Yuko Shimazu Yuko Shimazu Yuko Shimizu

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

new book ILLUSTRATION NEXT

Hope you had a nice Labor Day weekend (if you live in the US, that is…)

School just started and I am back to teaching two classes a week. Just when I came back from the first day of teaching this afternoon, UPS guy came knocking on my studio door with this gorgeous book in his hand.
ILLUSTRATION NEXT is a new book just published from Thames & Hudson of UK, edited by young and talented (American) illustrator Ana Benaroya. One of the unique feature of this book is that the editor had paired up illustrators in the book to collaborate on multiple pieces just for the book. I collaborated with very talented Ahu Sulker, whom I met through this collaboration.

I have seen many books on illustration coming out every season from various publishers, but can I mention this is one of the most beautiful book filled with ultra high quality work I have seen in recent years? Surprisingly, I am not familiar with many of the artists in here, so I have to really sit down with this book in front of the computer and check more of their works on their website.
Some of the usual suspects include friends like Henrik Drescher, Olimpia Zagnoli, Edel Rodriguez, Mu Pan, and my MFA classmate and ultra talented Benjamin Marra, also, my former studio neighbor Jungyeon Roh, AND my former students Shigeko Okada and Keiko Tokushima, both of who had helped me with my studio work over the years. I am so proud of them. And I am excited to be a part of this book.

ILLUSTRTION NEXT is already out in the UK, and comes out in October in the US,  You can pre-order from Amazon. 


I made two pieces with Ahu. Mainly, I asked Ahu to create first with figurative work, then I went in and added background and foreground details. 

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