I’m from Bulgaria, a small country in South East Europe, located on the Balkan peninsula.

I came here to study graphic design. You can find more about my experience in my mini book “That time I moved to Denmark”.

Bulgarian is my mother tongue, I speak English fluently and Danish on a conversational every day level, but might struggle to express deeper thoughts or more complex or technical concepts. In the past I have also studied and at one point was fluent in German and Russian, but have been out of practice since I graduated High school. I have also studied a little bit of Spanish, Italian, Dutch and Mandarin, but was never able to have a conversation in any of these, more of a fun time side thing.

Yes I do. It has its challenges, but for the time being the positive outweighs the negative for me.

Yes (I’ve become a bit bored). Somewhere with more exciting nature and/ or warmer climate. Sweden, Spain and Portugal have intrigued me for a while.

It can vary a lot. Copenhagen has been a lot more welcoming than Jutland for example. Over my 12+ years here I’ve had both very positive and heart warming experiences and very negative and frustrating ones. Starting from scratch in a new country with no money, connections, language knowledge and support network is really hard, but it can be done if you want to 😉 

You can find more about my experience in my mini book “That time I moved to Denmark”.

I’ve wanted to write and illustrate books for as long as I knew people wrote and illustrated books. The problem was that I never believed it was possible for me (and sometimes I still wonder if it is). I started out on a completely different path (in the hospitality industry) and every time I got really frustrated and unhappy with where I was I made some kind of shift and over time those have brought me to where I am today.

After I graduated highschool I got a Bachelor’s degree in Tourism at the Agricultural University of Plovdiv (Bulgaria) and worked as a receptionist/ supervisor at a hotel for a few years. I was accepted to a Masters program, but decided to drop it and start over, moved to Aalborg (Denmark) and got a degree in Graphic design (at UCN). After graduation I had a very hard time finding a job (I was alone with no network in a small Danish town in the midst of the recession), so I went back to school to expand my degree with some Branding and marketing at VIA UC Herning (Denmark).

Absolutely nothing 😂 It is a made up name for a minor character in an unfinished mediaeval style fantasy parody of the Arthurian legends I was writing for fun back in the early 2000s. I once created a throwaway account with that name on DeviantArt to vote for my cousin in some competition and then actually continued using the account. Then I started creating more accounts with that name on other sites, because it was short and easy and always available everywhere until at some point it became too entangled with my identity to let go of, so here we are!

No, but I’d still get one if that’s affordable to you. University was fun! It can also be great for networking, though it didn’t work out that way for me.

Gradually over time by myself. I started drawing as a child as most people do and just never stopped. I’ve learned through observation, books, online tutorials and some courses/ workshops, but I’ve never done a very serious academic training.

I don’t really remember what my initial motivation to draw was, it seems to me that most children seem to have some level of interest in it. Three things I remember giving me a strong push towards drawing were: 1) seeing beautiful things in nature (landscapes, plants) and having an overwhelming desire to keep these moments and preserve them forever, a desire to copy a specific feeling, so that I can return to it whenever I wanted to relive it again. 2) the desire to tell a story, to explain a thought or a feeling that I had in as clear a way as possible. 3) the illustrations in books, for me they were the purest form of perfection and I wanted to be able to create something like it myself.

It’s a long story, but in a nutshell I always wanted to work for myself since I was very young. I think it was because I always saw my parents being very unhappy and unsatisfied at their jobs and especially with their bosses. Later when it came to getting a job as a graphic designer I struggled to even find openings, while working on projects as a freelancer was much more achievable, I decided to stop looking for a job and try and make my own job. This seems to be a common scenario with many people living abroad without a solid network.

For me drawing has always been one of the purest joys there are and it’s very rare that I don’t want to draw. I don’t draw every day, but I want to draw most days. If I don’t feel like drawing for me that’s a sign that something is off with me, I might be sick, anxious, depressed, burnt out. If that seems to be the case I’d seek help. There are of course times when I lose motivation for a project and the problem isn’t so much that I don’t want to draw, but that I don’t want to draw what I’m supposed to draw. If it’s a personal project just for me, I’d just drop it until it interests me again, if it is commercial work that needs to be finished I’d just power through it. Art is just like any other job, some days it’s not fun or easy, but still needs to be done.

