Before everyone started classes at graphic school we were told to buy a certain package of tools, and one of the tools were 12 markers. Special markers, which you could use on special paper and which could be used to mix colours. All this sounded rather awesome, but it turned out to be a complete disaster. Wanted brown? Use yellow and red and there'll you have it. But not really.

I wound up buying a few more, which, coïncidentally were also grey and brown, exactly the colours you'd use for an assignment in which you needed to be able to create a certain texture as real as possible. There was the assignment to draw a fosset, and then another one in which you had to draw something made out of wood.

On just white paper the drawings looked like a failure, but once I cut them out and put them on a black piece of paper they suddenly came to life. Looking back on the whole assignment it was actually one for which you really needed to push yourself in order to achieve a certain result. Very often the assignments at graphic school came across as dull, yet taught you a lot, and when looking back at everything they offer a lot of different ideas and pictures.