People ask me: “Do you use the computer for your paintings? Or the drawing board?”
If people don’t see my paintings in real life, but just on a computer screen they even think my paintings are only digital images.
In some way I find that a compliment; Apparently the scenes I create are looking so crisp and perspective-technical correct to make you think they are beyond natural. Well, the subjects are beyond natural, but that is another story.
At the other hand I could not accept it as a compliment. Although I realize that creating digital images is not just simply pressing a button and it comes out, I’m always hurrying to say that my paintings do not come from the computer.
I’m surely convinced that my style is heavily influenced by modern graphics and animation, but the sketches are still done on an old-fashioned drawing board with a ruler and an eraser.

Of course I know a computer program could be easier in the long run. And maybe faster after practising.
So, years ago I decided I wanted to learn making digital images and 3D scenes. I bought a Dummies-book and I started full of enthusiasm, being under the impression that from now on my limits would be solved soon and new possibilities would be endless!

After a week dragging myself through the lessons, I slowly started to hate it. Everyday I had forgotten what I had learned the day before. And every day behind the screen I felt guilty about the lost painting-time. My aversion was growing rapidly. Not because I don’t like the computer (usually I’m glued to the screen too much), but this felt like doing algebra. In the week I tried to learn the beginnings of this digital drawing program, I could have drawn 7 models by hand! Everything inside me was unwilling to follow the course.
I was not the right person to sketch behind the computer.
I wished I was, but I’m afraid I am not?

The drawing, ruling, measurements and a lot of erasing takes a long time and it is not my favourite part of the whole creation, but viewed in the light of the amount of time 1 painting takes? I decided I can handle it without the computer.