Interview with Tina Ley Burholt:
What is your current position? What kinds of tasks/projects are you doing and how much time are you roughly spending on each?
I currently work as a freelance illustrator for various clients - mainly publishers, but also other areas like museums from time to time. I make illustrations for different genres like young adult, children’s books and from time to time educational material.
When I start an assignment, which typically is a series, I will start by dividing my weeks according to how much time each stage requires: Reading the material, thumbnails, sketches, line art and colours. It's a little hard to say for me what a typical week would look like as I rotate quite a bit in my work.
Typically, I want to have 2 max 3 series running simultaneously, so that I can jump between the different tasks while waiting for a response from a client. A standard series, for me, takes about 1 to 1 1/2 months to complete.
Which of your tasks/projects do you find stimulating? Which less so?
There's the typical stuff like listening to music, podcasts and stories but it's pretty shallow. What keeps me running in the same gear, after several years, is mainly 2 things:
- That I draw in the style that I like the best. It might sound spoiled, but that's how it is for me. It especially helps when you get free rein to illustrate a series without a lot of input, because then I can treat it more like my own project. However, it requires that clients trust your abilities. If a client interferes too much in how I do things, then my interest fades quickly and too much energy is spent on setting boundaries.
- It also helps to focus on which goals I would like to achieve in the future, so that every task created becomes a steppingstone toward the next big step in my career. Preferably with variety and self-realisation, which I sometimes find can be a bit of a struggle.
If one of those 2 things are forgotten, then it's easy to burn out, so I always try to keep it in the back of my mind. And lastly, I am grateful for the position I am in and that usually gives me a boost.
How did you end up in your current position? Which steps did you take to get from where you were when you started thinking about your career at GS to where you are now?
I was fortunate that several people saw potential in my abilities and offered me opportunities before I graduated from GS. I was for instance offered to make a test for a series for the Danish publishing house Alinea, which became my first real, fully illustrated book series (Toke). The same applied to some work for TV Midtvest that Peter Dyring offered me.
This meant that I had enough on my CV to show to clients after graduation. After that it was just a matter of perseverance, applying for anything everywhere until someone was willing to pick me up.
After a few months doing that, I got a job at another Danish publishing house (Alvilda). Then Alinea returned. Then other Danish publishers like Elysion, Gyldendal, Carlsen, Staarup and Co. Sooner or later, you become a fixture with all of them and then you are booked a year ahead.For me, it was about seeing potential in everything that came my way, while at the same time being able to sort through what does not benefit me and my career (bad clients, poor pay, too small tasks).
And! Most importantly, to do things properly.
Looking back from where you are now, what was the smartest thing you did to move your career in the right (for you) direction?
That I didn't hold back and treated my work as a business that needed to move forward. It was also important that I didn't just sit on my hands but did what I could to create my own opportunities.
If you could go back and correct one or more misunderstandings you had about careers in the creative industry when you went to GS, what would it/they be?
That if you love and draw in manga style, you won't get any work! That's probably the only thing I can think of (laughs).
How does your career affect your lifestyle? Does your job influence your opportunities in other areas of life, for example in terms of hobbies, social life, starting a family? (If yes: How do you feel about that - and would you want to change it somehow, sometime?)
It only impacts if you don't plan properly or make sure to meet personal deadlines. There is room for most things if you plan and prioritise. One of my pitfalls in the beginning was being too much of a perfectionist and being rigid with my work - it affected both my spare time and the quality of my work (funnily enough).
Now I'm going to work with the concept of "done, not perfect" so I can allow myself to take time off and enjoy other things. This is something I have been forced to take seriously after giving birth and becoming a mother.