Yuko Shimazu Yuko Shimazu Yuko Shimizu

Award winning Japanese illustrator based in New York City and instructor at School of Visual Arts.

The Unwritten Issue 5 Is Out And A New Blog Post….

DC Comics Vertigo’s series The Unwritten‘s issue No. 5 just came out this week.In the meantime at my studio, I am busy working on the issue No.9 cover which is due to my editor next week. (Yes, we work WAY in advance.)I just posted on my blog the creative process of No. 5 as it has been a while since I posted about issue No. 1. Please check it out when you have time.I cannot stress enough how well written The Unwritten is. If you are one of those people who think ‘comic books are just for kids’ it will make you change your idea.

Teaching….

Chaotic first week of school has just finished, and finally have a little bit of time to update my site…

This school year, I am teaching two classes at SVA including Senior Portfolio Class I am teaching for the first time. I am co-teaching with the one and only Thomas Woodruff: my former instructor/MFA thesis advisor and chair of Illustration and Cartooning Dept. at SVA. He was one of the best instructors I have ever had as a student. Excited, and a bit nervous!

SPECTRUM EXHIBITION 2 Opens

Hope you had a nice Labor Day Weekend (if you are in the US). Summer is officially over, and the school has started. I am teaching two classes at SVA this school year. Welcome back students.Spectrum Fantastic Art‘s second exhibit has just opened at The Museum of American Illustration at The Society of Illustrators (128 East 63rd Street, New York City). This show covers selected works from Spectrum annual Volumes 12 through 15.I will have one work in the show (picture on the right: editorial piece for PLAYBOY). Read more about this show, buy tickets for the opening event (Friday, September 10) on the Society of Illustrators site.

(photo of the show above is from Spectrum Exhibition1 borrowed from Spectrum site.)

Thank You IllustrationMundo

Talented illustrator and the man behind IllustrationMundo, Nate Williams, kindly invited me to the site and gave me a feature. You are so nice, Nate. Thank you.Oh, by the way, who are the people in the photo? Nate wanted pictures that show who I am, so I picked one of my favorites from a group trip to Lisboa a few years ago. Gary, Thilo, Axel, and Thomas all the way in the back.

Two Books Soon To Be Out From Gestalten

Awesome German art book publisher and the nicest editing team of Gestaltenjust announced the release of new books for fall, and I am thrilled to be in two of them.The first one is ILLUSIVE 3, which will be published at the end of the month in Continental Europe, and everywhere else in September.

The first two volumes of ILLUSIVE were best-sellers, so some of you may know about this awesome collection of contemporary illustration. My works as well as my best friend Marcos Chin‘s are in both ILLUSIVE 2 and ILLUSIVE 3.

I have not seen the book yet, but I am supposed to have an interview section in this latest book. I am extra excited. Thank you so much Henni!

The second one is Hair’ em Scare’ em due later in Fall.

This one is a good example of Gestalten-speciality-style books I love: photo, fine art, design, illustration, anything visual all in one book without any distinction under one theme. Obviously, this time, the theme is “hair”.

The website preview shows a spread of my Bjork portrait right next to a photo of Bjork with artist Shoplifter‘s actual hair sculpture.

I have to say, this is my dream come true. I have been a long time Bjork fan, as well as an admirer of Shoplifter’s amazing works. By the way, Shoplifter is a really good friend of my best friend Agata Nowicka and I have met her once. Super nice person. Another friend Ai Tatebayashi is also featured in this book.

Big thank you to Matthias and Elizabeth for including me in the book.

Updates Of ILLUSTRATIONS Section

Ah, I did it again! I didn’t update the ILLUSTRATION SECTION for so long, I ended up uploading 8 new images all at once today.And you know what? Because I work like this, I tend to forget some images, and they sit in my harddrive not get updated to my website for a longtime. I should look thorughly into my hard drive sometime very soon…Anyway, for now, 8 new images are here..

The Unwritten Second Printing

Thank you for your support! The Unwritten issue No.1 and No.2 both are sold out, and the second printing with variant covers are now in stores. The latest issue now is No.3, and the issue No. 4 will be published next week on August 12. I have, so far, done with the first 9 covers and about to start the 10th. The story gets better and better, and I am having more and more fun working on them. So please continuously support The Unwritten series. Big thanks to my dear editor Pornsak, and Mike and Peter team, among everyone else involved in making this series happen.I added all these new cover layouts to ILLUSTRATION SECTION.

The Gap T-Shirts Are Sold Out

Thank you everyone who has purchased The Gap Product Red artist t-shirts. They are pretty much completely sold out. And your purchase has helped one step closer to eliminating AIDS in Africa.

It is my friend and artist Yoko Kiuchi in these photos. These are taken by her husband and photographer Kai Kiuchi. Thank you both.

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