Let me start by introducing myself. I’m Kalinka, a hobby artist (since 2015) and hobby photographer (since 2019) from the Netherlands.
I’m self taught in about every hobby I have, although recently I’ve been following a few short online courses in drawing with pastels because I got stuck in trying to master that medium on my own. Funny to realize that I learned some stuff using the pastels, that gave me some new ideas on how to improve my work with my graphite pencils. My ultimate goal is to be asked to draw or paint album covers for music artists.
In art I mainly do portraits, but I don’t shy away from drawing animals or things you find in nature. Even got into drawing or painting objects, just so I could practice new mediums to work with.
As a photographer, I mainly take pictures of animals (birds on top of the list). But in this case, it’s the other way around: I don’t shy away from portrait photo’s and photo’s of beautiful places in nature.
This website is dedicated to both my artwork, and my photographs. Because no matter whether it’s drawings or photo’s, it’s all about the memories I create.
Commissioned work?
Occasionally somebody asks me if I do commission. The answer to that question is YES. I do. In the early years of my art adventure, I used to draw for free, asking nothing more than a ‘Pay it forward’ from the people I created artwork for. Nowadays I do ask for a small fee for my artwork. I use that fee to keep my art and photography materials in stock but also to support some charities that I think are important enough to support. However, since I do not ask for a large commission fee, I still ask people to pay it forward. In my humble opinion, every man or woman has a talent. One way or another. As a kid I used to philosophize a lot. And one day I thought: If everybody shares something with the person on their right……eventually, we all get something in return. Same goes for using our individual talent to help out someone else. After all, who knows what help you may need a year or a decade from now. How cool would it be if someone helped you out because you participated in my ‘Pay it forward’ chain!
Call me naive, but I still believe that doing good for others makes this world a better place. Especially in the world we experience these days, doing good goes a long way!