Interview: How Life Imitates Art in Colored Pencil Illustrations by Lieke van der Vorst

Nether­lands-based Lieke van der Vorst, aka Lieke­land, is an illus­tra­tor cre­at­ing scenes of a qui­et exis­tence that are sure to res­onate with any­one who prefers their gar­den to the hus­tle and bus­tle of a boom­ing metrop­o­lis. Her ball­point pen and col­ored pen­cil illus­tra­tion show­case peo­ple (and ani­mals) tend­ing to their green­hous­es, water­ing plants, and enjoy­ing a home cooked meal with friends.

For Lieke, art imi­tates life; it’s how she comes up with ideas for her work. But what hap­pens when your life changes—how does your illus­tra­tion shift with it? This is some­thing that Lieke has had to con­sid­er the past cou­ple of years. I was elat­ed to speak with her about this and more—including advice she has for aspir­ing illus­tra­tors. Scroll down to read the interview.

How do you gen­er­ate ideas for your work?

My inspi­ra­tion comes main­ly from my sur­round­ings. I used to go to my veg­etable gar­den to feel inspired;
col­lect­ing veg­eta­bles, fruits, and herbs from the gar­den to make food in the kitchen was always one of my biggest inspi­ra­tions. My cat [would be] on the kitchen counter, the chick­ens [would run] to my win­dow to see if I got some seeds for them.

For two years I live in a big­ger city where I don’t have a gar­den and I see how, because of that, my illus­tra­tions are chang­ing. I go to the park with my dog, to the gym, and have drinks with friends out­side. My illus­tra­tions now are much more about the city life then it was two years ago. Also when I went to Asia for a half year, my illus­tra­tions got real­ly influ­enced by the food I’ve eat­en there and the things I’ve experienced.

Next month I’m going to move to a new home. [It’s] a house in the city but with a huge gar­den. I can’t wait to walk in my veg­etable gar­den again, [build] a green­house and intro­duce my dog to lit­tle chick­ens. Hope­ful­ly, they will get along.

Your work uses col­ored pen­cil; what attract­ed you to this medi­um, and why do you con­tin­ue to use it?

When I was a kid I always made illus­tra­tions with paint, but at the moment I was 16 I fig­ured out I want­ed to become a tat­too artist. That’s when I start­ed to work with ball­point pen­cils, it was more easy to cre­ate shad­ows and I think I just saw oth­er tat­too artist work with the pencils.

Lat­er when I [attend­ed] the art acad­e­my I start­ed to use col­ored pen­cils. I nev­er liked them before but tried out many dif­fer­ent brands and types. Even­tu­al­ly, I end­ed up work­ing with the pen­cils from Caran d’ache, with the lit­tle gold­en line at the bottom.

I learned how to make shad­ows, use many col­ors above each oth­er and work with ball­point pen­cils to make the black more intense. Still, I some­times use oth­er mate­ri­als but love the col­ored pen­cils the most.

How do you mar­ket your­self and your work now? Has it changed over the past few years?

When I start­ed with Lieke­land sev­en years ago, I tried to get pub­lished in mag­a­zines. It was my dream to illus­trate for mag­a­zines and see my illus­tra­tions in stores.

I nev­er thought of a real mar­ket­ing plan for myself, it was a goal and I thought it would be so cool. Now I still don’t want to think about mar­ket­ing myself. I try to be hon­est on my Insta­gram account and to be myself in the illus­tra­tions I cre­ate. Although I can see how Insta­gram is a real­ly good mar­ket­ing place to show your­self to the world, I try to not over­think it.

What piece of advice, habit, or tool has helped you the most in your career?

My advice to some­one who likes to start with illus­trat­ing and cre­ate their own style (I think this is the ques­tion I get asked the most on Insta­gram), would be that you first find out what your inter­ests are.

What is your inspi­ra­tion, what do you love to do, is there a sport you love, or some ani­mals, do you love to cook or travel?

Those sub­jects are your inspi­ra­tion and what you are going to illus­trate. Then you need to find out what your tool is going to be; try every­thing there is on the mar­ket and [what] you feel com­fort­able with.

Even­tu­al­ly, you will find your tool, your inspi­ra­tion, and your sub­jects. Those things togeth­er make your style I guess, that’s how I found out. And [they’re] chang­ing in time, now my sub­jects are dif­fer­ent than a few years ago.

Thank you, Lieke!  You can find prints of her work (and more) in her online shop. Here’s even more of her work.