What does it mean to write? Writing is a very simple task one can do with only a pen and paper. And yet, there’s an incredible amount of power to it, such as expressing your feelings to someone, gathering your thoughts into one place, leaving behind a record of present events to look back on in the future . . .

We’ll be using the Hobonichi Techo 2019 release to take another look at the action of writing, pondering and discussing what makes it so fun and what makes it so mysterious.

In this special article, we’ve taken a closer look at 10 people who draw and write in their professional or personal lives, checking out their favorite writing tools and hearing all about their writing process. We hope you enjoy reading all about the wide variety of approaches to writing.

What does it mean to write?

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Shinsuke Yoshitake

“I want to write about things so mundane that if I don’t write it down immediately I’d forget it right then and there.”

We set out to capture the moment a character is created by the left hand of children’s book author Shinsuke Yoshitake. Yoshitake searches for the secrets of the world hidden inside little details. For him, the need to draw is almost like an impulse.

ProfileShinsuke Yoshitake

Born 1973 in Kanagawa Prefecture.
Illustrator and children’s book author.
Creates comics, children’s book illustrations, drawings, and illustrated essays about the little things in our daily lives.
Won first place in the 6th Annual MOE Children’s Book Awards and won the Art Prize for the 61st Annual Children's Publishing Culture Awards with his debut book. It Might be an Apple.
Other books translated in English include:
Still Stuck
What Happens Next?
Can I Build Another Me?

--: Thanks for letting us visit you at work today. Could you show us which writing materials you use to create your illustrations and picture books?

Yoshitake: These are all the tools I use for work. I’ve got a mechanical pencil for the draft and a 0.3mm Copic Multiliner pen for the final outlines. I’ve got a normal eraser and a pen-shaped eraser, plus a brush I use to clean up the eraser crumbs. I write on A4-size copy paper.

--: This looks like totally normal copy paper, but is this what you use when submitting your work?

Yoshitake: It’s common Kokuyo printer paper, but it says “high quality” on the packaging, so I assume it is. (Laughs) I’ve got a pretty unusual illustrating style for my books — I enlarge my original drawings and print those. That’s why I use normal A4-size paper for my drafts, even when they’ll eventually be used in a children’s book. Oftentimes my book illustrations will be 1.5 times larger than the original drawings, so you can see the lines are relatively thick in my art. If I use paper that’s too cheap, the ink will spread too much, so I picked a paper that’s a little nicer. The final product won’t look good if the lines aren’t crisp, so my pen and paper were both selected to keep the ink in place.

--: I see how that can be really important, knowing your art will be magnified. Having all your art on standard-sized paper seems like it would make it easier to store your drafts.

Yoshitake: I’m probably the only author who keeps his work stored in a regular old folder. I keep everything in the same folder with my drafts — things I thought about the project, sketches I’d made of the composition of the book itself. It’s extremely space-efficient. I only produce the art up through the outlining; I don’t color in my own work, so I don’t work with any paints or inks. Usually, children’s book authors have really colorful and inspiring studios, so a lot of people get disappointed when they see where I work. (Laughs)

--: You mentioned that during your “I Ran Away From Coloring” talk with Itoi. Colors seem to be a really important part of children’s books. How do you decide which colors go where?

Yoshitake: First I let the designer know what I’m thinking, either with general ideas or a concrete way I’d like a character to look. Sometimes I just let them know that I’m not thinking of anything at all. (Laughs) Generally I’ll leave it up to the designer. They all do an amazing job, so I usually have nothing to add when it’s done.

--: When we commissioned you for the Hobonichi Techo, we were really struck by the way you allowed us to do whatever we wanted.

Yoshitake: It might just be all those years I’ve worked as an illustrator, but I don’t have a problem with other people modifying my work. Having your work edited for the final product is just part of a day’s work for illustrators. Now, even though I’m a children’s book author, I like to keep that flexibility.

--: When you create your books, do you start with the words or the illustrations?

Yoshitake: There are times when I start from either, but lately I think I’ve been starting from the words a little more often. I’ll start by coming up with a concept, or a funny phrase I’d like to include.

--: Do you take notes on interesting discoveries you make in your daily life?

Yoshitake: I carry around a personal organizer and use it to write down my ideas. I’ll make a drawing of something I thought about or noticed and just jot it down without worrying about having everything in order.

--: You’ve got a lot of children featured in your children’s books. Are your books inspired by your family or things that happen around you?

Yoshitake: A lot of the stories come from my kids. I think a lot of the secrets of the world come to light in little details, like the way a child behaves, or conversations between parents and their children. By carefully observing these little details, you can discover patterns to relationships between people. I find enjoyment in extracting the smallest details from larger ideas, and having somewhere to write that down is extremely important.

If I don’t write it down, I may be able to remember something that’s really important. But the truth is that 99% of the things that make up this world aren’t typically worth writing down. I want to write about things so mundane that if I don’t write them down immediately I’ll forget about it right then and there. When I notice something incredibly unremarkable that’s happened, I’ll get a smirk on my face and rush to make a note of it.

I’m talking about things like the way kids of a certain age arrange their legs when they sit down, or where men set down a cup after drinking from it. Humans are basically all built the same, so their actions are pretty similar. Getting a hang of those patterns makes me really happy, so I always carry my planner around. I’ll even have it open on my lap when I’m driving; when I’m waiting at a red light I’ll jot down a really fast sketch.

--: Now that you mention it, even though the stories in your books do start from the smallest things, they feel based on really fundamental truths of life.

Yoshitake: My notes cover what it would look like visually if I were to express some of these little phenomena in words. For example, I’d like to be able to condense the sadness of life into a single drawing.

--: Even the most trivial things can be really interesting, so I suppose it’d be frustrating if you didn’t make a note and lost them.

Yoshitake: It’s an awful feeling to know that there’s some tiny detail that you can no longer remember, especially when you can only remember that it was really interesting. I’ve been keeping a planner for 16 years now, filling it with all these insignificant things and refilling the pages as I go. If I count how many I’ve had since I’ve been an illustrator… this is my 73rd notebook.

--: Wow, 73 notebooks! What a precious collection. If you would be willing to walk us through those notes someday I think people would be so excited.

Yoshitake: Yeah, they’re pretty useful sometimes. I’ve had several opportunities to give talks, and I’ve copied some of these notes onto the computer so I could present them at the talks in case I had to fill any extra time. When I show them to the audience it’s always more popular than my main topic. (Laughs)

--: I’m sure it’s thanks to your perseverance in taking these notes that they’ve become something that makes others so happy. What makes you draw so much?

Yoshitake: Part of it is just stress relief. I’m not the most emotionally resilient person, so there are days that I’ll see a news story that has nothing to do with me and still get depressed the rest of the day.

It’s kind of a double-edged sword to have a really well-trained imagination. My imagination allows me to escape from anything, but at the same time I get really down from things that have nothing to do with me. I’ve had times where I’ll practically see a rock on the ground and think it’s the end of the world. I need to have a way to cheer myself up when that happens. There are so many sad news stories out there, but I need to just keep telling myself that if I change my perspective, I can see how interesting the world really is. That’s why I draw.

--: So art is a way to cheer yourself up.

Yoshitake: People have so many different styles and means of expressing themselves. I use illustration as a way to search for the humor in things. By keeping up with my art for this long, I’ve gradually come to discover what it takes to make my illustrations interesting. An illustrator can capture the perfect moment with a drawing in the same way a photographer can with a camera, so I want to fulfill my duty by capturing as much as I can.

(Next time we’ll be talking to Kazuko Matsuoka)

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