Illustrator Rebecca ter Borg recently collaborated on her first picture book, The Witch of Maketu, with Anika Moa. She shares a day in her life as a creative with blurred boundaries between work and life…
I work from home in the burbs of Te Atatū Peninsula, right near the awa and yet a hop, skip and a jump away from the bright lights of Karangahape Road and central Tāmaki Makaurau. In this way I get to dip into the best of both worlds. We were lucky enough to find a rental with a sleepout and a garage so that my partner (a sign painter, artist and set painter on films) and I both have room to create work and (being classic creatives) continue our collecting and hoarding habits of possibly-useful-one-day materials and tools.
As a self-employed creative who works from home the boundaries between work and life are very blurred. Illustration is a vocation and passion for me and there is no ‘leaving work behind at the office’—fortunate or unfortunate I’m not sure! Ideas and thoughts about work spill out everywhere into my ‘free-time’. Great brainstorming and planning sessions happen when exercising or in the shower. When doing errands I’m at the same time gathering inspiration, collecting cool colour combinations, people-watching and noting buildings, gardens and interestingly shaped trees. I’m constantly snapping references or Googling weird bugs and animals.
That said, I do keep fairly regular sitting down and drawing hours unless I’m working to a tight deadline which might mean late hours and weekends. In the morning I pretend to myself that I still need to get up for the children even though they are teenagers now and able to fend for themselves. This helps me get going early—I feel pretty pleased with myself if I’m sitting in my studio by 8am.
I do all my most challenging and creative work in the morning as it’s when I’m most switched on and save the more mundane tasks for the afternoon. This often means after lunch is all admin and comms, which can take a surprising amount of time. I always try to take a walk by the awa after lunch, and rest my eyes on some green to give them a break from the iPad.
My work is a mixture of commercial briefs for packaging, posters and surface design, textile design, murals and personal art projects. My most surreal job was designing a poster for NASA to introduce some new spacecrafts as part of their education programme. My favourite part of a job is the early stages of concept development when I’m sketching wild and free across big A2 sheets of paper, keeping it open and seeing what emerges. Taking the early drawings into Procreate to refine the illustration is enjoyable in a different way. It feels like solving a problem or a puzzle. When it’s working it’s satisfying but if the puzzle is ‘unsolved’ and I can’t clearly see the solution, it can become frustrating. Despite knowing that the best thing to do is step away and look at it again later with fresh eyes it can be quite hard for me to stop at a point where the illustration doesn’t look good!
My work is usually very detailed and can take a lot of time, making the composition work, fiddling around moving things and adjusting. I love playing with colour and finding interesting combinations but getting the tone and values right can take a long time too. I’ll stubbornly stick to a difficult colour palette that I love, even when I’m making it harder for myself.
The Witch of Maketu is my first kids book. I knew Anika because our kids were in the Māori unit at Westmere Primary together. I illustrated one of her Songs for Bubbas album covers, which included an early version of the witch of Maketu – and the book came out of the song. It felt very natural to create illustrations for kids, especially for a book about witches, which were one of my abiding interests as a child (pre-Harry Potter times!).
We had to move house (and studio) at the time that I was working on it so I wouldn’t say it fit into my usual ‘day as an illustrator’. I had to snatch moments amongst unpacked boxes and my studio desk was set up before the kitchen was even in order. It was new for me too to be working so long on just one project. It was quite hard in some ways but it does feel like a solid achievement now it’s out and in the world. I enjoyed designing the characters and the world that the witch of Maketu was to inhabit. The witch and Uncle Hemi live in very low-intervention dwellings that are part of their natural surroundings so I could indulge in lots of organic lines and shapes. I wanted it to feel definitely set in Aotearoa but also a bit magical.
I wanted it to feel definitely set in Aotearoa but also a bit magical.
The hardest part for me in a drawing is to make a setting ‘make sense’. Although the perspective doesn’t have to be perfect, the depth and angles still have to feel right and sometimes it’s a struggle. I don’t like being mathematical about it but it probably would help. The supporting characters and smaller elements were fun. I loosely used reference photos of native taonga species such as the endangered tara iti/fairy tern but they also took on personalities of their own.
I carry a small A6 drawing book with me wherever I go and try to reach for it when I’m at a loose end, waiting for takeaways or the like, instead of my phone (not always successfully). There’s something about drawing at these in-between times when I don’t feel like I should be doing something ‘productive’ that is very freeing. This is when I do silly fun doodles and try not to be hung up on the results (which are mixed). Conversely these notebooks (quite a few in number by now) do sometimes lead to useful ideas or random characters. There was a huhu bug sketch I wanted to use somewhere and it was perfect for perching at the end of the witch’s bed.
The hardest thing about freelancing is the unpredictable nature, sometimes intense time pressure or unexpected changes from clients, projects overlapping and trying to figure out priorities. There is also a lot of ‘non billable time’ spent doing admin and organising around the work and then too the occasional lull which is stressful in a different way!
I never get bored in my studio, in fact time just disappears when I’m in the zone, but I do pepper my week with meetings and catch-ups to try and counter any feelings of isolation in my practice. I also currently teach design one day a week at AUT which I really enjoy, it’s nice being in a space dedicated to creativity and making. My colleagues are lovely and the students are great. It’s cool seeing what they come up with, I’ve learnt a lot too!
There are also a bunch of amazing illustrators working across Tāmaki Makaurau. Connecting with them at exhibition openings, art markets and doing the occasional group show together is very affirming and it’s always a relief to spend some time with my ‘tribe’. My agency Jacky Winter is also a good support.
We recently got a rescue cat who has just started keeping me company at home a bit too—when she’s not freaking out and hiding. As a freelancer I do quite a bit of ‘patch-working’ of jobs and disciplines. As well as teaching, I get to mix things up occasionally by painting murals, either alone or with my partner. I have loved the mural festivals we’ve painted at, hanging out with the other artists, getting responses from the public and having all our needs catered for by awesome festival support.
I’ve received such a lovely response for the book—one of the nicest comments was about the soft colours being calming and engaging for a reader’s grandson who is on the spectrum, which was something I hadn’t thought about before. I will keep working on a variety of jobs but more kids books may be in the mix in the future!
Rebecca ter Borg
Rebecca ter Borg is an illustrator based in Auckland, NZ.