Portfolio of Maud Beurskens;
Illustrative & Character designer

These illustrations are all submissions for Illustration Friday ! Illustration Friday gives you a new subject to draw something about every Friday of the week, giving you a week time to finish the illustration! It’s a nice initiative for both Illustrators and hobbyists to express their own creative thoughts.

Up until now the subjects I have illustrated are: wheel, storm, wool, whisper and talent.
More to come!

This project started with just one drawing, inspired by the upcoming Spring days. I wanted to draw an innocent (rabbit like) character enjoying the spring sun with some good food, but eventually I ended up with a series of these small characters, all enjoying their sunny day in their own way.

This project was done in Sai Paint Tool and edited in Photoshop.

A set of businesscards and giftcards designed and made for the new massage parlour of Nicoline Voskuilen. She wanted the cards to breath calmness and represent her idea of the massage parlour; heavenly relaxation. Done in mainly paint, pencils and photoshop.

A series of illustrations I’ve made during my third year at the art academy. The first set is for an essay about Schopenhauer and his theories, a heavy article to illustrate. I decided to try and explain how Schopenhauer himself felt when he was still alive in the cover design, and in the two following I choose to explain how the people thought about him after he died and what he meant with his theories. The last illustration is a cover design for the VPRO magazine. “Ode aan het papier” was the title, which means “Ode to paper”. Tools used: pencils, paint, paper.

Design for my newest business card. I choose to design a character for myself; a girl who can rub off as shy and insecure at first (hiding away from the crowd), but who can turn into a confident and outgoing personality when she is comfortable enough with the situation or with the person. It shows two sides (in combination with the website); the confident and the shy side of me.

Reis door het Rotterdam van 1940 (Journey through Rotterdam of 1940); is my graduation project for the art academy AKV | St. Joost. In this project I decided to make an application for either an Ipad or tablet, in which the user can make a virtual journey through Rotterdam before the bombing of 1940. It’s designed to educate not only kids but also their parents, guiding them through the events by a character named Dirk and some interesting animations. The combination of those make this app an interesting but educational journey through one of the biggest and historical cities of the Netherlands.

Graduation Project for AKV | St. Joost. These illustrations are designed for a magazine based of the Next Nature Power show, which is held in the Netherlands every year. This magazine educates children around the age of ten what the ancestors were of our current pets in a fun but educative way. By solving puzzles and other small tasks the children learn more and more about pets and their past, but along the way they also discover that we, as humans, might be going a little overboard with ‘humanizing’ these animals.

Cover designer for Nescio’s novel: Dichterje, de uitvreters, titaantje & mene tekel. Thanks to a contest organized by the publisher Nijgh & van Ditmar our class was able to make ten designers for ten novels picked out by the publisher. Eventually my design got chosen as one of the winners, causing it to be published in stores in August of this year. The design breathes the atmosphere of the novels written by Nescio and shows a simple and calm representation in counterweight of the grave stories told in the novel.

Cixi; the Dragon Empress. These illustrations show the life of China’s first empress, a women who lead the country with passion, but also a women who eventually passed away leaving a dark past behind. This booklet was originally an assignment during my graduation year at the art academy and is made with a combination of paint, color pencils, photographs and photoshop.

A set of Illustrations made for the children’s book: ‘De Prinses, de Graaf & de Handschoen’ (The Princess, the Count & the Glove). This was one of my assignments given to me by the Illustrator Thé Tjong-Khing. He is the original illustrator who made the illustrations for the book, I was asked to do a remake of my own; the result were these illustrations, made in paint & color pencils.

In 2010, during my second year on the Art Academy there was a contest organized by the FiComic comic book convention in which our class was able to participate. The students were able to choose between three categories; I choose ‘From the past to the present’. With this information I decided to draw a story of an old man who reflects on his past, rediscovering a fact that was perhaps better left undiscovered.

Apart from school work and assignments I like to experiment and draw stuff for my own as well. In this gallery you mostly find fan works and some experimenting with digital art, a platform I am still not too used to (yet).