me..it's pretty hard to cope with companies and clients. People I don't know and 'suddenly' have to work for. Usually the expectations are different (than I thought) and it takes a lot of effort, energy and social skills to know beforehand what people really want from me as an illustrator or to fix the balance later on.
Even when last year I got almost no commissions at all, it still got me stressed whenever a client contacted me. I prefer to establish a bit more personal and stable relationships with people in real life, I think. I don't have a problem to create work for people I already know because usually I have a good understanding from what they want and they know what I'm capable of. Unfortunately, these days it's more common to not know your client that well and to accept a commission based on a small amount of info. It's something I'm not good at and brings me a lot of unhealthy stress.

From the other perspective as well: I just took on any commission that came to me because, well because they are scarce so I took on everything. I don't have the luxurious position to choose because I need the experience and money (well the latter a bit less because of a side job, but it's important nonetheless).
Since I'm still a starter I didn't and still don't know everything that is important to me and how to make the right choices. But I do know now that some things are too much and that I should take my time to consider what is good for me and what kind of work fits me personal-wise, instead of taking on everything.

Of course I had good, even great, experiences as well and I'm happy to have had them and to have learned from everything the last years.
And to make sure: it's not like I'm going to stop making art. And I won't stop with my more-recent graphic design work either. But I need some time to get my Petra-has-inspiration-and-wants-to-make-art-mojo back. I think that motivation is the most basic thing you need to do something, so without that it just won't work. I am planning to start creating art for myself, stuff that I like and get excited from (I want to try to paint big paintings again!) and maybe create more merchandise like cards or other goodies to sell.

Next to that: we are moving back to Groningen and will officially live there from October on. I'm very happy to live back in the neighborhood of my family and some friends again. It's another thing I learned last years: so important to have 'your' people close because..well..humans: we need others, to have fun and share things with. And also: to live in a city. Because there's so much more to do and it's probably easier to learn new people that are alike. I'm so excited :)!!

Hopefully none of you is really too much surprised or disappointed from this news. I think I didn't know myself that much, but at least I know a little bit more now. We'll see what happens after the break :).
Thanks for reading,

Petra

Weekend to Brussels

noreply@blogger.com (Petra) — Tue, 23 Jul 2013 10:30:00 +0000

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.

noreply@blogger.com (Petra) — Sun, 12 May 2013 15:44:00 +0000

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:

A fact: nowadays there are a lot more freelance people than there used to be. Why is that?

There are several reasons of course. For one it is because it is their dream, of working as a designer, illustrator or writer for example, because it’s not impossible in this world to chase your dream.

For others it might seem like a good career step to work on different kinds of jobs next to their ‘real’ job, so one day somebody can look at their resumé and think they have a lot of potential, or because even if they have a job, they secretly dream of working on something else.

For some it might be a necessary thing, because economic times drove them towards a very low stable income, but as freelancing isn’t easy as well there’s probably also another reason why these people rather freelance than doing something else to boost their income.

However there are also reasons that are the same for probably every freelancer. Everyone wants to be successful, which means that it makes you happy and that you earn money with it.

And there are also side-effects from being a successful freelancer, for example a boost of confidence and become more ‘yourself’.

There are all these good things about working freelance, but here’s another fact:

It isn’t easy. If you start as a freelancer the chances are very high that you won’t make a full stable income from the start.
Of course there are things that might help, if you have a great business plan and if you can prove that your business will be successful very soon then the bank might be able to help you with an upfront sum of money (which you’ll have to pay back one day). For artists it might also be possible in some countries to get a start-up fund that will support you in the first year or so.

But for the most of us, these opportunities aren’t available. Some businesses are just really hard to get started in, like me being an illustrator. Of course it was my own choice and I knew it wouldn’t be easy.

But there’s a pretty easy alternative for anyone that wants to start out as a freelancer but needs a stable income: getting a part time job.