It’s not easy at all. Denmark is definitely better set up for employees and as a freelancer/ business owner one gives up a lot of options for help and support. Furthermore the cost of living is so high that one can’t offer competitive prices on the international market. Many Danish businesses also prefer to just buy cheap labour on Fiverr. As an international (assuming you are) you also have the disadvantage of competing against native speakers with vastly more powerful networks than your own. To survive I’ve had to rely on aggressive savings when possible, part time or full time side jobs and sometimes just help from family and close ones. I’ve come to the realisation that my working style and personality are best suited to being self employed, so I keep persisting, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it.

It’s quite easy, you go to virk.dk Start virksomhed.
This is of course a vast oversimplification, but in the end it does boil down to that.

One’s style is a quite complex amalgamation of the factors of your personality, experiences, environment, tastes and limitations. It’s a journey you just can’t skip. The first part of it is usually not very active, you just focus on doing things the way you enjoy them, observing the things that you are drawn to, studying the works of others (not just art, but any medium possible). Later on when you start becoming more conscious about it you might catch yourself “stealing” bits and pieces from other people’s work you like (the trick is to steal from as many artists and works as possible, so no one can notice). Eventually it comes down to bending your work to your own limitations. Maybe you can only afford certain supplies, so you become “the pencil master”, maybe you just can’t seem to understand colour, so you are known for your black and white look, maybe your work has certain time limits, so you can’t produce a highly rendered final piece and so on. All these limitations might be annoying and unwelcomed at the time, but eventually they might just mould your work into something unique. The final product of “style” is a journey, but also the result of problem solving and adjustment and it never stops!

My most successful methods have been word of mouth, personal network and to some extent social media.

I’d use anything 😅

For professional work
All of my professional work is finished digitally in Adobe Illustrator. I don’t currently have a reliable tablet, so I use the mouse and pen tool to trace my paper sketches.

For personal pleasure
I tend to go through phases. Few years ago I used watercolour a lot, but that became too big a hassle after I moved and didn’t have a proper workspace for it anymore, so I fell in love with alcoholic markers and later coloured pencils and even later a mix of the two. Currently I like things really simple so I usually just opt for a black gel pen. But depending on the time and space I have, I’d go back and forth between different mediums.

Most of all I’m inspired by nature and stories and the desire to capture a particular feeling or “vibe”. I’ve never been good at keeping track of who is making the things I enjoy, and that applies to authors, musicians, artists, film makers etc. I tend to just connect with the work and don’t think much of the person behind it.

I think I was pretty well informed when I started. I’m very anxious about starting new things, so I research the soul out of any topic that interests me and I’d say I was fairly well prepared. I guess what I didn’t quite anticipate is just how hard and long the journey actually is in real life. Don’t get me wrong, I knew that it would be hard, long and exhausting, but in reality, it’s even more so.

I’m a pretty simple person. I like to draw and then draw some more. I like to hike and be in nature as much as I can, but more as an observer and appreciator rather than a hard core extreme adventurer. I like to go on spontaneous bike rides and just follow the roads that call to me and discover secret places.

I used to love dancing, but a few years ago I had quite a burn out regarding dancing and haven’t gone back to it yet. I still love it and feel a slight pull towards it every now and then, so I’m sure it will make a come back in my life eventually.

I want to get back into sewing and embroidery (I used to do a lot as a child) and if I have the chance I’d like to learn some carpentry skills, it looks like lots of fun!

Yes as long as you are not reselling it, claiming it as your own or making any kind of profit off of it. A small symbolic purchase from the shop would be greatly appreciated as a sign of support for my work, but you don’t have to do that, especially if you are younger than 18.