Happy Holidays! Festive Header Illustration by Hiné Mizushima

It’s the last new head­er illus­tra­tion of 2014! If you look at the top of the page, you’ll see part of this fes­tive arrange­ment by crafter Hiné Mizushi­ma. The delight­ful image fea­tures small objects like pep­per­mints, a snow­man, and ever­green trees. This isn’t the first of Hiné’s col­lage pho­tographs that have caught my eye. Camp­ing, New Years, and sci­ence are just some of the oth­er ones she’s made.

I talked to Hiné about her pic­ture in a short interview.

Loca­tion: Van­cou­ver, Canada
Web­sites: www.hinemizushima.com, www.flickr.com/photos/sheishine, and  www.hine.etsy.com
What was your dream job when you were 7 years old? I want­ed to be a girls’ Man­ga artist, really!
Your pro­fes­sion now: Nee­dle-fel­ter / Slow Crafter / Illus­tra­tor / Pup­pet Stop-Motion Ani­ma­tion Video Artist

What’s your favorite thing to make? 
Octo­pus, squid, slug, etc…

How did you cre­ate your illus­tra­tion? Was it any dif­fer­ent than your reg­u­lar process? For minia­ture col­lages, there is usu­al­ly a theme, so I look for minia­ture items which fit the theme. I look in my minia­ture col­lec­tion box­es and at felt stuff that I have already made. Then if I need­ed them, I make more hand­made items from felt/fabric/paper/wood, and buy more plastic/wooden minia­ture items from online shops & local stores. At the same time, I choose the back­ground col­or. And then I com­pose all the items on the back­ground, and pho­to­graph it! It’s much sim­pler than my felt sculp­ture process.

Where do you find all of these delight­ful­ly small objects? Have you always been a col­lec­tor? I’m not a col­lec­tor, but I have always liked small vin­tage things. Ever since I start­ed work­ing on stop-motion video jobs for They Might Be Giants, I have been con­scious­ly col­lect­ing small things which I might use in videos. I usu­al­ly find small objects at Japan­ese online shops, or on Etsy, or when I trav­el. So recent­ly, when I start­ed this kind of illus­tra­tion (minia­ture col­lages), I already had lots of small objects!

Do you have any excit­ing projects on the horizon?
Yes! One of them would be a com­mis­sioned adver­tis­ing project for a big non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion in US. I have been mak­ing a minia­ture col­lage which I will pho­to­graph. They will use it for posters, web­sites, etc. The oth­er com­mis­sioned project is for a cool mak­ers’ lab/cafe in Tokyo. For that one, I can make a ‘thing’ with some beau­ti­ful recy­cled dried flow­ers that they will pro­vide, and I can use their laser cut­ting machine & 3D print­er for mak­ing any­thing I want (I send them my Illus­tra­tor data, they send me back the actu­al items). Then they will exhib­it my fin­ished art­work at their lab. And I just got a new book cov­er design job yesterday!

Thanks, Hiné!