Tato Martirossian (Tato Schrijft) arrived in The Netherlands as a child, clueless about the country and its language or culture, far away from her home country Armenia. More than 20 years later, she writes about those first Dutch experiences in her own blog called "Zwaluwzang" (Dutch for "swallow's song").
I provided each story with an illustration.
I provided each story with an illustration.
Some examples shown on this page feature things that are relatively new to the young Tato: swimming pools, the biking culture (notice the Escher influence?), French fries and much more. Sometimes, the stories reflect on what her family has not left behind: mother's traditional dishes, the late evening tea drinking with friends, thier memories on cassette. The most symbolic story is the one about Tato's little sister who brought one of her gloves, the other one accidentally left behind in Armenia, representing their duality in identity.
The Zwaluwzang stories are personal and from an innocent child's perspective, which is reflected in the illustrations for each story.
BEHIND THE SCENES --- Explorations in illustration style, before settling on the final design.
