Yuko Shimizu

I was checking through Drawger, and came across a great article by the extraordinary illustrator Yuko Shimizu on her illustration for a GQ article about the Japanese tsunami of 2011, selected for inclusion to the 2012 Communication Arts illustration annual. Anyhow, as I was saying, Shimizu wrote a fantastic article and I encourage you to read it: The Man Who Sailed His House.

The Man Who Sailed His House – Yuko Shimizu (click for larger image)

It’s not every day a highly respected, award-winning illustrator explains how they work, it’s definitely worth the read. It’s really fascinating to see the visual process of looking through reference materials, building up rough sketches, moving on to black and white drawings, colouring choices, and the other kinds of choices that an illustrator makes when developing a piece.

For that matter, if you’re not already familiar with Yuko Shimizu, you absolutely must check her work out. She’s kind of a big deal (for good reason),  having won tons of awards for her work with an impressive roster of clients. Well-deserved recognition aside, Shimizu’s work is all kinds of awesome, blending a range of tWe’ve all seen Asian/western fusion styles before, but Shimizu’s work definitely goes further than the hodegepodge of conventional style quoting we usually end up seeing. For example, here’s another piece of hers that I really like – an unused cover illustration for Time Magazine on the Tiger Mother phenomenon. It’s like Eloise in the land of traditional  watercolours, mixing traditions from Asian and Western art to a very contemporary and unique effect.