Julia Nüsch Illustrator from Hamburg, Germany

I didn't know the word 'illustrator' as a child, but I always wanted to tell stories, and I always wanted to tell stories with pictures. I've always been drawing.

When I get a job, I'm very excited at first, and I get something akin to stage fright. In my studio, I sometimes sit in front of a blank sheet of paper for days on end. Then I usually take care of my graphic jobs first, while sketching on all sorts of scrap paper or on the back of invoices and so on. At some point, I will have the courage to go back to my drawing table, and usually, the inspirations will come of their own accord. I have two tables, one for drawing and my watercolors and one with a view of the dike, where I do my computer work and daydream out of the window. Once I am really into it, I never stop drawing. Often, I work until late at night, and then I sometimes stay on the couch in my studio overnight.

Yes, very many. I collect beautifully illustrated books, and I love inspiration. As a child, I used to look at my father's drawings over and over again. That influenced me a lot and made me want to be able to draw that beautifully one day.

When I was a child, my sister and I made new sleeves for all the audiotapes with our favorite stories. We had often simply lost the originals. From Bibi Blocksberg, Benjamin Blümchen, Heidi to Momo, and Jim Knopf, everything was there. During our camping vacations at the Baltic Sea, I laid out the ground of our tent porch with A4 sheets glued together and drew a vast underwater world with countless creatures. Which I had cut out before. Years later, we would still find little paper mermaids and numerous monsters in all kinds of corners. However, I don't remember which came first, the tapes or the underwater world.

Oh, countless.

Yes, my drawing table in my studio. I also drew some of my pictures at the Baltic Sea when there was no wind. That was nice, but the conditions are too rarely that good.

Oh yes. A story by Michael Ende would be nice. Or Pippi Longstocking, or a fairy tale, or, or ... One of my biggest wishes is coming true right now because I'm currently working on illustrations for my own story, which will be published in spring 2021. A story must be dreamy and/or funny. Then I immediately get the desire to illustrate it.

Yes, I do find my panther very beautiful myself, and I keep wondering, did I paint that?

I also like the Prince of Morocco and the Doge from the "Merchant of Venice".

Sleep, walk, travel, bathe, swim, and invent stories.

The telling of stories with pictures that arise in the mind's eye while reading. The challenge is to put those images on paper. Sometimes this results in something completely new, which is very exciting for me. Maybe it's comparable to pottery, where a form is peeled bit by bit. Once in a while, a form peels itself out of the paper bit by bit. I feel as if the illustration creates itself. I have little more to do with it myself.

Yes, definitely — and an intense fear of pages, the fear of starting. Unfortunately, I don't have an antidote for it. I hope to solve this mystery sometime.