Why a part time job

Money

First and foremost that’s because it creates income.
You will need a stable amount of it to pay the rent and food and all. A part time job can give you that, most part time jobs that are available for starters are the ones that are between 12-32 hours per week. Twelve hours might just (not)be enough to pay your monthly bills, while 32 hours can give you more money than you’ll need but will cut the hours available for daytime freelance work.

But here’s the thing with most part time jobs, they often come with flexible hours, that might differ between the twelve and thirty-two every week or month or so, depending on how much you are needed (we’ll talk about this flexibility later on), so the average probably will get you a sufficient income.

Peace vs. stress

This money can give you a lot of peace and calmness in contrast to a freelancer who would be anxious to see the end of the month coming and will struggle to earn enough money to make ends meet. There are of course people who rather have to struggle with their own business than to have a part time job. In some ways, struggling and working very hard for it might be good for a freelance business, but you have to be able to cope with the stress. While a part time job will make you earn money but also gives you the opportunity to slowly build on your freelance business step by step. You don’t have to rush, there’s no need. You can think everything through at your own pace. Now doesn’t that sound really good?

Freedom of choice: Pricerates

At the start of your freelance career it is usual not to charge as much as a person that has already worked for five, ten or more years. But it’s good to charge a fair price as well.

Anyone who reads blogs about freelance work these days won’t miss the posts that talk about that you shouldn’t underrate yourself, that you shouldn’t neglect the normal price for your work and go under it only to ‘get the job’. Well, there’s a reason why there are so many posts about it, that is because there actually A LOT of people that charge under the minimum wage. Which is crazy, but they do, mostly because they are afraid they can’t get enough money if they charge more because they won’t get the job. And they need the money.

Fortunately, when you have a part time job you can just ignore that ‘need of money and jobs’, because you don’t need that small bit of extra income.

And it’s only in your benefits: the jobs that pay almost nothing are those that aren’t very fun or that aren’t really cared about at all. Do you really want to do that? Probably not.

Next to that, it’s also very bad for the market to ask for a rate under the usual one. If it would be only one or two people, that wouldn’t matter but because more and more people ‘undercharge’ themselves, the business will notice and get used to those prices and ultimately you won’t earn enough money for it anymore to make a living from it.

Freedom of choice: Clients and jobs
It’s also good to be able to say ‘no’ to certain kinds of clients. Not only the ones that won’t pay enough, but there are also those that seem very kind in the beginning but get demanding more and more. There is a limit in what you can or will want to do and the same for asking a fair price counts for asking for a fair way of dealing with business. If you don’t really want to work on the job anymore you are able to tell them and cancel it, simply because you don’t need the money.

The thing is: you don’t have to deal with literally anyone who asks something of you. Often it is adviced you don’t do that as a freelancer, because it will confuse people when you say you can or will do everything. And especially if you are very good at one thing or want to specialize in a certain direction, don’t go and be the jack-of-all-trades only because you need the money.

Expense to invest

A stable amount of money is something we all need. The non-stable income from freelance work can be an extra above that, which is great because you don’t really need it at the moment, you can use it for example to save up for when you want to take the leap and work freelance full time. Or you can spend it on promoting your freelance business (think of postcards, flyers or having a stand at a market) or other freelance needs like books, courses or new hardware. Or both, depending on how much you’ll earn. And if you’re working hard enough both as a part-timer and a freelancer you’ll earn enough money to spend on other things, for yourself and your loved ones, as well which is also a kind of investment if you think about it.

Learn things!

It might sound stupid but even if you have the most simple job like being a cashier or working as a waiter for example, you can also learn from it. After all, a part time job is a job, even (or especially) when you didn’t choose for it or have studied for it.

For example, when I started working as a saleswoman at a small department store, I wasn’t really the open, outgoing and lively type. I’m the kind of person who is rather silent, who does her work best if she knows what to do and is able to do it. I warm up gradually, I became to like working with my colleagues a lot more after some time because I got to know them better, even though they are totally different than I am. I guess there is just a nice thing, a good piece of character in everyone that I became used to. Well, you can say the same for clients as a freelancer, even when you don’t know them in the first place doesn’t mean you can’t be open with them. I would say that if you are open and show them that you’re enthusiastic in the first place, that helps a lot!

