This is my riso print for our second @rise.raise.riso fundraiser - link in bio.
Last week, I’ve been busy risographing my design and all the others from the artists involved, using my own Risograph machine. They’re all so beautiful, and we hope they’ll help make a difference.
We’re raising money for children and families in Palestine in urgent need of support. Below, you’ll find more information about the organisations we’re donating to — and I’ll share from their feeds in my stories.
We must take action, raise our voices, and do what we can. That will look different for everyone. I’ve often been lost for words, immersed in daily life with my little family and work, while my heart has been breaking again and again witnessing the pain, death, and destruction. I’ve felt confused and angry, especially seeing the silence from those in power who could stop this genocide.
For a long time, I thought I was too sensitive for this world — I avoided the news, convinced I wasn’t political, and just wanted to make beautiful, uplifting things. But I now see that a lot of the choices we make are political. It’s all connected.
Caring deeply isn’t weakness and sensitivity isn’t a flaw. Keeping our eyes open for realities beyond our comprehension and keeping an open heart, even when it hurts. The quiet voices among us also count.
Please help us by sharing widely, and with anyone who might be interested. The campaign runs until 3 July, so you have two weeks to order a risoprint or a digital download of your choice.
Participating artists this year are: @melissacastrillon@beckypalmer@martaltes@mauri.mendes@brunice@flavia_zdrago@sarahdyer_illustrator@ehud.neuhaus@ed_vere@yufrukt@deenface@evaeland
Prints are made on demand, so no ink or paper goes to waste.
Thank you for your support.
Continued in comments…
Packing orders tomorrow (Tuesday 12 May).
The shop will be closing in a few weeks for an indefinite break, something new and exciting is coming, and I’ll share more about that soon.
In the meantime, thank you so much for every order. There’s something that never gets old about knowing one of my risograph prints is finding a new home somewhere in the world.
Link in stories.
#risographprint #picturebookillustration #childrensbookillustration #risography #wherehappinessbegins
I’m packing orders today, which always feels a bit special, seeing these prints slowly find their way into different homes.
Today they’re travelling to Portugal and the US.
I realised I haven’t shared my webshop here in a while, so this is a quiet little reminder that it’s there. Some of the prints only have one or two left.
One of my favourites, Just Breathe, has now sold out… which feels both a little sad and very lovely at the same time.
I’m currently focusing on finishing my next book, so I’ll be packing and sending orders once a week for now.
(And in case you didn’t know: I offer free shipping above €100 internationally and above €50 within the Netherlands.)
If there are prints you’ve been hoping for, let me know, I’d love to keep that in mind as I make new ones. I have so many sketches waiting to be turned into vibrant, textured layers.
But first, let’s pack those orders and finish a book! 😀
#risograph #risographprint #picturebookartist
One of the downsides of working on a picturebook is that for a long time I can’t share much of what I’m working on and finding time to make other work is hard. Occasionally I treat myself to a little creative project or the printing of a new risoprint. Often the simpler ones as otherwise it quickly becomes too time consuming. Here is such a print, which I just added to my webshop. I’m packing orders tomorrow so if you’d like to order something, now is a good time.
#blackbird #risography #risographprint
🩷💙 Different Takeover 🩷💙
After many iterations and conversations, including feedback sessions with my someone who makes me feel okay about feeling different, my husband @maurimendes , and lots of back and forth with Sue and Beccy about elephants, the book’s message, colours and compositions, we finally reached a point where the roughs and text felt strong enough to move on to final artwork.
This is usually the stage where I shift into production mode. I redraw the final line work in pencil using a lightbox, scan the drawings, and build the images in layers before printing them on my risograph machine. The final spreads are printed in three Pantone colours, creating the vibrant, slightly imperfect quality of the book. The neon pink that appears in Different is a quiet echo of the original elephant.
