Digital Illustration : Artist - Yuko Shimizu

Digital Illustration

Computer illustration or digital illustration is the use of digital tools to produce images under the direct manipulation of the artist, usually through a pointing device such as a tablet or a mouse. It is distinguished from computer-generated art, which is produced by a computer using mathematical models created by the artist. It is also distinct from digital manipulation of photographs, in that it is an original construction "from scratch". (Photographic elements may be incorporated into such works, but they are not the primary basis or source for them.)

Before the digital revolution, life as an illustrator was fairly straightforward, or so it seemed – there was no Bill Gates, no Apple, no Photoshop, no Google, no internet, no email, no hassle. Looking back at life before the revolution, albeit through rose-tinted specs, the working day for your lone illustrator was a fairly simple affair. In fact, depending on just how far back you wish to peer, it’s clear to see just how much has changed.

Back in the land-that-time-forgot, a common-or-garden commission for a freelance illustrator would come about with a phone call made by an art director to an illustrator’s land-line – mobiles only came into everyday use just over a decade ago. If you were out of the studio when the call came, chances are you could miss the job – answer phones even 15 years ago were not the norm. The brief itself would have to be posted or collected – fax machines were huge, cumbersome and expensive items even just a decade and a half ago. How the freelance illustrator, just ten years ago, maintained a professional profile, informed clients of new work and displayed their portfolios has altered beyond recognition. Without websites and email, illustrators would utilize the humble postcard as their calling card to the creative world, designing, printing, addressing and posting hundreds of these mailshots on a regular basis.

Digital Illustrator

Yuko Shimizu

Biography

YUKO SHIMIZU is a freelance illustrator based in New York City and an illustration instructor at School of Visual Arts. Newsweek Japan has chosen her as one of "100 Japanese People The World Respects" in 2009.

Drawing had been Yuko's hobby ever since she could remember. However, growing up in a traditional Japanese family, pursuing a path in art was just not an option. After receiving BA in advertising and marketing – the most creative of the practical field – from Waseda University she landed on a position in PR for a big corporation in Tokyo. It never made her quite happy, and she was in a mid-life crisis at age of 22.

It still took Yuko more than 10 years of office job before she figured out what she really wanted to do and to save just enough so she could go back to school full time for 4 more years. his is how Yuko came back to New York in 1999, where she briefly spent her childhood, and enrolled in School of Visual Arts (SVA).

Yuko graduated with MFA from Illustration as Visual Essay Program in 2003 and has been illustrating since. She also teaches a BFA Illustration course and occasionally advises MFA students at SVA. he works in a studio in Manhattan, a space she shares with two artists whom she considers as her 'New York family'. Yuko has not gotten into mid-life crisis since she became an artist.

Whenever she has time, Yuko loves to travel to different cities and countries to lectures at art schools and events, and to meet with other artists, professors and young aspiring illustrators to get inspired.

Some of the Works