Another example from me is working with the costumers at the store. I am not good at small talk, but there are often people who would make a joke here and there or tell something short about what recently happened in their life or why they are buying a certain article.

So in a way, you’ll have to talk with them. You will have to make a certain connection with them.

I don’t always know what to say, but if you honestly listen to them and say something back, it shows that you have interest and that you have a connection.

This connection in my opinion is a really important thing, also in freelance business. It can bring you happy clients that might even come back frequently, not (only) because of your product or service, but because you have a connection with them and the more you connect, the more they will be eager to work with you.

I’m sure that any sort of part-time job asks for certain qualities that you can also use in the rest of your life, that’s why money isn’t the only reason why a part time job is good to have.

If you have a hard time dealing with a part time job, remember that you’ll probably also have grown a bit from it as well. It’s not like you stand still or do nothing there, right? But if you have, you even could use that time to think about what to do with your freelance job, like how to write certain chapters or think of what to put in an image, so you don’t have to do that later on.

The not-so-clear ones

There are also other reason why it’s good to have a part time job, but these aren’t very clear at first sight.

- For example, some freelancers work at home, behind their desk or computer or …*fill-in*.

It’s just not that good for a human to only be at home, to only sit all the time behind a computer.

- It’s good if you meet other people, to have contact with others. It’s a healthy thing.

- It’s also good if you use your body and legs, to walk or cycle to your part-time job.

- It’s good to see something from the world outside, to enjoy (or experience the bad) weather, to see what is going on in your neighborhood.

Of course you can still do this when you are a freelancer, but a lot of people won’t do it as often.

It’s not easy

Sometimes I have a really bad day, when it’s cold outside, it’s really early and I just don’t want to get up from the bed and go to the part time job. I just want to work freelance full time already. Or more simply, sometimes I just don’t even feel motivated to go to my part time job, because it’s not always fun, challenging or anything that interests me.

It can be pretty hard to work at a job that wasn’t in your future-plans in the first place.

Stay positive

There is not always a good medicine for it (you just have to go and work anyway), but I guess you can realize things that might get you more positive:

- Cut yourself some slack: you are actually fighting and working really hard for your ideal job.

Be proud of yourself. Life isn’t easy, really and there are a lot of person who would just give up on having like two jobs. It’s honestly something to be proud of.

- Be happy with what you do and what you have. For example, if you just got a new freelance job and you’re excited about it, it could be annoying when you can’t work on it right away because you need to work at your part time job. But at least you can be happy to have gotten the job and you have something to look forward too.

- Most people didn’t get ‘there’ in days, weeks or even years. It takes time.

So take it easy, take your time and don’t rush yourself.

- In case you can’t easily be proud of yourself, try to share your hardships and achievement with other people. I’m sure that at least your family and close friends can tell you that you’re doing great and that they will support you if you need them.

Looking after yourself

Juggling with two kinds of jobs can be really difficult and ask a lot of you. Think about it: it eats up your time and energy. So in some ways you’ll have to learn to take care of yourself so you can work successfully. No really, when you neglect simple basic needs like enough sleep, food and social contact you can get overwrought, so pay attention to it. Not only yourself, physically and mentally, benefits from it, but also the jobs and the people you work with. If you’re overworked, you get nowhere so it’s better to prevent it. Here are some tips to help you look after yourself:

- Set a standard scheme. Both for freelance work (9-5, or some different time that works better for you) and for other daily needs like cooking, eating, doing groceries, taking a shower and going to bed. And stick to it. Of course not every day can be the same, but do it as much as you can. This includes the days you work at your part time job, even when you don’t have fixed hours, you can plan to not work for your freelance job at night, because else you could be very tired the day after that.

