Valesca van Waveren lives in Amsterdam with her husband, son and cat Momo. Every day she bicycles or walks to her studio, where she makes her delightfully colorful illustrations. She also works in ceramics – a medium she discovered two years ago and which now has become a big passion of hers. In the coming month as our guestblogger Valesca will be giving us a peek behind the scenes of her work and life. You can see a preview of her work at Valescavanwaveren.com.
Hello dear Flow blog readers,
My name is Valesca van Waveren and I work as a fulltime illustrator in my own studio in Amsterdam. In my guest blogs I will give you a glimpse into my life and show you what inspires me. I find it a great honor that Flow has asked me to do this and I hope to be able to bring you fun surprises in the next four posts, and to inspire you. At my site Valescavanwaveren.com you can see the things I make and my own blog every week.
In the past seven years I have been making illustrations for various magazines, including Flow, VPRO Gids, Vrij Nederland, Opzij, Margriet More, Libelle and Jamie Magazine. As well as illustrations for assignments, I make my own work, and two years ago I discovered the joy of working with ceramics, which gives me all kinds of new possibilities.
Sometimes I work in watercolor and pencil, other times I make line drawings with ink, or I work with clay. While I can work out my designs in all kinds of different ways, the main ingredients are always time, love and attention. I love the imperfections that are inherent to handmade work. It shows a kind of vulnerability so that it is easier to make contact with the object when you look at it.
I really like drawing objects. Only when you draw something do you really see how it’s put together. Especially things with buttons and knobs, like old cameras or typewriters, are great to draw. For Libelle Blos (out 4 September) I have been drawing illustrations of old board games. It’s a lovely assignment, because I love the colors they used to use, the worn down corners on the old boxes, and the old-style typography.
Many of the things and people who inspire me can be seen on Pinterest (valescawaveren) and Instagram (valescavanwaveren).
My next post will be about my love for ceramics and the process of working with clay. How it changes from being a lump of clay to a ceramics hanger or little pot.
Until next week,
Valesca
