Rotterdam illustrator Mariëtte Scholtens-de Jongh, better known as Jet, turns familiar buildings into playful digital artworks designed to reward a second look. We spoke with the founder of art studio jet about Rotterdam, finding her own visual language and building a creative business around the city she loves.
Image: Mariëtte Scholtens-de Jongh, founder of art studio jet. Photo: art studio jet
Jet has lived in Rotterdam for almost ten years with her husband and two children, but her fascination with drawing started much earlier. As a child, she received drawing tips from Dick Bruna, the celebrated Dutch illustrator and graphic designer best known as the creator of Miffy (Nijntje). As chance would have it, Bruna was her father's uncle, and visiting his studio as a young child left a lasting impression. Her eventual path into illustration was far from direct: she studied Business Administration, lived in Sweden and spent years working as a project manager before returning to creative work after moving to Rotterdam.
You are based in Rotterdam and the city plays a very visible role in your work. What keeps inspiring you about it?
When we moved to Rotterdam, the city stole my heart instantly. I love the combination of rough and beautiful, modern and old, the mix of nationalities, and the constant drive to grow and reinvent itself.
Rotterdam is always changing. New buildings keep popping up, and old ones keep surprising you with new details. I've told myself many times that I have enough Rotterdam buildings in my collection, but I genuinely can't seem to stop drawing them.
Right now, I can see the lovely new POST building from my window, and I already know it's only a matter of time before it joins the collection.
Your illustrations often focus on recognisable Rotterdam architecture. Why are buildings such an important subject in your work?
I think buildings fascinate me because they appear to be fixed and unchanging, yet they never look exactly the same twice. The way light falls, the reflection of clouds in the windows, the time of day: all of it can change a building completely.
There's always a detail you haven't noticed before, no matter how many times you've walked past.
That quality, something familiar that keeps revealing new sides of itself, suits my illustration style perfectly. I want people to look at my work for the first time and recognise the building, but then look again and discover something they missed.
How did the distinctive art studio jet style develop?
I started out painting buildings, which I loved, but I was looking for something that felt more modern and could also work as a business. When I discovered a drawing programme on the iPad, I knew immediately it was the right fit.
I had tried other digital tools before but always felt something was missing: the manual, tactile quality of actually drawing. On the iPad, I can use my pen exactly as I would a pencil, a brush or a fine liner, in any colour I choose. That freedom made all the difference creatively.
The moment I felt I had truly found my own visual language was when the buildings started literally bursting out of their frames. That wasn't planned. It just happened, and it felt right. From that point on, I knew what art studio jet was.
Jet creates her architectural illustrations digitally while retaining the feel of drawing by hand. Photo: art studio jet
Those buildings often seem to have their own personality. How do you decide what character to give them?
I was partly inspired by an exhibition of work by Joost Swarte at the Kunsthal. I love the idea of giving something serious and static a friendly, playful touch.
The buildings bursting out of the frame is also something I feel strongly about on a deeper level. For me, it represents the idea that there's always another way through. When one path ends, another opens up. It's a quiet philosophy that runs through my work.
As for the character of each building, I spend time looking at it from different angles and at different times of day before I put anything on paper. The character tends to reveal itself through that process.
Is there a Rotterdam building you find yourself returning to?
The Delftse Poort holds a special place for me. It was one of the first Rotterdam buildings I drew, and the way clouds and sunlight can completely transform how it looks still fascinates me.
It was also a tricky one to get right, with so many interesting angles and the sky playing such a big role. I've since created custom versions of it in company colours for clients, and it's fascinating how much that changes the feel of the illustration, just as the real sky does to the actual building.
Rotterdam bridges interpreted in the distinctive art studio jet style. Photo: art studio jet
When you look at somewhere like the Erasmus Bridge, De Hef or Hotel New York, what are you looking for before you start drawing?
I always start with the bigger picture: walking around the building and looking at it from several different angles. For buildings outside Rotterdam, or to explore angles that are difficult to access on foot, Google Street View has become my secret weapon.
Then I ask myself which view shows the best version of the building. After that, I zoom in and look for the details that give it its special character, and specifically for the small things I can adjust slightly to make the illustration feel playful without losing the recognisability.
One of the things I enjoy most is drawing windows. Sometimes you can let little stories unfold behind them, small details that most people don't notice the first time they look at the work. That's intentional. My goal is always to give someone something new to discover the second time they look.
At what point did illustration begin turning into a business?
It definitely happened gradually. After years in the corporate world as a Project Manager, stepping into something so driven by creativity was not easy. I questioned the decision many times.
When we moved to Rotterdam, I rediscovered my love for drawing. I tried several different directions before finding the right shape for art studio jet. The business background helped. I knew how to think about building something, but the process of actually doing it as a solo maker is very different from what I had done before. You learn by going.
A lot of work went into building it from scratch, from creating and maintaining a website to finding exhibitions and approaching shops where her prints could find a home. The resulting collection now includes individual prints, sets and custom pieces, all gathered at artstudiojet.nl.
What have you learned about combining creativity with running your own business?
Most people assume that drawing is the main part of my working day. In reality, there's a huge amount of other work: website maintenance, customer contact, approaching potential partners, creating visibility both online and offline.
Since it's just me, I have to do all of it myself, and when something goes wrong, I can only look in one direction.
The creative work is by far my favourite part. I enjoy it so much that it genuinely doesn't feel like work.
You also make custom work. Is there one commission that particularly stayed with you?
I once made a large piece for a GP practice in Crooswijk. I drew highlights from the neighbourhood and was privately tempted to include a man throwing a pan of bami out of a window, a well-known Dutch internet meme.
I decided it was probably too informal for a doctor's practice and left it out. Then the GP himself asked me to include exactly that detail. The odds of that happening still make me laugh.
Custom work is honestly my favourite part of what I do. No two requests are the same, and that keeps it endlessly interesting.
Rotterdam remains the main source of inspiration behind art studio jet. Photo: art studio jet
What does it feel like when someone chooses one of your Rotterdam illustrations for their home?
It makes me genuinely happy. I once read that every time someone buys something from an artist, the artist does a little happy dance, and in my case that is really true.
It isn't an easy business, and competing with large companies is a real challenge. But knowing that someone chooses one of my illustrations to hang in their home, or gives it as a gift to someone who loves Rotterdam, means a great deal.
The art prints have found their way into homes, hotels and other spots around the city. That's all the motivation I need to keep drawing.
Rotterdam continues to change quickly. Do you see the illustrations partly as a record of the city?
That's a question I find myself thinking about. I was looking at photographs of Rotterdam from the early nineties recently and was struck by how little there was on the Kop van Zuid back then, and what that area has become since. The city is almost unrecognisable in places.
My illustrations don't capture skylines or city-wide panoramas, which makes them less straightforward as historical documents. But each building I draw does represent a moment, a particular way of seeing something that is always changing.
In that sense, yes, I think there is something of a record in them, even if it's more about a feeling than a timeline.
What would you still love to draw next?
The POST building is at the top of my list. The windows are extraordinary and I'm still working out how to position it so it can burst out of the frame in exactly the right way. It deserves its own solution, not just a formula.
But I'll throw the question back to you: is there a building you think is missing from the collection? I'm always curious what people notice when they look at what's there, and what they feel should be.
The complete art studio jet collection can be found at artstudiojet.nl.