- Set standard times to take a break from your freelance work. It helps both physically to get rest (you’ll recharge and have more energy) and mentally, especially when it comes to creative work, having a break and doing something else gives you more space and bring new ideas when you’re stuck on something. Usually business and places you work at have the same thing. And it’s for a reason.

- If you have work in the next morning, either part time or serious freelance thing then get to bed early, or at least on time. If you have a party or something alike I also wouldn’t drink too much alcohol because your body probably has to recover from that even in the morning after.

- If you feel like you have to work too hard at the moment, you should take it more easy. It’s quite hard to identify this problem, because we often think we should work hard, ‘so’ it shouldn’t be easy. The human mind can easily nuance these little message your body can give you. These messages can also be from the outside world, like somebody telling you don’t really look healthy or asking you what you’ve been doing lately and you can only answer that you’ve been working really hard but not in an enthusiastic way.
Earlier on I said something about being able to work at your own pace, because of a part time job, and it’s true. If it’s hard, take a day (or half) of your freelance work off. I almost never heard of a freelancer being successful full time at once, or even in a year or more. It takes steps. So keep that in your mind.

- If you earn money with a part time job that means you can also have fun or treat yourself once in a while. It’s not for nothing that most parents give their children a treat or gift when they’ve done something right. You’ve earned it. And of course you should save money for things that are needed, but I think to treat yourself is also a need. We need to stay happy as a human.

......................................
So that was the article for now. I hope someone can use something like this. Maybe I'll finish it one day :)!

My first Dutch picture book...illustrated by me!

noreply@blogger.com (Petra) — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:33:00 +0000

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!

noreply@blogger.com (Petra) — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 11:06:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Petra) — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 17:06:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Petra) — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 22:27:00 +0000

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.

Something I can say though is: I guess I've always liked cartoons. As a kid I was always up very early at Saturdays and watched the cartoons at the public broadcasting channel. Mind you that, because it was the public channel (we didn't have anything else because my parents live on the countryside) it weren't commercial series like Power Rangers, Dexter's lab and so on. I watched Franco-Belgian series like Spirou et Fantasio, The adventures of TinTin but also series like the Bamboo Bears and Montana Jones.

Bamboo Bears was one of my fav. cartoon series 'back in the days'.

I never thought of really drawing them though, although when I was nine years old I had an artist as a teacher in my class and he encouraged drawing so I started drawing animals and it was fun to do. a year later I created some kind of cartoony character, which was a cute but crazy seal. I think I created a character because one of my friends that I met on the bus was very into writing and telling stories and she already had a cool character... I think I was inspired by her. On the bus we used to play with the animal figurines we brought from our homes. I remember writing stories about a dolphin too, who interacted with my friends' character (who was a squirrel, but who cares anyway... XD).

My first character design looked something like this.

When I'll find the sketches I'll show you! Pretty embarrassing though :P.

Whereas the first cartoon series I mentioned before had main human characters, the latter had anthropomorphic characters that seemed to spark my interest. I've never been much of a peoples-person and at home we had lots of pets (and when I say lots, I mean lots. Like..people asking if we were a children's farm or a small zoo). Yet, I'm the youngest of the six kids my parents had and so I also had a lot of people around me as well.

Another thing I have to tell you is that, because we had 'people' around us we also had computers in our house, from early on. Which also sparked my interest for interactive programs and games. Even before I saw Pokémon as a TV series, I already saw it in the yearly toy-booklet that the main toy stores always published at the game-boy section. Not that I had a game-boy. Yet.

Remember these?

This seems like a long introduction of what I want to tell you, but it's actually probably the reason why I fell in love with the Pokémon series. In the years that my father couldn't have a job anymore because of health reasons, we got satellite television. Not yet the commercial kind though, but I had access to foreign channels, where under RTL2, the German channel that broadcasted a lot of (Japanese) anime series. Including Pokémon!

Next to that there are also other reasons why I (still) love Pokémon. I'm not Professor Oak so I'll try to explain it in my own, non-scientific ways.

