I sometimes find it difficult to put my practice into words, as I often find it hard to commit to a certain style, technique or (range of) topics. However, one thing that I always keep coming back to, and that I enjoy creating, is the light-hearted representation of human figures and emotions in the form of (mostly digital) illustrations. This is precisely the reason, for which I decided to create an illustrated children's book for my major project. A friend of mine made his debut as a writer of children's stories by writing the wholesome original story of "Billions"; so I could create my own, visualised version and interpretation of his words. "Billions" tells the story of a child - out of which I made the character of Charlie, an eight-year-old bundle of energy, who's determined to find out the number of people that exist in the world. Over 15 fully illustrated double-page spreads, I tell her story through the use of specific colours, facial expressions and body language. Ever since I picked up my first graphic tablet at the age of 14, I've been fond of the digital creation of illustrations. Especially now with the Procreate software on the iPad, I enjoy working with all kinds of brushes, the more analogue-looking, the better. Even though I think that it's not always possible to fully, and believably, recreate just any analogue effect digitally, I find it to unify the best aspects of illustrating for me: the immediate possibility to try and mix "different" techniques without having to wait "for the aquarelles to dry", as well as less clutter forming in the work space (such as plenty of analogue drawings piling up and collecting dust), which I'm prone to either way, and I appreciate any tool or help that combats or eliminates that.
