Alina Pluim

I live in the Netherlands and originally I am Ukrainian. I have been drawing since I was able to hold a pencil and I always wanted to earn my living by using this skill. But in the 90's there were no good job opportunities for an artist in Ukraine and so I went to study English and German and became a translator. In the Netherlands I teach English at vocational school and make portraits on commission. I discovered pastel quite accidentally a couple of years ago. The urge of drawing made me think of my childhood years when I was only using colour pencils. That's how I found out about pastel pencils en later about pastel chalk. Since then I wasn't able to let it go.

My goal now is to let the realism go and to dare use my creativity at its fullest.