Of course it has a pretty standard story-line where a kid has to finish a quest of some sort, have hard times and good times and meets loads of people.

But what makes it special and stand out is its cute character designs of the pokémon. Creatures that look like (real-world-)animals but are fantasy animals. I think in a world that somehow resemble ours we still can understand that fantasy world, a series like that is easily accessible to a wide audience. Yet it is an enhanced fantasy world where the 'animals' can actually understand what you mean and where you can interact with them, including exciting fights and having amazing bonds with them.

The designs of the pokémon are quite cartoony yet sophisticated as well. Each has it's own charms and it's own characteristics, and some even have their own mysterious story. Because of that we easily see them as stand-alone characters instead of just part of a crowd, nature. And thus they play an important part in the story.

I love how they put so much traits and personality in these cards.

Japanese anime/manga style got me interested from the very start anyway, it was less realistic in style than western cartoons, which made it less scary and made it more easily for me to emerge myself in the fantasy stories. But where the art style was less realistic, the emotions in most anime are more like the emotions that felt were important in real life. Perhaps a bit exaggerated but believable nonetheless.

Apart from the characters I also really liked the background art. It looked a lot like watercolor paintings, but I knew it was digitally made. The landscape reminded me places we did go on holiday, places with hills and forests. The idea of travelling and having an adventurous journey among such surroundings didn't sound like a punishment to me.

Look at those surroundings, I certainly think this is something that I see reoccurring in my own art.

But Pokémon is more than the TV series. It's also a role playing game where you can play as the main character and have to try to catch pokémon while having adventures and fighting evil yourself.
Lots of people must 'still' know about the trading card game as well, although I don't think most kids actually really played the card game but just collected the cards or wanted to be part of the mania.

I wasn't really a small kid anymore when the Pokémon mania began in the Netherlands (Middle-high school starts when you're about 12/13 years old and I felt like I was supposed to be careful with choosing my interests so people didn't think I was still a kid anymore...but I obviously still was somehow). Yet I was still excited about it, so somehow the easiest thing I could think of doing with it on my own, was drawing. Drawing the pokémon that I loved. and it worked, I somehow seemed to be quite good at it.

The rest is history I guess.

So there, that's where the point was where I was at least a bit conscious of having a love and spark for both drawing and an inspiring story. Hope you enjoyed reading it :).

Update

noreply@blogger.com (Petra) — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 11:55:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Petra) — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 12:18:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Petra) — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 14:10:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Petra) — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 20:47:00 +0000

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.

Krita

Oh, this reminds of the days I studied Artificial Intelligence (yes, I totally did for 4 months :P),

since open-source software is forever under-construction the website is full with calls for more help.
I tried to ignore the code-and-programming-talk while searching for the right version to download, but it actually did frighten me a bit already. I got it installed however, so there...no worries.

But when I tried to open it...it actually took some time. Even more time than Photoshop. But I guess that is because it's actually made for Linux, not Windows. I also was quite confused by the doubled windows when I wanted to open a new image-file and had a hard time finding the 'create' button, because the interface-frame was bigger than my desktop so I had to drag it up and make it smaller so I could actually click the create button. User friendly? Not that much.

Now, Krita's interface on first sight looks standard: tools on the left, options and advanced stuff on the right.
It has actually a decent amount of tools, everything you would need for a good painting session.

Yet one thing I really missed: the option to change the radius of the brush. So I had to look it up on Google, apparently..if you use the mouse you have to click about three times to change it. There wasn't a brush-slider in the version that I downloaded.

Now, if you read the comments below, you can see my post stirred quite something. That and they were already working on a brush-size-slide on the top, as you can see in this screenshot:

They also changed the standard shortcut to [ and ], which is used by most painting/drawing applications, so it's also compatible with the newer line of wacom tablets (which uses these shortcuts). Hooray!

At the moment Krita is still in a developmental state, is what I conclude. I'm certainly going to try it another time, since they also said to work on weighted-line smoothing, like is used in Manga Studio and Painttool SAI, which can be useful if you create comics or manga-styled art. Looking forward to it!

