Much of 2025 felt like a collection of random moments. It is only afterwards that I’ve been turning them into a story of some kind. A beginning, a middle, an end. A plot. A cause and effect. Something that happened in the past tense.

“When you are in the middle of a story, it isn’t a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood (…) It’s only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all. When you are telling it to yourself or to someone else.”

-Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace (Full quote here)

It’s the first real rain of september and I’m feeling homesick. (1)

Not for the place I grew up in or the country I’m from, but homesick for the place where I lived for three years: Bergen, Norway, a city that is notorious for being rainy. Apparently it is even the most rainy city of Europe, with an average of 240 rainy days a year. It’s the kind of rain that goes on and on, drizzling and dripping en pouring from the sky. There’s no point in waiting for it to stop- the best you can do is put on your rainwear, open your umbrella and bring a dry set of socks. There’s no bad weather, only bad clothes- or so the Norwegians try to make themselves believe. Nice try, guys.

It is of course a universal part of the Bergen experience to complain about the rain. How we all hated it! It made the fall last forever, trapping us inside our houses for weeks on end. People from other parts of Norway would often wonder how the ‘Bergensere’ could stand it, dealing with all that wetness. They’d say things like: ‘I would love to live in Bergen if it wasn’t for the rain’ and ‘Why not just move to Oslo?’ It’s a good thing that most houses in Bergen are painted in such bright colors, the dreary weather drains all other colour from the world.

And yet.
With the Dutch rain tapping on my Dutch window, I suddenly long to be soaked by Norwegian rain, all the way through to my underwear.

The thing is, I miss Bergen. I even miss the rain.

I miss the twenty minute walk to my studio, rain jacket on, laptop in a protective plastic bag, umbrella in hand. Streams of water dripping down the cobble stones of the narrow streets of Nordnes, the cars suddenly louder and more noticeable on the wet asphalt. In the backdrop, the mountains: dramatically shrouded in mist, witchy and mysterious.

No matter the weather, the fish market would always be crowded with tourists: either soaked to their skin, caught unaware that a holiday can get this wet, or sheltering from a rain shower that isn’t likely to stop anytime soon. Boots stomping in puddles, umbrella’s bumping into each other and nearly poking people in the eye.

Out of breath from the steep and slippery hill, I’d arrive at my studio, my wet clothes dripping water all over the hallway. I’d turn the lights on, the heating up. A day of drawing, sketches spread out all around me. Endless cups of coffee. ‘Folklore’ by Taylor Swift on repeat. Toasted bread and ‘makrell i tomat’ for lunch.

And then, at the end of the day, the walk back through the dark, rain still pouring, lights reflected in puddles, picking up some groceries at Rema1000. Getting home to our cozy apartment, changing into something dry. Curling up on the sofa to binge watch Gilmore Girls and crochet, with rain hammering on the window.

In my phone’s photo gallery there isn’t much proof that days like these even existed. It’s all pictures of sunny days, day trips, beautiful hikes and picknicks by the water. Yet somehow it’s those endlessly rainy days, that little piece of ‘normal life’, that I recall most vividly. The thought of it fills me with loss and longing, knowing that that specific time is over, forever.

The thing with living abroad: people sometimes seem to think you are permanently on holiday. That everything you do is special and adventurous and enjoyable. Like you are living life in a beach chair with a cocktail in your right hand.

Obviously, that isn’t the case. After a while, living abroad is Normal Life. It’s boring days and uneventful weeks. It’s being stressed about deadlines and doing the dishes and watching something really dumb on TV. It’s the same walk over and over, it’s forgetting to look at things that are beautiful, it’s having your rent due and going to the dentist.

But sure, in between all of those plain daily things, there’s room for something special. Something sparkly that makes day to day life feel a little more shiny, a little more adventurous. Even when it’s raining. Something like: I came here and I made this city my own, and anything could happen.

While I could book a flight to Norway right now to go for a spectaculair hiking trip, it’s those normal, yet somehow special, days that I won’t get back. I gave up on them when I moved away- and even if I did move back, it’d be different. You can never step in the same river twice.2 Bergen would be just as wet, but the water would be different, and so would I.

Even when I still lived there, I thought of Bergen as a snow globe-city. A small, contained universe inside a glass orb. A row of colorful, miniature houses with mountains in the backdrop. The type of city that fits in the palm of your hand- and if you shake it hard enough, it will start to rain.

But I’m no longer inside the globe. I’m on the other side of the glass- and my memories of Bergen are ever so slightly out of reach. All I have access to now is that tiny, romanticized version of what was once my day-to-day life. Nostalgia is a mind trick and it makes everything look better in the rearview mirror. Rain too, apparently.

