In order to promote the incredible creative industry Hong Kong has to offer, we hope to collaborate with artists for each of our Love From Blue Drops. In our first ‘Love From Blue Spotlight’ we would like to introduce Rebecca Lin, a key collaborator and the face of our campaign!

Rebecca is known for her earthy toned mural paintings and illustration work, the perfect fit for our Drop inspired by Hong Kong’s landscape. For the collaboration, we started by sending a very open brief of creating something that captured the essence of the first Love From Blue Drop. Rebecca interpreted our inspiration images and knit experiments to create the most beautiful illustrations. The final artwork was the perfect blend of our designs and Rebecca's unique aesthetic which we used as postcards and an A3 print to go alongside the knitwear.  

Tell us a bit about yourself; where you’re from, how long you’ve been in HK and what do you do when you’re not in the studio creating? 

I usually introduce myself explaining how much of a creative Eurasian family and lifestyle I was born into considering having both parents as freelancers, one in sound engineering and the other in musical theatre. I’ve lived in Sai Kung all my life (apart from uni in the UK). When I’m not creating in the studio, I’m lazy about on my rooftop enjoying the simple jungle life, propagating my plants or enjoying the outdoors with friends and family. 

Tell us about your creative style and methods of working

I’m a huge fan of muted earth tones and religiously use this palette throughout my work. I believe I’m still exploring my identifying style but recently I’ve been separating my digital creations to my art and mural work. I tend to use my illustrations to express certain social or personal scenarios I see myself empowered or vulnerable in, whereas my acrylic paintings reflect the important balance of work and play, often depicting Hong Kong scenes and elements with overgrown greenery. In the collaboration done with Love from Blue though, that was a liberating few days of quick expressive strokes in a sketchbook — using a mix of soft pastels, acrylic paint, ink and coloured pencils. Thank you for the opportunity to freely create! 

What project are you most proud of? 

Ahh, that’s a difficult one as I have three favourites: the ‘In the Mood for Love’ mural done for Herbert Smith Freehills office in Central, Weave entrance mural commissioned on Boundary Street, or the first mural ever executed outside WeWork during HKwalls Festival 2018 for nostalgic reasons. If I had to pick one though.. probably Weave as I had created smaller artwork using the same wheat paste and newspaper technique back in university and wanted to create a bigger version moving forward! 

I know my Mills piece is most popular amongst locals though according to Tinder, haha!

Your work is so amazing with a sense of calmness and flow that appeals to a lot of people, I can’t believe we’re your first print collaboration (which we feel very privileged to be!) is there a reason you haven’t branched into this direction before?  

Honestly I have huge anxiety over releasing my work and putting a price to value it. I have a sense of perfectionism to the point of never asserting myself to actually follow up with printers so your help and support has meant the world to me!  

Any advice for young Artists? 

Hmm.. as Chandler from F.R.I.E.N.D.S would say ‘I’m not great at the advice, can I interest you in a sarcastic comment?’ And with that I leave you with, I don’t own enough acrylic to paint a picture of how intensive your client back-and-forth might be when working on commissions. I make sure to allocate time between projects to experiment in my sketchbook as I sometimes feel like I lose my sense of artistic identity trying to fulfil their requirements.

What can we look forward to in the future? I know you have started working with fabrics, any plans for this?

Yes! Thank you for mentioning! I’ve started on a new personal project promoting body positivity and fabric sustainability. The idea is for any comfortable participants to send in their nudes for me to create line drawings, embroidering them on linen trousers made by hand from my tiny studio at home in Sai Kung. I have yet to finalise the trouser patterns for inclusive sizing but fingers crossed I’ll have them drawn up to launch in the summer for that linen wearing season! 

As well as your art, your unique style has you featured in campaigns for a few different fashion and lifestyle brands. Is fashion important to you? 

I believe fashion correlates with branding and on most days the decisions on clothes and accessories reflect artistic identity; communicating a certain vibe or energy you want to put out. I’m rather shocking at expressing verbally so personally this mindset on the art form is important as it removes the tedious process of explaining my brand’s aesthetics and helps me gain projects with lovely people and companies that have correlating values. 

Is sustainability within fashion, or your general day to day life something you think about? If so, what do you do to play your part? 

I’m definitely consciously aware of it in my daily life and try my best to do my part by often creating up-cycled art using materials from my own hoarded items one would deem useless — from collecting semi-empty paint tins taken after completing murals to repurpose as plant pots, glass jars from pasta sauces as reusable paint tins, to unwanted linen off-cuts to create new clothes when I’m discouraged from spending $$$ or need to make some $$$ are just to name a few ways I exercise sustainability!

What’s your favourite part of Hong Kong? 

I’m going to stay true to where I’ve lived my whole life and say Sai Kung, but to be honest anywhere in Hong Kong where they have preserved the countryside and it’s greenery is my favourite part of Hong Kong. It’s an unreal feeling when you’ve hiked to the top of a mountain or stream/waterfall, looking down onto what seems like a tiny bustling city. It really gives your perspective and just allows you to appreciate the little things like how amazing grass smells and feels hahaha

Follow Rebecca to see more of her work:

www.rebeccatlin.com and @rtl.creations and get your hands on one of her prints here