• Featured/News

    Going Places in my hands

    I got to know that I was featured in April 2012 issue of Going Places from AidaNYusof and later, Maria and few others informed me about it. Not knowing who to contact, I tweeted for a help in getting a copy for my archive. Thanks to Maria (ex-colleague), I got to know that Shemah‘s (blogger friend) husband is working at MAS. So I turned to Shemah and voila, within two days, she got a copy and mailed it to me. And today, Mr. Postman delivered the magazine.

    Thank you so much Shemah and husband!

    Here’s the write-up:

    “I became interesting in illustrating children’s books because I collect these books. I would always look at the illustrations when reading, and developed an interest in becoming an illustrator myself. Also, I could not find any good books produced locally with good illustrations.” And so began Malaysian Emila Yusof’s foray into the world of children books.

    A self-taught artist who quit her career as a graphic designer in 2007 to become a full-time illustrator, she has always loved drawing. She began working after leavingschool to help her mother, a single parent, and support her two younger brothers.” After I quit my job, I began blogging and joined a group of illustrators at illustrationfriday.com, where we shared our drawings and comments about our work. In 2008, I was discovered by an illustrator/comic artist, Sarah Joan Mokhtar, who invited me to join the SCBWI Illustrations Exhibition. From there, I met Linda Tan Lingard, who helped me publlished my first book, My Mother’s Garden, under OneRedFlower Press. Around the saem time, another publisher, PTS, published five of my art and craft book.”

    So, armed with her water colours, pencil, laptop and digital art programmes, Emila creates naive art wit a clear sense of vision. She has illustrated seven of her own books and collaborated with writers Alia Nina, Nisah Haron and Datuk A. Samad Said. She is currently working on three new books ans has set her sights on making a name for helrself abroad. That won’t be too difficult; her first ever illustration was an Artist Trading Card (ATC), which was sold on eBay in 2007 to an American buyer. www.emilayusof.com