When did you first get into drawing and why did you choose fashion to be part of your inspiration?

Since being a child I always have been drawing. As a teenager I started to sketch models from my mum’s magazines. When my parents had friends visiting I loved to sit nearby with pencil and paper and listen to their conversation while scibbling something.

The link to fashion came quite early, when I started to study fashion design right after school. Bringing my ideas to life on paper was always my favourite part when working on a collection.

After my studies in Germany I received a scholarship for the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, where I got the chance to study Fashion Illustration for two semesters, which was a huge creativity boost. The teachers at FIT had a very different approach to illustration and I learned a lot about proportions, volume and pose from amazing teachers such as Bill Donovan.

However I always believed it would be impossible to make a living from illustration and so I started to gather experience in the fashion industry while working at labels like Kenneth Cole, Yohji Yamamoto and Schumacher. In the end it was probably a good preparation for the occupation as a freelance illustrator, since I got to see the up- and downsides of a working life in fashion.

What is your particular working day as a creative?
I usually start the day at my desk with a large cup of coffee. At first I answer emails, write quotes and do phone calls. When all the administrative stuff is done, I start working on commissions or if time allows it, I do some sketching or work on personal projects for Instagram & Co. Around 3 pm I have to drop the pen, since I have to go pick up my kids from kindergarten in the afternoon.
So if there are any deadlines I have to catch, I go on working at night.


What tools do you use when creating your images?

It depends on the purpose. When I do live sketching at events for clients, I usually illustrate with ink and watercolour directly on paper. When I’m working on commissions, I use my Wacom tablet and create all illustrations in Photoshop. I recently started to experiment a bit more with the gazillion of brushes, that can be used in Photoshop, but I get easily overwhelmed with all the options and will have to dive deeper into this topic.
When there is time, I regularly go away from the digital stuff and do an analogue illustration with pencils, watercolour and ink, because I feel it’s important for me to train these skills. Working digitally can be so very different from drawing analogue, as the real world doesn’t offer a ctrl+z button.


Who or what has influenced you over the years as an artist?

I can say that it’s definitely the huge amount of artists, that I discovered within the past years through platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest. Seeing how others work and create, has inspired me a lot. Even though I have ambivalent feelings towards Instagram, since it sometimes tends to distract me more than I want. But I guess I’m not alone with this😊

What advice do you have for younger artists looking to be part of this industry?

Stay open minded and curious, don’t be afraid to create illustrations that turn out to look like shit, never stop practicing. Also be aware that working for or with clients will not always be pure self fulfilment. I see it more as a balancing act between the illustrator’s artistic vision and the client‘s specific ideas, commercial considerations and needs, that merge together.

What are you drawing today? Music are you listening to? Books that you are reading? Favourite artist/designer at the moment?
Today I’m doing some final adjustments on a couple of illustrations for an animated video that will promote the new line of a jewellery brand.

I have the weird habit of listening over and over again to the same song when I find one I really like. Right now it’s „Bad News“ from Aaron Frazer. When I’m drawing during night time, I like the piano tunes of Chili Gonzalez a lot. During the day I listen to all kinds of podcasts while drawing.
I just finished reading the biographies of Michelle Obama („Becoming“) and Marcel Reich-Ranicki („Mein Leben“). I liked both, but especially Reich-Ranicki’s book teaches a lot about love, friendship, integrity and forgiveness.
A wonderful artist, who I recently discovered is Lavely Miller Kershman. Her large scale portraits leave me really speechless. There are so many contradicting emotions in the faces she paints and her recent works display an unconventional understanding of beauty to me.

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