Mevrouw Knot and her bookmark

Have you seen the bookmarks in issue 18 yet? There are three, all designed by different illustrators: Bodil Jane, Janet Hill and Mevrouw Knot (aka Milou Curvers). Below, Dutch illustrator Mevrouw Knot tells us more about her illustration and the books she likes to read.

Can you tell us more about your bookmark illustration?
It was a bit of a challenge to get the quote to fit onto a bookmark as it’s a narrow shape. Normally I use a paintbrush and ink or watercolors when creating hand-lettered illustrations, but for this bookmark, I decided to write the text with a thin pen.

Do you also like to read yourself?
I was a real bookworm when I was a little girl and I have boxes full of the books I read as a child up in my attic. I would read one book after another—especially Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five series, which I found super exciting. I still love to read, but nowadays I don’t manage to get through a book as easily as before. Especially during busy periods, when I don’t have enough time or the right frame of mind to relax on the couch with a book. But summer vacations are a different story: then I head straight to the store and treat myself to a few new books.

What are your favorite books?
Harry Potter. Without a doubt. I was in Year 4 when the first Harry Potter book came out in the Netherlands and I was hooked straight away. I took the book with me everywhere I went and read it every free minute I had. I even hid a flashlight by my bedside so that I could secretly read under the covers when my parents made me turn off my bedroom lights and go to sleep. Now, I’m also enjoying the Cormoran Strike novels that J.K. Rowling has written under her pseudonym, Robert Galbraith.

Do you use bookmarks yourself?
Although I hate seeing dog-eared pages in a book and am very careful with books myself, I almost never use a bookmark. I often just use something that happens to be lying around nearby when I need to stop reading and mark where I am in the book. This could be anything, like a shopping list, business card or till receipt. So it’s wonderful that there are three bookmarks inside Flow #18. Now I can finally actually use a proper bookmark for my summer vacation reads!

Picture Mevrouw Knot