#sparkchamber 072825 — Tanne van Woensel
When the prompt is “fun,” the sky’s the limit. Case in point, today’s #sparkchamber visitor Tanne van Woensel, a comic artist from Zwolle. “I graduated from ArtEZ University for the Arts in 2024. A few years into my study I started making small, very short comics about dog/rabbit-like creatures, and the weird things that happen to them. Working very quickly to turn weird thoughts and jokes into small books. It was a way for me to let go of perfectionism and expectations I’d been struggling with the years before.
“A lot of my art these days starts by going “wouldn’t it be fun if…” and just working from there. Which is how I graduated my comics course with a large sculptural piece, I just thought it would be really fun to make life-sized versions of the creatures from the comics, and if it was kind of a real universe people could visit.
“I never knew I would enjoy making large sculptures, and it’s definitely something I want to keep doing next to drawing comics.”
Tanne’s crossover piece transforming her comic book drawings into a life-size universe, A Pleasant Afternoon at Beast and Dog’s, is currently showing at CODA Paper Art 2025 through November 2. This remarkable biennial exhibition showcases the latest developments in contemporary paper art, including installation, jewelry, collage, sculpture, stop-motion film, AI creations, and fairy-tale dreamscapes … all crafted from paper and cardboard. So fun, right? We’ll take a note from American country singer and songwriter Garth Brooks, “Just keep taking chances and having fun.”
1.] Where do ideas come from?
Anything and anywhere, honestly. I’m always trying to notice weird things that happen around me that I haven’t paid attention to before. Sometimes I’m in the middle of an everyday thing and I think about how it’d make for a fun story.
Wordplay is also a big part of it for me. Dutch is kind of an inherently silly language, with a lot of great words that by themselves can already make for a great comic. For example, if you go to the Dutch Wikipedia page for Kwelder [salt marsh] in the first sentence you can already experience some of the most “Dutch” words the language has to offer.
I tend to kind of let my thoughts spiral out of control, I don’t really judge the ideas I have too much either. If the thought is funny or interesting enough to get me to start creating that’s enough reason for me. And if it ends up not being as funny as I’d hoped, there’s always next time.
2.] What is the itch you are scratching?
Just creating in general, I think. I get antsy if I haven’t made anything for a while. And it’s really just fun for me, I love making weird drawings and sharing them with people to make them laugh.
3.] Early bird or night owl? Tortoise or hare?
I’m usually up pretty late, and I tend not to even get anything done until 2 PM, but after that I’ll keep going deep into the night. Once I’ve reached that flow state it’s hard to get me out of it again. I generally work quickly, part of the fun for me is being able to make a lot of things this way, sometimes I’m just throwing as many ideas at the wall as possible.
4.] How do you know when you are done?
Sometimes it’s done when I stop drawing. But I’m still secretly a perfectionist, especially when I have to edit something later. Sometimes I reach a point where I have to tell myself to stop, or at the very least walk away for a bit so I can realize it was fine all along when I come back to it :)