At this stage I often listen to podcasts while working. It keeps me going. There are still decisions about colour, and sometimes I redraw parts after reviewing, but at least the end slowly comes into view.
One final thought: belonging and self-acceptance are rarely simple conclusions. In the book, Mia meets another child who also feels different. Recognition and shared experience allow for a shift in perspective and the beginning of self-acceptance.
In real life, support can also come in the form of a diagnosis, when applicable, and with it the tools and guidance to understand ourselves better. But life is rarely as neatly packaged as a picture book. Sometimes it takes time to untangle the different strands of our lives and figure out what we need.
I hope this book offers those who resonate with it a sense of recognition, of not being alone, and perhaps a little more courage to follow their own path.
Different by @evaeland is out now!
#Different #NeurodiverseCelebrationWeek #picturebookillustration #AndersenPress #EvaEland
🩷💙 Different Takeover 🩷💙
Making a book is rarely a straight line.
Different began with sketches of a pink elephant who immediately started telling me a story. A story about feeling different, wanting to belong, trying to fit in, and the shame that can grow around that.
I wrote on small pieces of paper and drew more images, arranging and rearranging them until a sequence began to feel like a story.
Like with most picture books I make, I also had conversations with people who could relate to these themes. Those exchanges helped shape my understanding, just like the books I temporarily immerse myself in when exploring a subject.
My father summarised it quite neatly at the time:
“Everyone experiences the paradox of wanting to belong and wanting to be unique at the same time.”
I was also drawn to something Maya Angelou once said:
“You are only free when you realize you belong no place — you belong every place — no place at all.”
At the same time, I became increasingly aware of how environments are often not suited for neurodiverse people, making it harder for them to thrive, while the responsibility is quietly pushed back onto the individual. I know from my own experience how this can feed feelings of inadequacy, guilt and shame.
When Sue (Editor) and Beccy (Art Director) at Andersen Press and I decided Different would become the next book, I still had many unresolved questions. I created a digital dummy with the sketches and revised text, leaving several blank pages at the end. There were many iterations and many conversations.
Even without having resolved the story, I knew the theme mattered to me and I had grown fond of the character. There were many people I love in the back of my mind while working on this book, including my child self and my adult self.
It sometimes felt as though I was trying to conclude a story that is still unfolding in real life. If only it were as simple as the message “just be yourself.”
To be continued…
Different by @evaeland is out now!
#Different #NeurodiverseCelebrationWeek #picturebookillustration #EvaEland #AndersenPress
🩷💙 Different Takeover 🩷💙
This is the only spread where I really used my love for observational drawing. It took quite a while to ‘’collect’ all these people, from old sketchbooks and more recent drawings in my neighbourhood, and arrange them in a way that felt right.
In this post you can see timelapses of building the composition (best seen on a bigger screen), some of those original observational sketches, the traced linework on the lightbox, the separate black and white riso layers, and the final spread in the book.
I wanted to show the kind of loneliness and isolation you can feel when you don’t quite belong, and maybe feel misunderstood. As if there is a small distance between you and everyone else that you don’t know how to bridge. She’s obviously not very happy in this spread, but loneliness can also hide behind a smile.
While working on this scene, I kept thinking about how easy it is to believe that everyone else belongs more than you do. That everyone else has understood something you have somehow missed.
What if Mia looked up and really observed the people around her? Each one with their own worries, their own insecurities, their own inner world. We can’t see what is going on inside someone else’s head. We can become very self-conscious and feel as though everyone is looking at us and judging, when in reality they might simply be absorbed in their own thoughts.
Different by @evaeland is out now!
#Different #NeurodiverseCelebrationWeek #neurodiversity #picturebookillustration #Risography childrensbooks illustrationprocess EvaEland AndersenPress
🩷💙 Different Takeover 🩷💙
Different began with a pink elephant.
