My first-ever folktale week is a fact!
It’s been hectic, fun, and somewhat stressful.

Folk what?
Folktale Week is a week-long art challenge in which a story comes to life, guided by 7 prompts. These 7 keywords were announced a few weeks earlier so we had the time to prepare the illustrations. The challenge results are shared on Instagram- this year between the 13th and 19th of November.

The 2023 prompts are:
lost- ink- sea- sleep- underground- illusion- found

A short synopsis of my story:
In the dunes just outside of Oostende (a coastal town in Belgium), a fisherman named Andreas spends most of his time wandering around and staring at the waves. Life has been though on him. For a long time, he couldn’t catch any fish, and his wife and children died.
One night he sees blue flames on the water’s surface and remembers stories about a treasure that’s hidden on the seabed. “Someone else might go out and be lucky,” he thought, but a ghost shows up, trying to convince him otherwise. Not only does the ghost provide him with very strict instructions, but Andres also gets a ring that will make it possible to walk into the sea without any struggle.
At midnight, he should go out towards the blue flame, grab what he will find there, don’t get distracted, and run back as fast as he can.
Walking the seabed, Andreas sees childhood friends, his wife, and children, trying to lure him to come with him. These friends, he realizes, have all drowned.
Focus! Andreas quickly grabs a pouch that he finds, and runs back, followed by the screams of his wife and children, begging him to stay.