From time to time, I’ll pick up that imaginary snow globe and shake it- imagining the rain splashing on the roofs and streaming down the streets, the annoyed inhabitants opening their umbrellas, already eager for the rain to end.

Here’s a little note from me to say thank you to everyone who read this blog this year.
Although I haven’t been able to do a lot of writing lately, this substack has become such a special and important place for me. I hope I’ll be able to nurture it a lot more in the coming year.

It’s not so easy for me to write something coherent about 2025. 2025 was very foggy. And I have a tendency to mainly think a lot about all the things I wish I’d done, but didn’t do. All the things that got lost in the fog, so to speak.

The last few months I didn’t draw in my sketchbook. I stopped doing observational drawings in July. I haven’t posted a substack since september. I didn’t send out my graphic novel to publishers (yet again). I stopped running and working out for over three months. I didn’t manage to go to many protests to speak up for the things I care about. I didn’t send out Christmas cards. I probably forgot a lot of birthdays.

I’ve been feeling a lot of guilt (or maybe disappointment?) about all of the above. About not being able to put my time towards the things I care about most. About not meeting my own goals. About letting go of some important routines that I had worked so hard to build.

As a result I’ve created this narrative in my head of 2025 being a shitty year. And to be fair, in some ways it really was. But that’s also a pretty lame and limiting way of looking at things. Like there was nothing to be proud of/thankful for/inspired by. That is, fortunately, not true in the least. I just haven’t had the time to process all of it.

So, Instead of saying that I’m thankful for this year to end I want to say: I’m thankful that I get to try again next year. I’m thankful that, now that the fog finally seems to have cleared, the view is looking pretty good. Grateful that so many things work themselves out in the end.

I’m so excited for the upcoming year and all of the things I plan on doing- but if everything turns out differently, I’m going to try and not beat myself up over it.

Thanks for being here. I hope 2026 will treat you well.

xx femme

(PS: the original handwriting is in Dutch, but I’ve translated everything in the captions.)

1. Describe yourself in five words:

2. What are you currently doing?

3. What do you do on a bad day?

4. What are you not ashamed of anymore?

5. Who is someone you admire?

6. What is your life motto?

7. In what time would you also have liked to live?

8. What would you do with a sea of time?

9. Draw a self-portrait

And this is what it looked like when it was printed in the magazine:

See you soon!

This comic was inspired by memories of visiting my grandma. It’s autobiographical in many ways, although I jumbled together a lot of different times and ages. When you’re young it can be very hard to understand certain circumstances, or to grasp the impossibility of fixing someone else’s loneliness. I’m not sure if it will make sense to everyone (this might be a very particular experience) but would love to hear whether it does.

The comic was originally written in Dutch, for a one-page comic competition, but didn’t make the cut. I’ve translated it in English to post here.

One year ago, I spent my September walking up mountains, picking vegetables from the garden and making lots of drawings. Remembering that month makes me long for mountains, Norwegian cabins, fresh air and time on my hands.

This is a selection of drawings, pictures and writings from that time.
A post to look back, reflect, browse through old sketchbooks, see them in a new light. More drawings from the residency can be found here and here.

Many thanks to Anni and Einar Onsager from Eker Gård for welcoming me and Bas at The Rock Art Residency a year ago. Thanks to Bas for taking some of the pictures featured in this post.

It went fine though! The course was called ‘A walk in the park’, since I figured that a sunny park in Amsterdam would be the perfect location for a summer course focused on drawing from life. I also chose that name because I wanted to show the students that drawing doesn’t have to be that hard; it’s all about learning the right tricks, and playing around with materials and colours.

Only a small group of people signed up, but that was honestly fine with me. I’m still quite new to teaching, and this gave me some time to really get to know my students.

I really enjoyed the teacher role. Apart from really liking to talk about drawing all day everyday, it was so nice to be able to share some of the things that I’ve learned from obsessively drawing in sketchbooks for over a decade. It was also so fun to see all of the participants massively improving their drawing skills- even in those five days!

There are so many people who tell themself they ‘can’t draw’ and end up missing out on the pleasure of creating, the pleasure of looking. Which is a shame!

In between things I also found some time to draw in my own tiny sketchbook, the result of which is featured in this post. Somehow advising students to be bold and take risks also inspired me to be a bit more free and casual with my drawings. Sometimes it can be good to take your own advice!

While the first three days were mostly spend inside, we spend the last two days inside, turning all of the drawings into a zine. It was really nice to see the work come together in that way, and everyone took home their zine in an edition of 5.

