Astrid Huijsing

Abandoned the city life of Amsterdam, Astrid has moved, together with his husband Peter Keizer, to an area surrounded by the nature in province Friesland, living in a building which used to be a school.

Initially, she created illustrations to accompany the stories told to her own child. And her works gradually appeared on magazines and books made for adults and children, with subjects on modern and educational topics.

To vividly render a picture in her mind, she will have to create many sketches and drafts. Once a final design is determined, she would land it onto a blank paper without erasing the supporting lines, to brush an easy and free feeling into her work.

When drawing, Astrid prefers reed pens and brushes, for they have characters of their owns -- the former produces hard-to-predicate thickness of lines while the latter would lead a trail of water color which flows at first but cracks when dried, forming a coarse but textured surface.

Astrid has a broad repertoire of subjects at her disposal. She is passionate about scenarios from the nature, the fauna and flora, being able to capture them lively in her drawings. At the same time, she can also produce humor and vivid rendering of human-made subjects such as machinery and architecture.