Profile

Born in Fukuoka, Japan in 1977.

Tomo was born into a family of calligraphers and grew up with the scent of ink, holding a brush since before she could remember. She continued to study calligraphy with her grandfather and father, but decided to take it to the next level and moved to Tokyo to study at Daito Bunka University. She obtained a teaching certificate at the university, but chose to paint with the dream of becoming a picture book artist.

After marrying, she had four children and while concentrating on raising them, she developed a desire to pass on more of Japan’s traditional culture to children, so she started a Japanese calligraphy class. In her Japanese calligraphy lessons, when she draws pictures with sumi (Japanese ink) to please her students, she realizes that black and white pictures drawn with sumi can create infinite colors in the viewer’s mind. She is now working hard to express the colorful world of picture books, using the techniques she has learnt in Japanese calligraphy.

She is a coffee lover and always has a cup of coffee by her side as she works. One day it occurred to her that if she used coffee in her work, it would deepen the texture of the work and make it more unique. This led her to develop a unique technique of painting with ink and coffee. She dilutes or volatilizes the ink or coffee to create shades and deepen the flavor of the painting.