I’m really hoping to teach more courses like this, and in the meantime I might start working on a digital version in substack-format. This will probably behind a paywall, but let me know if this is something you’d be interested in. Or just keep an eye on this newsletter!

See you soon :)

Hello! Sorry to disappear on you so suddenly. It’s not that I necessarily planned on taking a summer hiatus, but it just kind of happened. And that’s OK- I’ve never been the most consistent writer, and I don’t think I’ll ever be.

I’ve started to write a bunch of things over the last few months but so far none of it has made it out of my notes. Thoughts half-finished, tales half-told.

Ever since moving countries last January, I’ve been craving structure and normality. But I keep being thrown off balance, constantly dodging the curveballs that are being thrown at me.

Things have been messy, but not just in a bad way; also in a the tan-lines and spontaneous dips and sand-in-sandals and sunscreen stains kind of way. Although I couldn’t really afford to take a long summer holiday this year, I did manage to take time off occasionally and spend some time cat-sitting, having friends over on our deck and making spring rolls.

In addition to the reading and swimming and snacking there is also the doom-scrolling and worrying about the state of the world, which certainly puts my small daily struggles into terrifying perspective. What a strange time to be a human.

Also, after a very quiet time with very few commissions, I’m finally getting back into the illustrator-groove. It’s a bit of a relief to be honest, both creatively and financially. One of the jobs that I really had some fun with was the big illustration that was published in De Volkskrant a while back, one of the biggest Dutch newspapers. I thought it’d be fun to show you some different bits of it in this post.

The brief was to make an illustration based on de Kromme Rijn. This felt like faith, since this is the small river that flows right next to my house. I’ve been getting quite attached to her over the last few months, and it’s so enjoyable to see all the boats, sups and kayaks pass by in our backyard. I even got to work in a small drawing of my house!

Anyway, I’m hoping to get into some kind of work rhythm again very soon, so you’ll probably hear from me a bit more often from now on. We’ll see. How has your summer been so far?

Afterwards I wasn’t really sure what to make of any of the work. I felt unsure if it was any good. I had hoped to reach some kind of conclusion, but was mostly experiencing confusion. It felt so separate from the commissioned work I’d been used to doing. Where to go from here?

Perhaps these drawings were more of a passage, not a final destination. Many of them were left unfinished, put in boxes and drawers. Many thoughts about them were left unfinished too, when life happened and pulled my attention away.

Still, something about them stuck. Looking at those drawings now feels a bit like looking in a mirror. I don’t always like what I see, but this is what I look like.

They tell me things about myself that I didn’t know before. Even if they aren’t good, they are, in some way, true.

The same symbols keep popping up. A mountain. A sun. A moon. A winding road. Figures moving through landscapes, going somewhere. Where?

The figures are always moving forward. Moving ahead.
There is always a dot, a point on the horizon. They are always climbing some kind of mountain. And behind that mountain, there is another mountain. Another peak to climb. It goes on forever.

Chasing a sun, a moon. A faraway land full of promise.
A silhouette, moving in between worlds. A going back and forth.

Why do these same things keep popping up? And what do they tell me about myself?
It’s like discovering the same thing over and over. I keep pushing a rock up a mountain. It’s the same rock. It’s the same mountain.

I think for many years, I’ve been obsessed with moving forward. With staying ahead. But recently, both in my work and my life, I’ve come to a bit of a halt.

Maybe moving forward isn’t always the best thing to do. Perhaps sometimes to move forward you have to stand still. Take in the view. Does that make sense?

In a way, writing a post like this is ‘taking in the view’. Moving around pictures and words. Putting things next to each other. Looking for connections. Finding something new in what is already there.

Either way, I’ve been trying to take my time. To look around. To wait for the fog to clear- so I can finally see where all of this is going.

The course I am talking about in this post is the online Drawing Intensive course from the Royal Drawing School. Part of the drawings in this post were made during that course, but the rest of them were made during a residency at Eker Gård last September.

But let’s begin at the beginning! Two weeks ago, me and my friend got together and boarded the Eurostar train that took us from Amsterdam to London. Signe and I have been drawing together for a few years, but it’s gotten a bit more challenging now that we both live in different cities: I live in Utrecht, she lives in Copenhagen. Still, we try and meet up at least once a year to go on a little trip during which we catch up, sing silly songs, chat about art and do lots and lots of sketching.

We had nearly six full days to spend in London, and had a lovely time strolling trough museums, peeking into shops and buying a bunch of pretty books. The wonderful thing about traveling with another illustrator is that we were equally excited to do a lot of drawing. Every day, before heading out, we started the day with packing our art supplies, sharpening our pencils and doing a little brainstorm about good drawing spots. One thing I love about London is that museums are free of charge, so we could just pop in and out of places like the V&A and the National Gallery- although I could’ve probably easily spend a full month there.

