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Monday 12 May 2014

Lemniscaat illustration contest

Again I’ve been too quiet for my own (blogging-) good. Last month I was totally occupied by the Lemniscaat illustration contest. Literally every moment I could spend drawing, I did.
As a child I always dreamed of illustrating children’s- and mostly fairytale books but I never actually made any attempts to do so.
Illustrators were asked by publisher Lemniscaat to send in three illustrations that go with a story of their own choice. It was clear to me it had to be a fairytale but which one?
I chose a story from ‘Persian Fairytales’ by Arthur Christensen (original title: Persische Märchen). My dad used to read from them when I was little and after all the stories by Grimm and Andersen they were amazingly refreshing. These stories had all this different creatures and different magic and lots of blood and gore! My choice fell upon ‘Mohammed the shepherd and the three Peri princesses’.
From beginning to end it took me almost 20 days to finish all three illustrations and I was just in time for the (Dutch) closing date on May 1st! It took me this long because I had to take some really hard hurdles that housed in my brain. Now that I have returned to my ‘regular’ drawings I can feel a difference in the way I work. I just DO because when working on the illustrations there was no time to ponder every brushstroke, they had to be finished and soon! So I’m very happy with this change and much happier to go to my studio.
Sure I would like to win the contest, sure I would like to be among the 10 best and attend a master class by an internationally recognized illustrator. I would like having my work promoted during the Bologna Children’s Book Fair. Have my work exhibited in library ‘The Hive’, in Worcester, England, in the Shanghai Library, China and also in the Centrale Bibliotheek Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
I would like all these things very much but taking these personal hurdles was very important to me. Winning or losing I’m very happy I participated!

Below details from the three illustrations I did for the Lemniscaat contest.


5 comments:

  1. They look great! When are you going to hear whether you won the contest?

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  2. Not sure. End of May Lemniscaat will publish a shortlist :-)

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    1. Cool, till then I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.

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  3. Absolutely gorgeous! I love your illustrations and your unique style. I saw the updated post and you are really a wonderful person, as well as an artist. Being true to one's self is a rare trait in today's world, so I really admire you. I hope your talent blooms ever more gracefully. Thanks for sharing that!

    Lucius Campbell @ Skild

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    1. Hi Lucius,
      Weird things happening here. For some reason I don't get any notifications when people reply so I noticed yours only this May and my reply got deleted for some reason...
      So (again) thank you for your kind words. I really appreciate them :)

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