Creator Interview：Yo Bansyo

Yo Bansyo

〜a bit stop by under the flowers on a rainy day〜

My passion is to draw pictures of children. I love children.

I would like to draw a picture from a children’s point of view.

I would like to draw not only cute pictures, but also pictures which depict a slight scary world when you step inside.

I started to use transparent watercolor because my favorite artist was using it.

I liked to visit my favorite illustrator’s website.

I also like the watery paintings of Ms. Chihiro Iwasaki. Also Mr.Tomihiro Hoshino’s flower drawings.

I like the dull taste of impressionist art, like the oil-paintings of Monet.

Up through my mid-high school years, I wanted to become a manga artist.

Since I wasn’t good at dividing the frames, I enjoyed more drawing and just kept drawing on a sheet.

I was in art club in junior high school and high school. There, I did drawings, watercolor paintings, and a little bit of oil-paintings.

I used my computer for drawing at the time I graduated from junior high school through high school. But I never posted my drawings on internet.

Back then, I liked drawing analog. Digital felt like it was a lot of work.

By the time I was going to graduate high school, I started to draw in transparent watercolor.

In these days, I started to post on quarterly issued “SS (small s)” published by Asukashinsha. And then, I soon got an offer from them.

This was very shocking for me. I never imagined that I could get an offer for a job like this.

It was all so sudden.

I started to participate in exhibitions such as ARTs*LABo and sokubaikai (art exhibition and sales event) like COMITIA and Design Festa. I did this because I wanted people to see my drawings.

Talking to the friends that I made there, they say that many of them got job offers either through the internet, or were approached at the exhibition.

I was surprised to hear that because I didn’t think of getting a job in such a way.

Now, I am comfortable painting in transparent watercolor. I paint the matte once, then paint it over and over.

I first bought a 24 color set and added to it once in a while, however I only use 4 colors, red, blue, yellow and white now.

Well, if you are drawing your original work, you will take time thinking about what to draw before you start. Even after you started drawing, you will take time considering what hue of pink you should use.

And you will try to figure it out by experimenting with the various colors in front of you. This process was a little bit of a burden for me.

Now, I would like to create a piece that I can express my own view of the world.

And I would be happy if I could spend my life doing the most favorite thing, which is drawing.

From our Editor

Interviewed month: May, 2014

On the interview day, Yo Bansyo-san showed me her “story notebook” and “concept notebook.” She likes to browse words in the dictionary to try and discover something she is interested in. She’ll then write down the definition in her “story notebook.” She will also write her ideas of settings in the “concept notebook” when start drawing.

Many thanks to her for sharing her valuable notebook with us!

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