Anyway- I love drawing when I travel. It forces me to look harder than I usually would, invites me to spend some time in places I would normally be passing through. When I’m drawing I feel like I’m really present and ‘in the moment’, and I enjoy noticing the specific architecture and colours that are particular to a place.

It can also be overwhelming to draw in a new and somewhat unfamiliar place. There’s always so much to capture! But of course, doing a successful drawing is about leaving things out as much about putting them in- especially in a super crowded place like London.

That’s why it’s always really nice to have Signe next to me, to be working through the joys and frustrations of the drawing process together. I learn so much from seeing how she approaches her sketches, and the way her observations differ from mine. (Oh and by the way: she writes a substack too, so head over here to see these same scenes from her point of view!)

I won’t go into detail about each individual sketch (this post will get too long), but this trip was sooo good and it’s been great to immerse myself in location drawing for a bit. It’s also been great practice in drawing crowded scenes with lots of people and has given me some ideas how I can improve my art material-packing strategy for my next trip. (Less pencils, more light markers, be a bit more experimental with materials, more limited palette yet more variation in skin tones, etc etc.)

Drawing is learning- sometimes it’s making the same mistakes over and over until you start to make new mistakes. But that’s the beauty of it: I don’t think I will ever feel like I know it all.

It’s going to be so great to open this sketchbook in a couple of years, and remember this lovely trip in such vivid detail- it feels like I’ve created a little time capsule.

Also, if you happen to feel very invested in this girls trip now, Signe has put up a vlog youtube account about this trip, featuring me hopping around in the background (link!). Thanks for tagging along!

And sure, this is partially due to some of the (very privileged) choices I’ve made in life: I live in an expensive part of the Netherlands, I went to art school, I’m a freelancer and I’m dating an artist.

I always knew the path I’d chosen wasn’t the easiest route to a family home with a garden and a dog. And I was fine with that, I didn’t want to let my life revolve around money or material things.

Still, I’d always assumed that things would figure themselves out. That there would be somewhere for me to go, even if I wasn’t a dentist or a doctor. Now, for the first time in my life, I find myself wondering if I’ve made the right decision.

The reason is this: the housing market in the Netherlands is insane right now. Prices are sky-high, and there’s almost nothing to be found within our price range. Even if we would be willing to pay an exorbitant amount of money for a place, we would never meet the requirements set by large corporations, who have decided you need to make 3,5 times the rent to even apply. And then, when we do find a place where we meet the requirements, there are more often than not 300+ requests for a viewing. In between all of it, we’ve spend almost €500,- on documents, registration fees and additional costs, without having been invited for a viewing once.

There’s also a thing called ‘social housing’, which is supposed to be for people who do not make €50.000 a year, but there just aren’t enough houses and the waiting time goes up to twelve years (I have five in my account). Some of these houses are presented in a literal lottery, where the chance is about 1/8000 to end up on top.

So, we do the only thing we can do and spend many fruitless hours each day scrolling through housing sites, uploading documents, applying for anything we can find. All of my thoughts are about money, and about how I’m not making enough, and will never make enough to buy a house. Meanwhile, I’m not able to actually make any money, because I’m way too stressed to focus on work.

It’s all pretty frustrating- especially when I think about the many ways landlords and homeowners are profiting from this whole ordeal.

In the evenings, me and my boyfriend sometimes watch a housing show where people complain about the size of their hallway and about not having patio doors- a slightly masochistic attempt to take our minds off our own housing search. The show feels like a portal to an alternate reality. One where you actually get to decide on the amount of bedrooms, on whether or not you want an open kitchen and a double vanity.

What a life, to be able to decide where you want to live, to handpick neighborhoods that have a nice atmosphere and lots of greenery. To choose a city that you like, instead of one that is forced on you because it’s the only place you can afford.

Whether or not it’s my own fault that I’m not able to afford to buy a house, I’ve come to realize what a privilege it is to own any house at all, even if it’s a shitty one. To have a place you call your own, knowing that you won’t ever have to move unless you want to.

I do not need a Barbie Malibu dream house™- that bar has been lowered a long time ago. If I have to, I will live in a tiny flat in an old building, with moldy bathrooms and the occasional mouse. But I need a place to live.

The thing is, I have never felt so uprooted. I feel like my life is on hold, like I have no control over it anymore. It makes me question every decision I’ve ever made- like capitalism is pushing me into a smaller and smaller box, telling me to get a real job make more money work harder settle for less give up on my dreams. It’s not the life I want, but it’s getting harder and harder to not give in.

