@ai.watanabe

Instagram: @ai.watanabe

1. What's your story? Where are you from?

I was born in Japan and grew up in Japan.

2. Tell us about your aesthetic.

My aesthetics is about daily life and combining fantasy with a few details. With an indifferent perspective, I'd like to show the brilliance of daily life.

3. What is your favourite medium and why?

I draw my pictures using watercolors, gouache and colored pencils. Because the feeling of aquarelle and colored pencils are light, I turn to it to express retrospective dreams.

4. What is your artistic process like?

I put the landscape, the thing and the thought of normal daily life in a picture, fuse them together in my mind and then start drawing an illustration.

5. Who and/or what inspires your work?

The people I respect are Japanese musicians like Mr. Hirokazu Yokoyama and 90's. It's Japanese cartoon films and characters of 80's and 90's that influenced me.

6. What role does art play in your life? How does it change the way you view the world?

Art for me is something that can brighten my daily life. It makes life better for me. Because there are no goals, it's painful yet fun.

7. Where did you study?

I learned an illustration at Aoyama illustration school.

8. Where do you see yourself in five years?

I'd like to be able to do work for a magazine.

9. What about in ten?

I'd like to be able to do much more illustration work. I want to like myself a little more and would like to be able to draw illustrations even better than now.

10. What do you hope to achieve with your art?

There is nothing clear I'd like to achieve but I'd like to do more illustrations. I'll be happy if people can appreciate my work.

11. Now, tell us a little more about you as a person: what is your favourite food?

The food I like is an omelette stuffed with fried ketchuped rice, Napolitan and Japanese food.

12. Favourite book?

My favorite reads are Japanese culture magazines.

13. Favourite genre of music?

I like Japanese pop in 90's.

14. What are your hobbies?

My hobby is surrounded by a retrospective building, a traditional coffee shop.

15. If you weren't an artist, what would you be?

If I weren't an artist, I'll be eager to be an illustrator.