I wasn’t born with a pencil in my hand, but I did grow one as a tail by the age of five. My parents had it surgically removed and kept it in a jar until I was old enough to use it. And when I did, out came my own personal illustration style!

Oh how I wish all of the above was true. But no, I never had a pencil for a tail and certainly not one that came with a personal illustration style. Developing my style was a long journey of blood, sweat, tears and art college. It was a creative quest of trial and error and unfortunately there is no recipe I can share to cook up an illustration style of your own. I can, however, share what worked for me: I stayed very true to myself and to what I thought I could do best and really didn’t care much about what others would say (to the annoyance of some art college teachers, haha). Some tips from me: Take time to experiment and find what techniques, materials and tools fit you. Take a few detours and then return to what you liked best. Then practice, practice, practice until you feel like you’ve made it your own. Then send your work out into the world even if it doesn’t feel finished because let me share a secret: it will never feel like it is. Be bold and brave and don’t be afraid people won’t like it: as long as it makes you happy it will radiate that and attract people who love your work too.

You may share one single photo from any blog post you see on this website or any instagram post as long as you properly credit “Vera Bertens//franje design” (@verabertens on instagram) and link back to the original post on this website or my instagram account. You may not share more than one photo from any blog post or any blogpost in full without explicit written permission from me. You may not alter any of my images nor use them in your own promotional material under any circumstances.

If you are a print publication wanting to use a high res image or have any other questions about usage of a photo of mine, please contact me via the ‘contact’ page on this website.

Not at this time. I get this question a lot but I haven’t had time to turn my knowledge intoa workshop or (e-)course. If you have any suggestions about what you’d want to learn from me, drop me an e-mail via the form on the contact page.

Besides work I don’t really have any. Although I would love to get started on pottery or weaving classes. In my spare time I like to take walks and do yoga. And drink coffee, lots of it.

Nowadays I wear mostly vintage clothes. I do this for environmental reasons but also because finding that perfect vintage item can be SO rewarding and since they are vintage, I love how every item is one of a kind.

I shop vintage in real shops as well as online. Etsy has a lot of great vintage shops!

No.