Lauren Tamaki

Meeting Lauren Tamaki (1983 Calgary, Canada) face to face explains a lot about where the fireworks, latent in her work, come from: she is a cheerful, warm individual whose smile shines continuously.

Let me put it this way: Lauren is fun. Whatever you talk about, there’s always a brilliant, shining smile drawn on her face. Her chitchat is scattered with laughs, even her eyes smile at you. After knowing her work I hadn’t expected anything else. Each line on her drawings is full of life, the pen seems to have rolled over the paper naturally, without any effort, like a force of nature that can’t be stopped.

I had expected her to come from a family of artists, but other than her sister Jillian, art doesn’t seem to be in the family DNA. That family being a mix of cultures and origins: her father is Japanese and her mother Egyptian-Ukranian, that’s what Canada is like! Says Lauren with another laugh… it might be so but also mix is something you can find in her drawings: the joy and positivism from the American 60s, the kind of work you would expect from Glaser and Chwast, the energy of Disney's 101 Dalmatians and the looseness of Warhol’s line drawings.

At school I was kind of shy, so I spent a lot of time in the art room. But then I earned some respect when people came to my desk and asked me to draw them. In college, I wanted to continue drawing but to differentiate myself from my well-known illustrator sister, I went to study Fashion Design. After 4 years I realised that I should have done what I really liked: drawing. So I did another undergraduate in Visual Communications (illustration and graphic design) at Alberta College of Art + Design. This was as school should be: strict (and caring!) teachers that would give us tight deadlines and real briefings. I learned everything there: from drawing techniques to the business side of the profession. It was great.

Her first study in fashion would help her later, as you can see from her work where fashion flows through as a constant.

After school the wind took me to New York, where I worked as a graphic designer and art director for Bumble and bumble, Arch & Loop and Kate Spade Saturday until february 2015. All those jobs came to me in an organic way, I never idealised any company - since you can have a horrible job in the coolest magazine in the world - and let myself go with the flow (laughs), and was so lucky to work in-house at a brand, do art direction, illustration, graphic and web design, plus also worked as a photography art director. It was all so interesting and enriching. So lucky and happy to get to do all those (more laughs).

We all have ideal jobs we want to work at. What's Lauren's ideal commission? I want to do something bigger; doing small editorial illustrations is fun and I love doing it and I think I'm ready to take on bigger things! I just illustrated a whole book - Wildsam Field Guides Brooklyn, which was such a dream project. I would loooove to do magazine and book covers. Hope the flow will bring me those one day.

Her drawings are filled with trembling lines and small colour explosions. I did think she made everything by pencil first, to know which lines need to be drawn in ink, but that's not the case.

I do enjoy a lightbox in certain instances but my sketchbook is all freehand. I don't love to draw over pencil because it makes me pretty uptight! I find in order to make a drawing look fresh I have to do it in one go. And if that doesn't work I'll repeat it again and again until I am happy with the results.

Also, I learned from one of my teachers not to get stuck on one style. If you do just one style you are dead. I try to experiment and change techniques and ways to do things all the time, so I keep learning.

Every time I try to pin down what makes Lauren's drawings so magical, I come always to the same conclusion. They look like they were made in a different time and age. By old men working in smokey NY studios in the 50's, wearing work aprons and laughing hard at each other jokes on a thursday morning sun. Similar to what The Pushpin Studio was like.

Designers that draw, drawers that can design. The melting of those two fascinate me. And Lauren is a great contemporary example of it.

This is probably due to her mixed education and career path but also her interests are broad. My ideal date is to go to a gallery or a museum and enjoy meaningful, well made things. Absorbing those is what feeds my inspiration. I don't have a sketchbook with me all the time, so sometimes I would take a picture and draw it when I am back at my desk. Also, I hate to be watched while I draw. I know people has the best intentions when they look over your shoulder and start saying nice things but it totally gets me out of focus. I need concentration to work.

Asking for a final advice for people who want to draw better or become an artist Lauren is categorical I know this might sound like a cliche but it's totally true: the only way to get good at something is to work your butt off. Put many hours into it, and you will eventually get somewhere.

It was a pleasure to enjoy chatting with Mrs Tamaki. We hope to bring her over one day and having an exhibition showing her work in Tokyo.

Thanks Lauren. Keep making magical lines and by all means, keep smiling.

You can see and follow Lauren at her website, Instagram or Sketchbooks Tumblr.

{ This piece is a revised version of an interview I took of Lauren in 2015 }