Artist and illustrator Valesca van Waveren is best known for her colorful drawings and paintings. In addition to illustrating full time, she’s also an avid ceramist and maintains a thriving Prints and Ceramics Shop.
Based in Amsterdam with her husband Jona, their son Levi, and a cat called Momo, van Waveren is directly inspired by nature, with flora and fauna being constant themes throughout her work.
“Whenever I travel, I always love to go to the botanical gardens of the city I am visiting,” she writes on the Flow blog. “These places, which in most cases were designed and built a long time ago, are wonderfully peaceful refuges within a bustling metropolis. But more than anything, it is the diversity of the plants that impresses me most. The most beautiful botanical garden I have ever seen is in Copenhagen, but the ones in Amsterdam, Leiden and Utrecht are also great places to admire a huge variety of plants.”
“It is important for me to surround myself with flowers and plants,” she explains, saying that it makes you feel like you are being nice to yourself, to your home, and to nature. “And it doesn’t have to be an expensive treat either – you can often buy just two or three tall, elegant blooms or even pick yourself a wild bouquet from the roadside. You can also adopt unwanted plants that people have left out on the street, or get them through an online marketplace. And how about taking cuttings from the plants you already own – have you ever tried that?”
“Without plants, we would be nowhere,” she says. “They purify the air that we breathe, and much of our food comes from their fruit, seeds, leaves, and roots. By taking good care of plants, we are also taking good care of the world and ourselves.” Preach!
