Today’s Chai
She is 9 months old now. She sheds so much and her shedding is all over our living room.
PEN STILL WRITES is now on facebook
Just created a page for PEN STILL WRITES on facebook. We are going to publish our studio news there. BTW, PEN STILL WRITES is a studio I share with an illustrator, Hiromichi Ito. The studio is located in Meguro-ku, Tokyo. Please have a look!
THE ART OF PHIL HAYS
A special website THE ART OF PHIL HAYS is up and running now. Just like Alex Gross says below, Phil was also my mentor and teacher, who had kept encouraging me in my studies, during my school years at Art Center College of Design.
Here is Alex’s words.
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Please visit a very special website, one which is close to my heart. The late Phil Hays was my mentor, my instructor, and my friend. He was also one of the most important and influential illustrators from the 1960s to the late 1970s. The all new www.philhays.com features dozens of images of some of his best work, as well as candid photos of Phil from his childhood to his New York days, and then to Los Angeles, where he was the Chairman of the Illustration department at Art Center College of Design. Please have a look and let us know what you think.
Sincerely,
Alex Gross
Tokyo Illustrators Society has a new website
I have been working as a committee member of website renewal project at Tokyo Illustrators Society, and the site is finally revamped and reopened. Website design by AQ.
Not so polar bear in 3D
3D stereogram version for naked eye viewing. This image is set for cross-eyed viewing. Enjoy!
Not so polar bear
I will be taking part in this exhibition, EARTH: Fragile Planet at The Society of Illustrators.
Title : Not so polar bear
I thought it would be striking to show a polar bear in the forest. He is now forced to live in the mountain because there are no ice floats left for him to hunt for seals in the arctic. There he is standing with his hands and mouth soaking in blood. I presented the bear being rather cute, not menacing looking at all to imply that this is the reality, and this is the nature. He doesn’t have to be angry. He is just doing what he has to do to stay alive. The earth will keep rotating whether the natural environment is being destroyed or not.
The Sea, The Sea wins prestigious Design Week award
I am delighted to find that the book I had illustrated won design week award for editorial category.
http://www.foliosociety.com/news
Here is the Design Week Awards 2010 results.
http://awards.designweek.co.uk/dw/categories/editorial-design/
New York Times Travel
I went to New York to receive my silver medal from the Society of Illustrators a few weeks ago. It has been almost 20 years since my last visit. I heard NYC has gotten much safer, and was surprised to find that SOHO has changed a lot since then. I saw many design furniture stores as well as fashion brand stores like UNIQLO, Camper, etc. It was just like Aoyama in Tokyo. Apple stores had always been handy when I need to use wifi on my iPhone in Manhattan during the stay.
Anyhow, it was great to meet all the illustrators I admire at the show opening. I am especially grateful to Yuko Shimizu and Josh Cochran for inviting me to their studio. I also had a chance to meet with my rep Sally for the first time after we have been working together for 10 years. Here is a set of photos we shot in NY.
The above image is my illustration for The New York Times Travel section. I picked up the copy when I was in Manhattan. I happened to be staying at Westin Times Square, so it was just a couple of minutes walk to visit Rodrigo (Art Director).
Sakura
My new picture book is just out. The book is about sakura, cherry blossoms. It is written by Naoko Higashi, the same author of Rain Po Po Po. I will be exhibiting digital prints from the book at following bookstores.
Feb.11 – Mar.2 at Book House Jimbocho
Mar.8 – Mar.19 at Aoyama Book Center in Aoyama
Mar.29 – Apr.18 at Asahiya Shoten in Ikebukuro
Shibakenjinkai
I have been doing a series of, sort of like cartoon-illustration pieces for myself. The series is about a shiba inu (Japanese breed dog) and people, and always comes with a line or two in each piece. I do the writing myself, and usually it consists of wordplay, which means it’s hard to translate into any other languages.
Now I have started contributing this series to a Japanese magazine Illustration, so I have to come up with a new piece every once in a two months.
This one is the very first piece I did for the magazine, and it might be fairly easy to translate into English.
“A newly opened cafe where dogs are allowed. “