Artists are often inspired by foreign countries and cultures, entirely different from their own, and Angela Hao is a case in point. She’s using her illustrations to put a unique twist on storefronts of tiny shops scattered all around Japan that she found on Google Street View.
Hao’s illustrations attracted over 120,000 followers to her Instagram page, and they prove you don’t have to see something in person to fully capture its beauty. She uses Google Street View to discover quirky storefronts in Tokyo, Osaka, and other Japanese cities and uses them as inspiration for her amazing works of art.
Hao’s illustrations look straight out of Studio Ghibli movies, and she enjoys adding her own touch of magic to each one. They’re not carbon copies of the buildings she stumbled upon on Google Street View because she enjoys adding all sorts of new elements to the mix to breathe new life into each drawing and make it unique, sometimes even combining the parts of different stores to create a new look.
“I also enjoy changing the storefront structures or combining parts from different stores together to create a new look. Sometimes when I look at a reference photo, I would imagine what if this Raman store was actually a bookstore. I would then start to ‘remodel’ the store on my canvas,” she told My Modern Met.
