![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/7pics\/2017\/10\/thumbs-yuukookcom32.jpg\")
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\nIt’s the first Sunday of the month, dear Imps, which means a student illustrator or newly-graduated illustrator here at 7-Imp. <\/p>\n
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\nIt’s the first Sunday of the month, dear Imps, which means a student illustrator or newly-graduated illustrator here at 7-Imp. <\/p>\n
Today, I welcome Yuko Okabe<\/a><\/strong>, a recent graduate from the Rhode Island School of Design, who is now pursuing life as an illustrator in Boston. She also works as an artist for Mighteor, and she describes that work below. <\/p>\n Yuko is also currently creating a picture book with a couple of people and is becoming increasingly interested in picture books and children’s books. <\/p>\n I thank her for visiting. Here she is, in her own words . …<\/p>\n Note for any new readers: 7-Imp\u2019s 7 Kicks is a weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you. New kickers are always welcome.<\/p>\n
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\nYuko<\/font><\/strong>: Despite my limits being in crowds, I’m often drawn to create works that are saturated with people, inspired by my wallflower observances. Yet there’s always a dialogue that I have between myself and illustration; I’ve uncovered new aspects of myself through the ideas I conjure and the particular attention I pay to certain themes, colors, and even mediums from my own work and of others.
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\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/7pics\/2017\/10\/georgieyuukookuse.jpg\")
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\nFor instance, I’ve discovered my innate fixation to form characters out of spontaneous blobs and shapes. This drew out of a series of 2″x2″ geometric character paintings I made as Christmas gifts for a group of friends\/mentors, and I continued to manipulate the limits of human anatomy since (though admittedly I often default to proportions from Dexter’s Laboratory<\/em><\/a><\/strong> characters). This past Inktober, I explored designing people using the Japanese syllabry, hiragana, which is made out of 46 basic characters. Essentially, I structured the series like an alphabet book where the characters corresponded to a word beginning with the hiragana. Hopefully by the time this comes out, I will have finished them all! I plan to put them all in a chart and print cards for my family.
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\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/7pics\/2017\/10\/cry-yukookabe-nause.jpg\")
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\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/7pics\/2017\/10\/inktober-yukookabeolderbrother.jpg\")
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\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/7pics\/2017\/10\/inktober-yukookabeunplug.jpg\")
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\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/7pics\/2017\/10\/inktober-yukookabeoldersister.jpg\")
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\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/7pics\/2017\/10\/inktober-yukookabepeek.jpg\")
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\nSince graduation, I’ve been developing more personal work. I’m currently refurbishing a picture book dummy with an interested publisher, so I’ll see where that will lead. The story is about a “pebble”-sized girl who constantly gets lost or trapped in the modern world. At the moment, I’m powering through sketches and seeing how visual metaphors, like scale, can play more with the text.
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\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/7pics\/2017\/10\/pebbleyuukook6use.jpg\")
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\nIn addition to freelancing\/personal projects, I’ve been working for a start-up company called Mighteor<\/a><\/strong> by Neuromotion Labs, which is working to create a biofeedback game platform to teach coping skills to children with aggressive and anxious behaviors commonly associated with ADHD. With a heart rate monitor function, a child’s progress depends on how well they can control their own heart rate in-game. For example, when their heart rate heightens, the game loses control and they have to learn to lower it again in order to gain functionality and earn points. (This is essentially a definition of biofeedback therapy, learning to control typically involuntary physiological processes through training.) I originally started working with Mighteor through a fellowship two summers ago through the Boston Children’s Hospital, where they began. I received aid to pursue this project from RISD’s Maharam Fellowship, which sponsors students who design and propose internships in non-art and design fields. So in a way, I created my own job. It’s been both fun and challenging, since there’s a lot to learn from both ends.
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\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/7pics\/2017\/10\/travellight-yukookabeuse.jpg\")
\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/7pics\/2017\/10\/planteryuukook1use.jpg\")
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\nIn the future, I hope to pursue more projects related to children and publishing, particularly with picture books. My first attempt at a picture book came at around five or six years old with a story called “Alley and the Big Bear” (because I didn’t know how to spell the name “Allie”), which was about a girl befriending a bear who stumbles into her backyard. For about a decade, starting at around three years old, I also made this half-comic, half long-form picture story-line about this girl who kept falling into a hole a lot. I called it “The Girl Who Kept Falling Into the Hole A Lot.” (I eventually changed it to “The Girl” for brevity.) It was very Alice in Wonderland<\/em>– and Calvin and Hobbes<\/em>-inspired.
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\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/7pics\/2017\/10\/packed-yuukookuse.jpg\")
\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/7pics\/2017\/10\/nestingyuukookuse.jpg\")
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\nIn short, I always wanted to create stories, and I’m looking forward to exciting, collaborative, and interdisciplinary adventures.
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\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/7pics\/2017\/10\/yuukook-redsmall.jpg\")
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\nAll images used by permission of Yuko Okabe.<\/em><\/p>\n
<\/center><\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/7pics\/2017\/10\/dorrrryyyyyyy.jpg\")
1)<\/strong><\/font> I got a galley of the new Dory book<\/a><\/strong>, coming in 2018, and as always, my girls and I laughed till our sides hurt when we read it.<\/p>\n