In between my own frustrations, I keep thinking about people who do not have the support system that I have. Who do not have their parents’ house to (reluctantly) move back into, or friends with a spare bedroom. Who are forced to live on couches, in cars, on the street, whilst society looks down on them thinking: ‘this is your own fault’.

Sadly I know so many others who are going through, or have gone through the same ordeal. And I know, tucked into your warm bed in the comfort your own home, it’s pretty easy to forget how the system is failing so many of us. But affordable housing should be for everyone- not just for the lucky few.

If you’re in the Netherlands, please consider helping out by signing this petition, urging the government to take steps to actually solve the housing crisis instead of doing whatever the heck they’re currently doing. Thank you!

I still have a few of these available if you’re interested in owning a copy - they’re €10,- excl. shipping. See you next time!

For years, my sketchbook was a friend whom I told everything to. She knew about all of my insecurities, had seen all of my ugly drawings- but also the good ones. Our conversations were constantly providing me with new thoughts and new ideas, new ways of looking at things. She kept track of my progress, helped tie together the loose threads in my mind.

Lately, we’d fallen out of touch a bit. We’d talk every once in a while, but not nearly as much as we’d used to. This had a few different reasons:
- Adult life: I just didn’t have the same amount of time to spend with her at the kitchen table. I only saw her in between tasks, during quick coffee breaks. It wasn’t enough.
- For years, teachers had told me to get out of my sketchbook and to make some other friends. So that’s what I did, I made some new friends, tried out some new mediums. As a result, my sketchbook got left behind.
- Our conversations changed, too. I was not as focused on just saying how i felt. I was focused on drawing better. On having something to share on instagram. On making things that looked good. On writing to do lists and making thumbnail sketches.

As a result, our relationship had become a bit more formal. I didn’t share as much as I used to. She also held back more, didn’t give me as much validation or any new impulses.

But the past couple of weeks we’ve reconnected, and it’s been wonderful. I’ve been going through a bit of a weird time, and it feels really good to have a way to vent my feelings without having to explain them. I’m a bit tired of explaining myself. Instead, I let my feelings spill out onto the page. It’s OK if it gets messy. Or ugly. Or melodramatic. Or all of the above.

Apart from it being a relief to have an outlet for all of those weird feelings, it’s left me feeling quite fulfilled as well as inspired.

I would love to make promises to my sketchbook; to tell her that I will never abandon her again. But here’s the thing with friendships- they come and go. Sometimes you talk everyday, sometimes you’ll go weeks without properly seeing each other.

Nevertheless, a really good friend will be there for you when you need her most. I’m very grateful for that- and I’ll try my best to not take our relationship for granted.

For the last three years I’ve been working on-and-off on my graphic novel, and it’s the longest I’ve ever worked on any project ever. It’s also nowhere near to being done. While the storyboard and the text are looking pretty good, the current manuscript is also a luscious 250 pages long, all of these pages containing multiple pictures that I intend to draw by hand using a mixed-media technique.

Sometimes I feel like this project is holding me hostage. I can’t start any new big projects before finishing this one, and it will take so long to finish it. What if it’s not worth it? What it’s all a waste of time?
Honestly, my performance anxiety is going trough the roof. What if this book will never even get published? Or what if it just does badly? How will I be able to accept that I’ve wasted so many years on it?

When you’ve spend this much time with a project, it’s very hard to know if it’s even any good. It’s like trying to look at something small up close, your eyes are just not able to focus. How to distinguish between constructive criticism and useless perfectionism? How to know what to keep and what to tosh in the bin? If you look at a drawing long enough, it’s really easy to fall out of love with it, even if you liked it when you first did it.

All of this has made me a bit needy in terms of other people’s opinions. I’m desperate to hear a ‘that’s looking good’ from my boyfriend, desperate to get a few likes on a WIP instagram story. Basically, I just want someone, anyone, to walk into my studio and exclaim: ‘Wow, what an amazing body of work!!! This book will be a true masterpiece. You’ve outdone yourself. Leonardo da Vinci would be proud!’

But would that even help? I mean, maybe the self-doubt would waver for a few peaceful moments. But in the end, the opinion that I’m struggling with is my own. I want to make something that is good enough for me. That feels like it’s the best I could do. And the rumours are true: I am, in fact, my own worst critic.

Maybe you should set the bar a little bit lower for yourself. I know I should. I just don’t feel like I can. I have set out with such a strong vision of what I want this book to be, and I’m just not able to make any concessions. If I start doing that, what would be the point of any of it anymore?

