eleanor marston

"With my drawings I want to send hope and love to Japan. Looking at birds in the sky gives hope. The symbol of the heart gives a warm, secure feeling inside. A tree that is growing hearts instead of leaves shall symbolize my warm wishes for the Japanese children. I like books that leave room for the child's own imagination and this is definetely one of them. I am proud to be a part of it. Thank you Liina and Anna!"

Eleanor is an illustrator based in Hamburg where she lives close to the beautiful harbour. She designs books and games for children and adults. Her illustrations have been published in magazines, children's books and educational books. One example are the "Krickelkrakel" drawing, activity and handicraft books for children, to which also Ann Cathrin Raab contributed her artwork. They are published by Oetinger Verlag and lots of fun!

For more information about Eleanor, please visit  www.eleanormarston.de

eriko yamazaki

For more information about Eriko, please visit www.erikoyamazaki.com

harry harrison

Harry is well known cartoonist in Hong Kong. He does politcal satire cartoons on the last page of "South China Morning Post". When I asked him to join 'I love Japan', he said: "My drawings won't be as arty as the others but is relatively true to my style. Godzilla playing volleyball with a samurai. I've left the ball plain because if the children happen to colour it red, it becomes the rising sun." 

Harry illustrated a lot of children's books as well: www.sarah-brennan.com

For more information about Harry, please visit www.procartoonists.org/members/harryharrison/

jane black

Jane is an illustrator/artist in her art, she loves to combine the sarcastic and scary with the cute and beautiful. Her creations carry a variety of influences, ranging from punk-rock to morbid underground and include life, death and happiness and manga comics. One of her characters is Jane Black a little strange and curious girl, which discovers the world.

For more information about Jane, please visit  www.janesnation.com

jim avignon

For more information about Jim, please visit  www.jimavignon.com

laura polin

"The reasons why I choose the phones are many... on the one hand I believe that children these days are unlikely to use this kind of phone in their real life. So when they play on paper with old telephones they get curious about them. On the other hand these telephones are the root of today's social network. They can be traced back to Mr. Meucci/Manzetti from Italy, who invented the telephone in 1871.  For the first time these telephones made it possible for people to get in touch with each other virtually.  In addition to that their design is quite funny and somehow childish ... or at least this is the way it looks to my eyes :) "

For more information about Laura, please visit  http://laurapolin.tumblr.com/ 

maike biederstaedt

Maike Biederstaedt is a paper-engineer and illustrator living in Berlin. 

When doing her paper-pop-up for the 'I love Japan' book, she faced the following problems: "The paper is much thinner than what I'm usually working with. And the Japanese binding doesn´t open up straight. That's why I did choose something easy to assemble that is working nevertheless! Cut out the different parts and glue them back together in the right position, then the koi fish comes swimming out of the book! This typically Japanese fish symbolizes strength. I hope you have fun with this!" 


For more information about Maike, please visit  www.maikebiederstaedt.de