Before 3pm, you might find Rebecca ter Borg at Inky Palms, a shared studio nestled into the ground-floor arcade in the La Gonna Building on Auckland’s K Road.
Ter Borg’s creative life is all about balance. In the available work hours before she resumes her role as mother, she juggles freelance commercial work; tutoring illustration at Unitec; running Quickdraw Sketch Gang, a group that live-sketch portraits at events; and exhibiting work as a part of the Paper Assassins alongside creating her own prints, which she sells via her Etsy store.
Having a range of different endeavours on the go is something ter Borg sees as a commonality amongst New Zealand creatives.
“I think New Zealanders are quite confident at trying new things and just making and doing without too many reservations. There are quite a few self-taught artists and musicians here and I feel like there's a good community as well. It's quite a supportive place to start something new; possibly because of its size and population.
“The flip side of that is that it can be really hard to earn money as a creative in New Zealand, which is why we all do so many things. There's a lot of insecurity in having contract and freelance work, and it can be very stressful to balance everything and deal with sudden gaps with no work. It's impossible to plan how your year or even your month will go.”
For ter Borg, creating her own work is an channel through which she can offset the pressure of commercial work. “I justify making new works by selling them as prints or showing them in group shows with other illustrators.”
“Currently there are five illustrators in Inky Palms and we all dip in casually to the space. No one has a special area; instead, it’s more like an extremely casual hot-desk system.”
Ter Borg finds it inspiring to work around other creative people.
“We all like to use the Risograph pinter, which is a very fun way of outputting our work. We try to be as environmentally friendly as possible, so all the test prints are re-used and end up with layers of different people's work on them. I love the happy accidents and unplanned collaborations that happen when we print on top of each other's scrap paper.”
Ter Borg’s work is inspired by the colour combinations she sees around her, and the illustrative style of the 60s and 70s. “I walk down the street and gawk at all the plants and flowers in other people's gardens, it sounds a bit cliched but there really is endless inspiration in nature.”
Never working quite in the same way, a consistent starting point is drawing. “Sometimes if the subject is something I don't know well I have to draw it quite realistically first, and then I can stylise it in a more instinctive way.”
Albeit hard work, this “working out drawing” is an enjoyable part of the process that builds the compositional foundation needed to facilitate the more natural free-drawing that she enjoys most.
You can see more of ter Borg’s work on her website rebeccaterborg.com.
Ter Borg’s creative life is all about balance. In the available work hours before she resumes her role as mother, she juggles freelance commercial work; tutoring illustration at Unitec; running Quickdraw Sketch Gang, a group that live-sketch portraits at events; and exhibiting work as a part of the Paper Assassins alongside creating her own prints, which she sells via her Etsy store.
Having a range of different endeavours on the go is something ter Borg sees as a commonality amongst New Zealand creatives.
“I think New Zealanders are quite confident at trying new things and just making and doing without too many reservations. There are quite a few self-taught artists and musicians here and I feel like there's a good community as well. It's quite a supportive place to start something new; possibly because of its size and population.
“The flip side of that is that it can be really hard to earn money as a creative in New Zealand, which is why we all do so many things. There's a lot of insecurity in having contract and freelance work, and it can be very stressful to balance everything and deal with sudden gaps with no work. It's impossible to plan how your year or even your month will go.”
For ter Borg, creating her own work is an channel through which she can offset the pressure of commercial work. “I justify making new works by selling them as prints or showing them in group shows with other illustrators.”
“Currently there are five illustrators in Inky Palms and we all dip in casually to the space. No one has a special area; instead, it’s more like an extremely casual hot-desk system.”
Ter Borg finds it inspiring to work around other creative people.
“We all like to use the Risograph pinter, which is a very fun way of outputting our work. We try to be as environmentally friendly as possible, so all the test prints are re-used and end up with layers of different people's work on them. I love the happy accidents and unplanned collaborations that happen when we print on top of each other's scrap paper.”
Ter Borg’s work is inspired by the colour combinations she sees around her, and the illustrative style of the 60s and 70s. “I walk down the street and gawk at all the plants and flowers in other people's gardens, it sounds a bit cliched but there really is endless inspiration in nature.”
Never working quite in the same way, a consistent starting point is drawing. “Sometimes if the subject is something I don't know well I have to draw it quite realistically first, and then I can stylise it in a more instinctive way.”
Albeit hard work, this “working out drawing” is an enjoyable part of the process that builds the compositional foundation needed to facilitate the more natural free-drawing that she enjoys most.
You can see more of ter Borg’s work on her website rebeccaterborg.com.