So, I soldier on. Sometimes, as George Michael said, you ‘just got to have, faith, faith, faith’. So, that’s what I’m trying to do. Have faith that I will make it through this crisis, and through many future crises that will undoubtedly come.

Here are some things I tell myself:

• You’re learning a lot here. That means the next project will be better, even if the outcome of this one sucks.

• You wouldn’t go to all this trouble if you didn’t believe, deep down, that it was all worth it. Would ya?

• Multiple people, whose opinions you normally hold in high esteem, have told you that this project is worthwhile. How about you just listen to them??

• Suffer for the art!!!!! Trust the process. No pain no gain. The magic happens outside your comfort zone, etc etc.

• Literally no one will care as much about this book, or be as critical of it, as you. In the end, you’re doing it for yourself, and that’s what matters most.

• You will probably look back at this small crisis in a few years and feel nostalgic about it.

• Good things take time.

• Keep going

I think that’s enough anxiety for today. Now I’ll try and get some work done. What project is your roman empire? And how do you stay sane throughout it?

The train journey from my (then) new home in Utrecht to my old home in Groningen takes about two hours. These days I find it hard to imagine that I made that journey every week, but it also makes me feel very nostalgic. In those first months of art school, everything was new and overwhelming: living by myself in a tiny 6m2 room in a shared flat, navigating a new city, meeting so many new people and constantly being forced ‘out of the box’ in all of my art classes. Those moments spend in trains were a welcome break from all of it- staring out of the window, processing everything that was happening or just thinking of nothing for a bit.

On some days, when I wasn’t feeling too tired, I’d take out my sketchbook and draw. There’s something about that small window of non-time, when moving from A to B, that makes it a lovely moment to draw. It is a perfect opportunity to shamelessly stare at fellow passengers, way too caught up in their phones and daydreams to notice.

Drawing also allowed me to escape my own thoughts and feelings. On Sunday nights or Monday mornings, when I’d take the train back to Utrecht with a stomach full of hard feelings, it was a welcome distraction. I remember well how strange and difficult it felt to leave my parents’ cozy house with a warm bed and a full fridge, having to step back into My Own Independent (thought slightly more lonely) life in Utrecht. Still the journey did over time get easier, as well as less frequent, while I slowly transformed into an Actual Adult.

I don’t spend nearly as much time in trains as I did back then. These days it feels a bit like a treat to take a longer journey, to be able to sit down and draw in my sketchbook, undisturbed. My collection of train drawings is still growing. The drawings in this letter have been made over many years- some old and some recent. Sometimes I’m just passing time or practicing my people-drawing skills, but there are also many little stories that seem to emerge from these drawings. Where all of these people going? What are they thinking of, dreaming of?

All of these sketchbook pages are reminders of journeys I took, places I’ve been. Traveling on Swiss trains during my Erasmus in Luzern. Taking the ‘Bergensbanen’ from Bergen to Oslo. Inter-railing across Europe. Going to and from the airport when I was living in Norway. There’s just something about traveling by train, having the landscape rush past you, that feels different from other forms of travel.

On the subject of trains, a few years ago I did the illustrations for a small booklet with poems called ‘In a train’. It’s about traveling by train, but also about transience, life passing by, parting ways. I remember struggling with it, having to figure out how to draw train tracks and train stations, realizing I’d only ever drawn trains from the inside. Still this series of drawings is quite dear to me, and I like how naive and slightly clumsy some of them are.

(the booklet is still for sale here)

I’ll leave you with some more train drawings, not knowing where the journey will lead to next. Thanks for accompanying me on this one!

Still, there is indeed a fine line between loving and hating drawing from life. It can be so rewarding, but it’s also really hard. For every drawing that I do that I like, there’s an ugly duckling hidden somewhere in my sketchbook.

There’s so many things that can go wrong. Sometimes a drawing just goes south and there’s no way of fixing it. Or I get completely lost in an excess of art supplies, and overwork it to a point of no return. Every now and then I mess up a perfectly nice drawing by adding something that is just wrong and messes up the entire composition. With no command+Z button to undo it, it can get pretty frustrating.

It’s all part of the process, of course, but recently I’ve been trying to find ways to make the whole thing a little bit more enjoyable, a little less stressful.

For one, I’ve been trying to look at my drawings as an archive of notes and observations, rather than as ‘Finished Drawings’. An observational drawing doesn’t have to be finished. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Mostly the charm actually lies in the fact that it’s drawn a bit faster and turns out a bit messier than anything that is made at my desk. It’s like a note saying I saw this. I was here. A way to remember small details that would’ve otherwise slipped through the gaps in my memory.