If you are not afraid something new, I think you should at least try Krita and see if it is something you like.

MyPaint

Now here is something I could get used to. MyPaint is quite the easy program. It doesn't have all the Photoshop-like options and is mainly focused on drawing. But it does have extensive options to change brush settings. Which reminds me of the iPad drawing app ProCreate (and that's a good thing!).
And it's fast. So I think I'll try MyPaint for sketching in the future!

Unfortunately, not for whole drawing projects. First, there is no option to save it in Photoshop format. There is .ora, which you can use in Gimp. But Photoshop is the industry standard so I can't use it professionally.
Next to that, I can't easily, from scratch, define the size of the canvas, like something 300 dpi A4 size. It's true that the canvas size increases as you 'pan' and draw, but can I really use it for a 300 dpi poster? Nope.

I understand that open source programs aren't supposed to be compatible with Photoshop or other Adobe software, but it would be nice. I guess it costs money (though I don't see Painttool SAI having a problem with it).

MyPaint is great for starters, for GIMP users or for real fast sketches.

After trying out both applications I can conclude that open-source software isn't really something I can use as an illustrator, else than sketching, thumbnailing or for-fun-doodles. Which is not to say that people shouldn't use it. The quality and the amount of options and brushes really did expand and amaze me. I wouldn't have thought that 'free' software could have that much.

Edge

noreply@blogger.com (Petra) — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 14:29:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Petra) — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 07:12:00 +0000

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!

Upon a light

noreply@blogger.com (Petra) — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 21:18:00 +0000

Inspired by christmas music and lights of course :) !

Free worldwide shipping today on prints and gifts!

noreply@blogger.com (Petra) — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 10:51:00 +0000

Hey everyone!

I wanted to inform you about the fact that my prints, cards and other gifts that you can buy via my DeviantArt shop and via Society6, has worldwide FREE SHIPPING today. That means, on top of the already-not-that-expensive price, you don't have to pay for the extra shipping costs. Yay!

Look, what a cute card to send someone for christmas! ;)

Now is the right time to buy some fresh christmas cards or nice gifts for your family, friends or for yourself and do some pre-christmas shopping.

At DeviantArt: When you've clicked on an artwork you like, a selection of products will apear on the right side of the screen, feel free to browse through it. Especially the selection of gifts, like mugs or puzzles will make a really nice present for someone!

And at Society6, they've also added throw pillows to their line of printing media. So you now can also buy some pillows with my work on them, how cool is that?

This pillow will look perfect in a colourful- or kids room!

So spread the word and take your chances, the free shipping is only today, because it's cyber-monday.

Edinburgh!

noreply@blogger.com (Petra) — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 22:50:00 +0000

Somewhere in the summer my boyfriend saw that there was going to be a concert in Edinburgh that he wanted to visit. But it was on my birthday. So we decided to enjoy life, seize the day and just go there. And because it was a really nice weekend I decided to write a blog post about it!

The weekend started a bit stressful as we arrived a lot later then expected in Edinburgh, but the flight was really fast. Somehow I'm always surprised by how close the UK actually is. When you don't take into account the waiting time (always a good time for using your sketchbook) at the airport it's almost as close as visiting my parents in the North of the Netherlands.

Our hotel, the Residence Inn of Marriot, was a nice spacious and modern place except for the fact that we didn't get WiFi in our room (but not having internet also has its benefits..). After some refreshing we went to a pub at Grassmarket, where Nick decided to order a drink for me that I 'had to taste' (though I already knew it). We then decided to eat at a really big Irish pub (well, relative to Dutch places) close to the hotel. Funny enough in the UK (and thus Scotland too) food is pretty cheap compared to drinks.
Why? I don't know, because actually it's good and fresh food, though not really that refined but it doesn't always matter. At the pub we could watch a rugby match, which was actually really funny (I'm not into sports at all) and after our stomachs were filled we decided to go back to the hotel and get some rest.

