images taken from Toyko Illustrators Society’s website

I thought you’d all appreciate a big old hit of colour today and this is just the chap to do it.
Fmio Watanabe is a splendid illustrator creating beautiful landscapes of fantastical colour. I wish I could tell you lots about him but unfortunately his website is written in one of the many languages that embarrassingly, I can’t even identify let alone read. The general consensus from the internet is that he’s Japanese and born in Nagasaki but I’d hate to be quoted and according to the photo on Toyko Illustrators Society, it would also appear that he has the best sideburns in the world…. Big, bold and most definitely bright, painstakingly painted with tiny brushes with a mixture of gouache and acrylic paint, his attention to detail ensures images that are most realistic in subject matter, almost photographic in nature, if not in colour. His choice of neon brights almost make them cartoon-ish, which is not to do them down or to suggest there is any naivety about them. The saturation dial is set to max. His website is definitely worth a look if only to gaze unintelligibly over the alphabet of his native tongue and to watch his lovely illustrated ducks fly across his scrolling portfolio header image.