Still, all of this can be pretty easy to forget when I’m working on a drawing and just want it to turn out nice. I get lost adding more details, wanting to tell the whole story. But I do not have to tell the whole story in that one sketch. The sketch can be the start of something, rather than the final thing.

Recently I’ve been looking for ways to rework sketchbook drawings, to find ways to use them in other types of work. The drawing above, that I did in the airport, turned out to be a great inspiration for a page in my graphic novel. I would never have come up with this composition if I hadn’t done that sketchbook page first.

And sometimes there are other interesting things to take away. The drawing below is one of my favorites from the past year. Partially because of the colors and atmosphere, but mostly because of that blank space where there’s a row of houses that I’ve just left open, suggesting that they are there without drawing in any details. It made me remember that it’s OK to leave things out, it’s so much more interesting than showing everything.

The last couple of weeks I’ve been drawing in a very tiny sketchbook. It’s a cheap thing that I got as a gift from a publisher I’ve worked with- absolutely nothing fancy. It’s roughly A6 size, so A5 when folded open, and it fits neatly inside the pocket of my coat. I’ve been taking it everywhere. For a minute I wondered if it was a bit of a setback, turning to a smaller sketchbook when almost every teacher ever has told me to draw bigger! But there’s many advantages to drawing smaller.

Since there’s not a lot of space you have to really decide how to best use it. Basically you have to look at the bigger picture to do a smaller sketch. This has really helped me focus more on narrative and composition, instead of getting lost in the teensiest tiniest details.

The tiny sketchbook has also helped me to work a bit faster and more casually, instead of spending ages on one things. Sitting down with a big sketchbook can sometimes slow me down too much, whereas with a smaller sketchbook I can literally be up on my feet. It just takes less time to finish a sketch, so there’s no need to dwell on the one page. Messed it up? No matter, on to the next one! There’s also something to be said for getting uncomfortable when you’re drawing- drawings that have to be finished quickly because it’s going to rain/the bus is coming soon/my subject keeps moving around often turn out much more interesting that drawings where I had ages and ages to look. No time for perfectionism!

As you can see in these sketchbook pages, I’ve also been trying to limit myself in terms of material use. When I leave the house with a huge pencil case filled to the brim with materials, it rarely leads to anything good. Some of my best drawings are done with a limited palette. This forces me to move away from naturalistic colour use (f.e. green grass and blue skies), focusing on things like contrast and light instead.

On Instagram there’s the ‘Three-materials Challenge’, which is organized every summer by a small group of illustrators. I haven’t properly joined the challenge myself (I’m always a bit intimidated by doing anything for a set number of days) but I’m always so inspired by the things that come out of it. You really don’t need more than three materials do do a fantastic drawing, and it’s such a good way to force yourself to mix and match materials differently.
(You can look for it under the hashtag #threematerialschallenge)

All of these methods help to make the whole process of drawing from life more accessible. It can sometimes feel so daunting to take out my sketchbook, and I often feel awkward doing it when I’m surrounded by people. Yet I always feel like I want to draw more than I do, like there isn’t enough time to draw all the things I want to.

I would love for that to change; I’ve been trying to allow myself to draw in between tasks, when I have five minutes to spare. Doing more quick sketches in the train, or when I’m out for a walk. With the small sketchbook I also have no excuses not to take it everywhere I go.

Individual drawings hardly matter in the end. Every sketch or scribble is part of an ongoing process, there’s always more to learn. It’s wonderful way to take a closer look at the world around me, enabling me to hold on to moments and feelings that would otherwise have been forgotten. And yes, sometimes it’s really hard and frustrating, but sometimes I do a wonderful discovery and think ‘wow, did I draw that?’

I could write about drawing from life forever, but will leave it here for now! If you’re here (hello!) and reading this, I would love to hear if you enjoy reading my posts so far.
See you next Monday!

During the daily walk to my studio, I’m obsessed with watching my shadow-self. The stretched out shape moves along with me, taking strange gangly steps and mixing with the texture of the pavement.

The idea of a ‘shadow self’ also plays a pretty big part in the graphic novel that I’m working on. In the story one of the characters, a young woman, is living with a big dark shadow. It’s not completely clear what this shadow represents- her loneliness? depression? an abusive (ex-)partner?- however, it’s pretty clear that its’ intentions aren’t too good. In the course of the story, the shadow-shape slowly becomes its own entity, darkness taking over the woman’s life.