On saturday we visited a museum and had a big walk through the city while seeing some nice places. I read something about an exhibition at the Scottish Storytelling Centre with beautiful illustrations from a book with stories about Scottish folk tales, drawn by Kate Leiper. It was actually the exhibitions last day so we were lucky. The illustrations were nice, though we expected a little bit more of a museum. Too bad we couldn't visited this place more often, seeing as that they hold a lot of nice festival and events, but we enjoyed a nice cup of tea there.
We then proceeded to princess street, princess street garden, visited a lot of shops and walked on a lot of streets. Edinburgh has really nice architecture and it is worth mentioning that because in some parts of the city new buildings were build on (very) old ones you sometimes get differences in heights. While one street might seem 'low' , the next one could be 20 metres higher. Gives a lot of depth and dynamic atmosphere, which is really cool.

When it was almost evening we decided to go to Camera Obscura, which was a lot of fun though we didn't actually see the camera obscura itself until the next day (nice that you can just visit the next day too and see the actual thing). After wandering around some more we had dinner at a really nice italian restaurant called Gennaro. The food was absolutely delicious and somehow magical because Nick and I both couldn't figure out how they cooked it in only ten minutes, and because of that also had to finish that bottle of wine really fast ;).

Sunday begin with a walk on the Greyfriars' Kirkyard, which is known because of the Greyfriars Bobby story but is also somehow worth visiting because it has these kinds of private rooms with graves, almost like a crypt. But next to that some graves look like they were built into the wall of the yard and it all looks ancient.
Of course we couldn't skip visiting Edinburgh Castle, which is an impressive place but all the museums and facts about wars and prisoners isn't really my thing though. So we treated ourselves, at my actual birthday, on some tea in the tea rooms. The rest of the afternoon wasn't really eventful.

The whole point of the weekend was to go to the Distant Worlds concert so we had to eat early and had some really nice fried brie at 'Dirty Dick's' at the end of Rose Street (which is also worth visiting just to see the bar itself) and then walked to the Playhouse which was actually already very crowded even when we were early. The playhouse is an impressive place and we had some excellent seats at the front of the circle.

To hear music from the Final Fantasy games live was really amazing, I even had tears in my eyes while I'm actually not even a FF fan (but Nick is..). That is what music can do with you. Beautiful things like that always remember me of (my) dreams and to just follow them. And also that I want to share that idea with others, even when I'm not really sure how to do that, when you hear music like that it doesn't really matter anymore.

It was really nice to celebrate my birthday at some place else and have an overseas trip. Edinburgh is a wonderful city and I'm definitely coming back some day (to see the rest of Scotland too)!

Free shipping on my prints!

noreply@blogger.com (Petra) — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 22:09:00 +0000

From now until the 2nd of November,
you can buy prints of my artwork and get the shipping costs for free!!

! See my store here at DeviantArt !

I updated and added these prints at my DeviantArt account. I think they're a bit more affordable than Society6 (but also offer more choices), especially now.
So take your chance and buy one of my artworks (might be a nice christmas gift for example)!

Martins Castle

noreply@blogger.com (Petra) — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 13:45:00 +0000

Today I finished a sketch that I made some weeks ago. First I wanted to make this something like a haunted castle, but I wanted to give it a bit of a Dutch twist. See the children there, they are walking with lanterns. This is a Dutch tradition (well at least in some part of the Netherlands) called Sint Maarten (Saint Martin). It's a bit like halloween, but kids don't dress up... they create their own lantern (or buy one) and walk around in their neighbourhood, ringing doorbells, singing songs and then you're supposed to give them candy.

In the neighbourhood that I grew up in, a bit on the countryside, the distance between houses can become quite large so the only thing guiding you in the dark is your lantern and the lights of the houses, it can be quite scary but also very fun! I imagined these kids in the illustration to have the same kind of experience. Next to that: I just love the warmth of light out of the windows on a dark and cloudy autumn eve. Enjoy!