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'Bring Your Own Bag' Riso and Community Bridges poster

How are your illustrations created, what's your process?

I always try to create my illustrations in a way that is loose, spontaneous and fun.

For any new project I do need to make a few pages of visual studies of the subject first, but when it comes to creating the sketch for the actual illustration I try to not make too many renditions. I like the idea of valuing every spur-of-the-moment wonky stroke, spontaneous character and imperfection. So I guess, the most important thing, before I think about colour or anything else, is to create a composition that feels both considered, harmonious and also fun and spontaneous, if that makes sense?

All sketches are done in black ink. From that, I then move onto scanning, sizing and colouring, which I do digitally on Procreate and Photoshop.

Your colour choices feel very unique to you, how you go about that?

I used to always struggle applying colours digitally, as there is just such an overwhelming amount of choice and I don’t enjoy flat, shiny surfaces so much. I’m a lot more attracted by gritty, textured and uneven surfaces.

When I started getting involved with Riso printing and acquired my own Riso printer ‘Rodney’ in 2018, I started to experiment with layer based colour composition. This means using limited colours to create a palette that is all based on the same pigments by overlapping layers and making use of the transparency of Riso inks. I then brought this process back into my digital work, where I try to emulate it by using fewer colours, that overlap to create additional colours. Therefore most of my illustrations consist of only 2-3 layers, which I always plan to bring back into Riso or other layer-based printing techniques.

Lena's layering of colour, taken from her 'Visual Translations' project

You often refer to yourself as a visual translator, what do you mean by this?

I’ve always been fascinated by the complex art of translation. I’m from a mixed race background, Japan and Austria, and my dad is a Japanese translator. It’s very much an art, I believe, to be able to render context and meaning into a completely new form that can then reach a wider audience.

I’m exploring how this notion relates to visual language and how I can apply it to translations between Eastern and Western concepts. I initiated a personal project called Visual Translations, which started out as my third year dissertation at University, where I spoke about the limitations of language and translation, inspired by an essay called ‘The task of the translator’ by Walter Benjamin. My angle was to particularly look at the ability of visual language to move past certain boundaries of communication that exist between different verbal languages and cultural backgrounds.

I call myself a visual translator, because I’m trying to cross-communicate between separate cultures, act like a bridge, but in a way that is visual and unique to me.

Selected images from 'Visual Translations'

You're involved in a number of collaborations outside of your main illustration practice, are side projects important to you to?

Absolutely yes! I’ve somehow always known that I wanted to be an illustrator, but it’s not until I came to study illustration at Camberwell that I realised what all this craft can entail. There are so many different processes, mediums and ways to exhibit that one can explore that I’ve never wanted to limit myself by just one. I’m always getting excited to learn something new.

In recent times, however, I have become more focussed and realised that some processes seem to stick with me more than others. I love working with clients, creating digital work and seeing my illustrations applied to things in the real world but I also have a passion for printmaking and painting murals. It’s all a balance and focus is given to different practices at different times, but I’d say all that I do feeds off the same pot of inspiration and creativity.

And what about personal work?

I really do think personal work is important, if not a key element of being an authentic artist, at least for me. As I said before, I really love working with clients and bringing their ideas to life but I need to work on personal projects simultanesouly so not to forget about the purpose behind my work. I’d like to always keep in mind my values and represent that in my personal work. And it’s really by doing that and pushing that work out, commissioners who care about the same things as I do end up wanting to work with me. This way there’s not always such a distinction between commercial and personal work and I get to be myself in both :-)

Rodney the Risograph printer

And finally, what projects have really stood out for you over the last year?

My personal project ‘Visual Translations’ definitely was a memorable one. Not only because it was so personal, working closely with my dad and exploring themes of my cultural heritage but also because it was so well received. In February, It’s Nice That published an article about my project which was written with so much thought and care that it felt quite touching. After that I received a lot of positive feedback and people saying they relate to my story, which felt really rewarding.

I guess the ultimate aim with my art for me is to connect to people and their stories. If this is something that I can do by sharing parts of my own story and through the medium of visual language, then I know I’m in the right industry :-)

Another project I’m really excited about is my most recent mural painted for a brewery called Friendship Adventure with my mate Rory Wynn from Isshōō collective. Going large scale is always fun, especially in collaboration with friends.

Lena & Rory's mural for Friendship Adventure

Links

About Lena Yokoyama

Lena is an illustrator and printmaker. Her optimistic and playful illustrations feature characters of different shapes and sizes, plentiful colour and texture, and combine analogue and digital tools. Clients include The Tate, Community Bridges, The Guardian and Red Bull.

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