I think that only since I’ve lived through a few Scandinavian winters, I really appreciate the arrival of spring, the return of light, warmth and colour to the world.
Light and darkness are such rich metaphors. We’re all forever trying to balance out the darkness with light, yet one will never exist without the other, the brightest suns cast the darkest shadows. Light and darkness move in cycli, like the seasons.

The other day, my mum send me a sweet short poem by Anton van Wilderode that she said reminded her of my work, and that I’ve since stuck on my studio wall. The original is in Dutch but I’ve loosely (and probably badly) translated it, it goes something like this:

The springtime sun lying across the room
with squares and rectangles of white light
Tells me of a time of clearance
And covers up the darkness of my wintertime

It also makes me think of the work of Edward Hopper and his painting ‘Sun in an Empty Room.’ Somehow this painting really touches me, still it’s so simple: just lit up rectangles lying across the room, the strange absence of glass in the windows.

Another sun-painting, that I love love love to bits is ‘The Sun’ by Edvard (with a V this time) Munch. I saw the original in Oslo a few years ago and it was so amazing, standing in front of it you can almost feel actual heat coming from it.

I have a hard time stopping myself from drawing a sun in the corner of every single picture I draw. At this point it’s getting a bit ridiculous, so I’m trying to challenge myself to find different ways to show light and dark in my work.

As research for the previously mentioned graphic novel, I did a series of black and white paintings. My goal was to research negative space as well as light and shadows. It resulted in a small book called ‘Alles dat er overblijft’ - everything that is left.

My graphic novel deals with some pretty dark themes (like loneliness, grief, depression, dementia) and it’s not necessarily a ‘feel good’ read. People often ask me why I like to work on projects that deal with such dark things since I don’t ‘seem depressed’. I’m not, fortunately- I also don’t think it would be possible to make this book if I was. However, I do feel like if you want to make something that is really saying something about what it’s like to be a human in this strange, strange world, it’s pretty important to include the dark stuff too. For me, that’s not about being depressed or about having a dark outlook on life, it’s about reflecting honestly on the balance between light and dark. You need the darkness to really show the light, something like that.

At the start of my manuscript I’ve put some quotes that I love, to remind myself of why I’m writing this book and what it’s really about. One of them is this quote by Leonard Cohen that you’ve probably heard before:

"There’s a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”

I know it’s pretty overused- but then again, can a line that good really be overused? It comes from the 1992 song ‘Anthem’, which I admittedly only looked up after finding the quote first. Still, the rest of the lyrics are beautiful too and hold up only too well in the strange and pretty dark times that we live in now.

In their 2023 song ‘Leonard Cohen’, Boygenius also had a lovely down-to-earth take on the quote:

Leonard Cohen once said
"There's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in"
And I am not an old man having an existential crisis
At a Buddhist monastery writing horny poetry
But I agree
I never thought you’d happen to me

It’s been a weird time for me recently; moving countries, surviving the moody climate-change affected winter, dealing with an endless amount of global Bad News.
Still, now that the sun makes her way back into my house, creeping across the living room and covering up the darkness, my mood is lifted instantly.
‘Hello’, I whisper. ‘Welcome back’

However, I’ve been warming up my drawing muscles and getting into the swing of it again. I’ve been trying to keep things simple, so few materials and a smaller sketchbook, which really seems to help. I also try to limit the time spend per drawing, so it becomes more of a casual thing that I can do in between other tasks.

The drawing above, for example, is a drawing of my street that I did during a coffee break. Still struggling a bit with drawing cars, but attempting to get better at it!

And this one I did after a meeting, walking through a nearby park - my favorite detail is the kid and parent climbing on the rocks. Lots of pink and green in these drawings- somehow these colours really fit the feeling of early spring!

If you haven’t taken your sketchbook out recently, now is a great time to start! Let me know how it goes :)

Still, a little bit of introducing seems right. My name is Femme, I am 29 years old and I really really like to draw. I’ve never been able to stick to just one thing, and so I’ve ended up forever working on a bunch of different things, like comics, editorial illustration, children’s books and even the occasional installation. Most of all I love to draw in sketchbooks, and I’m currently feeling very passionate about observational drawing- more about that later. I’ve also been working on a graphic novel for four years, and although it might take me another forty to actually finish it, I’m really looking forward to doing so.

The last three years I’ve been living in Bergen, Norway, but I’ve recently moved back home to the Netherlands, which has been both nice and strange.
In addition to drawing, I’m also into running, trees, interestingly shaped shadows, crocheting, mountains, gnocchi, peeking into strangers’ windows, reading, eating crisps, Taylor Swift, cold dips and books that make me cry.

There's always more to say, but I will leave it here for now. I’m looking forward to sharing some more thoughts soon!

x Femme