I was playing with expressions like “the elephant in the room” and the Dutch saying about an elephant in a porcelain cupboard, similar to “a bull in a China shop”. The character was bright and big, and at the same time trying to blend in, quite impossibly. In those early drafts, the humour of an oversized elephant trying to squeeze into human spaces helped me explore the heart of the story without it becoming too heavy.
With the elephant, the difference was very visible. Over time, and after many conversations, we began to question whether that visibility narrowed the story. What happens if the difference is not something you can point at? What if it’s unnamed?
As the story developed, in collaboration with my Editor and Art Director at Andersen Press, we chose to change the elephant into a child. Mia, in her pink jacket. (Swipe to see timelapses of some of the early roughs being developed)
The exaggeration softened, but the emotional core remained. The book became quieter and more open to interpretation. The difference Mia feels is never named. It might resonate with neurodivergence, friendship struggles, cultural differences or simply moments of not fitting in. Keeping it open allows more children to recognise something of themselves in her.
This book grew out of wrestling with questions around shame, insecurity, trying to fit in and true belonging.
Do you relate more to Mia, who feels almost invisible, or to the pink elephant that feels like it’s too much?
Different by @evaeland is out now!
#Different #NeurodiverseCelebrationWeek #neurodiversity #picturebookillustration #Risography EvaEland AndersenPress
🩷💙 Different Takeover 🩷💙
Hello, I’m @evaeland , the author and illustrator of Different.
It’s a book about feeling different, and slowly finding your place. This might be my most autobiographical book to date, although all of my picture books hold an emotional truth that is close to my heart.
In this first spread, Mia stands in front of the mirror, trying to work out what might be different about her.
Over the coming days, during Neurodiverse Celebration Week, I’ll be taking over the Andersen Press Instagram account sharing how this story grew from its very first sketches and ideas into the final artwork, and how I’ve wrestled with themes of feeling different, trying to fit in and true belonging.
A special thank you to the wonderful team behind the book, especially Sue Buswell (Editor) and Beccy Garrill (Art Director). This book wouldn’t be here without them.
Have you ever felt out of place, or like you didn’t quite belong? How did it make you feel, and what did you do in response to that feeling?
Different is out now, published by @andersenpress
#Different #NeurodiverseCelebrationWeek #picturebookillustration #EvaEland #AndersenPress
The first orders are in (yay!), thank you so much.
Some of the prints in the webshop are already sold out or running low. You can see which ones only have a few left if you swipe.
Many of the smaller prints are one of a kind. I made them as experiments when I first discovered risography while studying the MA Children’s Book Illustration in Cambridge.
All orders placed before 10:00 CEST tomorrow (Monday 16 March) will be packed and shipped by the end of the day.
If you’d like to learn more about the making of my latest picture book Different, keep an eye on the @andersenpress Instagram tomorrow evening. I’ll be taking over their account for Neurodiverse Celebration Week and sharing some of the process and thoughts behind the book.
#Risograph #RisographyPrint #RisographPrint #EvaEland #IllustrationShop
To celebrate the publication of Different, I’ve reopened my webshop.
There’s a small risograph print from one of the illustrations in the book (a little smaller than A5), along with risograph prints from my other picture books.
If you’d like one, you can find it in the webshop (link in bio).
Thank you for supporting my work — it really means a lot.
#EvaEland #Different #Risography #picturebookillustration #childrensbooks
Different is out in the world today!
Let me know if you spot it in the wild, and what you think.
For some reason I’m feeling all the feelings today. Coincidentally, I also came across some old texts I wrote during my early art student years. They reminded me how different and out of place I often felt as a child and over the years.
As I’ve gotten older, gained more perspective and learned to mask and adjust (a little, at least), I sometimes almost forget the intensity of those earlier feelings.
This book is for her as well. And for everyone who has struggled, or still struggles, with feeling different in some way.
If you read it, I’d love to know what you recognise in it.
Different is published with @andersenpress .
#Different #EvaEland #AndersenPress #neurodiversity #picturebookillustration
