Evil Strawberry in 2025
On creativity, connections, community and music...
2025 has been a year full of drawing, conversations, music, travel and connection and I feel grateful for that. Come take a look at my past year with me and learn about what is next!
Thank You for Being Here
Before anything else, I want to say thank you. Thank you for reading, commenting, joining sessions, sending messages and quietly following along. Your presence, encouragement and curiosity mean more to me than you might realize.
If you feel like supporting my work more directly, becoming a paid subscriber is a wonderful way to do that. It helps me continue writing these posts, hosting drawing sessions and creating space for connection. Yearly subscription is €80 and you can always subscribe for as little as €8 a month, and you can cancel anytime. Every bit of support truly helps.
Here you can see me preparing a thank you gift for one of my annual subscribers. Subscribing for a year has its benefits, such as surprise gifts like this one.
Creative Workshops, Together in Real Life
One of the highlights of 2025 was giving real-life workshops. Together with Justin from Disruptive Cheerleader, I hosted several sessions as part of our Creativity and the Self series. Last one of them in 2025 took place in Den Haag, at Gastropub Kinsbergen.
These workshops were full of stories. People from different backgrounds, nationalities and professions came together to talk about creativity and the challenges it brings into our professional lives. When I led the storytelling workshop, I was amazed by how focused and engaged everyone became. By the end, each participant had created a complete story, and the smiles at the end stayed with me for a long time.
Stay tuned for our 2026 workshops!
Online Drawing Sessions and Shared Quiet Time
My online drawing sessions have been another source of joy this year. What started off as an experimental idea (what if I draw with others instead of drawing alone on Thursday evenings?) turned into a regular meeting between an intimate group of people with shared interest! Drawing together, even through a screen, reminded me how powerful shared quiet time can be.
There is a small change in how these evenings are getting organized though: I will no longer use the Meetups app, instead I will be announcing my meetings over my instagram and substack. So I encourage everyone to make sure you follow me on either one of the platforms.
There will be two drawings sessions each month, one on a Thursday and one on a Tuesday. The format and the contents will stay the same: We will be drawing together for 2 quiet hours from various reference photos. At the end there will be a voluntary show and tell. And yes, it will stay as an introvert friendly group, so participation will always be voluntary :)
My Thursday evenings got richer thanks to all the participants of my online drawing sessions. It is now my ideal way to fill pages on my sketchbook and learn from everyone that is generous enough to share their drawings and experience in these sessions.
Online Challenges and Finding My Visual Voice
I’m also very thankful for my online presence this year, especially on Instagram. The drawing challenges I joined helped me stay playful, experiment freely and show up consistently. Through them, I began to understand my own visual language better and discovered color palettes that feel more and more like me. Sharing sketches, works in progress and small thoughts online helped me let go of perfection and trust the process a little more.
I have managed to fill up more sketchbooks than you see in this little reel here this year and I am very happy about it!
New People, New Energy, New Lessons
Networking events played an important role for me this year. Every time I walked into a room full of new people, I felt a mix of nerves and excitement, and almost every time I left feeling energized.
Through these events, I learned how essential real-life connections are, especially for freelancers. You can be very good at what you do, regardless of your field, but it is often real, human connection that helps you learn, grow and find the right audience or collaborators. While I still value online platforms and continue to use them, one-to-one, in-person connections have proven to be much more effective and faster for me.
These experiences also taught me how important it is to clearly communicate who you are and what you do. Staying still and hoping the world will somehow find you rarely works. For me, becoming a good freelance illustrator turned out to be about much more than making strong images. Visual storytelling is only one part of the work, and often a smaller part than we would like.
Freelancing also requires communication, clarity and the ability to tell your own story before you can tell anyone else’s. It’s not always easy, and it’s certainly not for the faint of heart, but understanding this has helped me grow, both as an illustrator and as a freelancer.
Music, Memory and Closing the Year
Music also shaped this year. I spent last year playing with the West Brabant Symphony Orchestra and met many wonderful people there. It was a valuable experience and I will cherish the friendships I have built there and the memories we made together.
Looking Ahead
As I step into the new year, I’m feeling thankful and quietly hopeful. I’m working on two book projects that are very close to my heart, and I’ll continue sharing sketches, thoughts and progress here.
The next online drawing session will be on Thursday, January 8, and I’d love to start the year drawing together again. You can find the tickets by clicking here.
Thank you for being here. Truly.
I believe I found you, on the violin in the near-to-the-back, on the right of the picture!
You had a great 2025! Should I ever make it to Belgium, I would hope to join one of these live heart-to-heart workshops.
If you're still going to do remote Zoom-up/streams, perhaps I may be able to finally join one in February or March!