 Back in the Netherlands he attended the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam but soon quit; he said afterwards that he had no talent as a painter and could not draw perspective.In 1955, while on family holiday, he saw a rabbit hopping around and later made attempts to draw it, thereby creating "Nijntje" ("Miffy" in English), the word a Dutch child might use as the diminutive for "konijntje", "little rabbit".Bruna illustrated over 2,000 covers and over 100 posters for the family business, A.W.