It’s Day 361 and I had so much fun creating today’s piece.  It took a large portion of the day, but I think it was worth it.  I didn’t use the same materials that the artist uses so it was a bit challenging, but I still think it turned out all right.  Please join me in honoring Yuko Shimizu…one of my new favorite artists!

YUKO SHIMIZU (清水裕子) is a Japanese illustrator based in New York City and instructor at School of Visual Arts.  Newsweek Japan has chosen Yuko as one of “100 Japanese People The World Respects（世界が尊敬する日本人100)” in 2009. Her first self-titled monograph was released world-wide from German publisher Gestalten in 2011. The first childrens book Barbed Wire Baseball (written by Marissa Moss) came out from Abrams in April, 2013.

You may have seen her work on The Gap T-shirts, Pepsi cans,  VISA billboards, Microsoft and Target ads, as well as on the book covers of Penguin, Scholastic, DC Comics, and on the pages of NY Times, Time, Rolling Stone, New Yorker and  in many other publications over last ten years.

But illustration is actually Yuko’s second career.  Although art has always been

her passion, she had initially chosen a more practical path of studying advertising and marketing at Waseda University and took a job in corporate PR in Tokyo. It never quite made her happy. At age 22, she was in mid-life crisis.

Yuko ended up working the corporate job for 11 years, so she could figure out what she really wanted in life, as well as to save up just enough to play a biggest gamble of her life: She moved to New York City in 1999, where she briefly spent her childhood, to study art for the first time. Yuko graduated with MFA from SVA’s Illustration as Visual Essay Program in 2003 and  has been illustrating since.  She has also been teaching the next generation of talents at the alma mater.

She works at her studio in midtown Manhattan, and fulfills her passion of world travel by giving lectures and

workshops around the world and various cities in the US. She has not gotten into mid-life crisis since she has became an artist.

Please do not mix her up with another Yuko Shimizu. This Yuko did NOT create Hello Kitty.

Above bio is from her website www.yukoart.com.

Shimizu was born in Tokyo, Japan, and grew up mostly in Kanagawa Prefecture though she and her family spent four years in Westchester County, New York, during her teenage years.

She graduated from Waseda University’s School of Commerce in 1988 as valedictorian and soon began her first job in the corporate PR department of one of Tokyo’s largest sogo shoshas.

Eleven years later, she resigned and moved to New York City to pursue her childhood dream of becoming an artist. She set out to earn a second bachelor’s degree, this time in illustration at the School of Visual Arts. However, after finishing her sophomore year, she was accepted into the MFA Illustration as Visual Essay program. She graduated in May 2003.

Shimizu began getting editorial illustration work soon after she completed her master’s degree, at first occasional assignments from the Village Voice and the New York Times, and soon after semi-regular ones for The New Yorker and Financial Times magazine. Now, she counts numerous well-known publications, publishing houses, and brands as clients.

In 2008, Shimizu illustrated P. Craig Russell’s comic book adaptations of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman: The Dream Hunters, her first cover illustrations for Vertigo (DC Comics). She continued her relationship with the

imprint in 2009 when she began creating cover art for their ongoing comic book series The Unwritten, by Mike Carey (writer). The series was nominated for Eisner Awards in the Best Cover Artist category in 2011 and 2012.

In 2009, Shimizu collaborated with The Gap‘s AIDS charity line Product RED to create five limited-edition T-shirts (two for men, three for women) for the North American market. They quickly sold out both online and in stores.

Under the auspices of the Robin Hood Foundation and Pentagram’s charitable L!brary Initiative, Shimizu collaborated with graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister on an 11-panel mural for P.S. 96 in the Bronx. The project was showcased in the New York Times and in the commemorative book L!brary (Princeton Architectural Press, 2010).

Shimizu’s other notable works include her children’s book Barbed Wire Baseball (written by Marissa Moss, Abrams Books) to be published in Spring 2013 and her 2008 London billboards for Tiger Beer.

Above is from wikipedia.  All art is from artist’s website…link above.

I hope you enjoy today’s piece…I still can’t believe there’s only a handful of paintings left.  Whew.  I will see you tomorrow on Day 362.

Best,

Linda