We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Yumi Emily a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Yumi Emily thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

I think I used to wish I started my career earlier but now I don’t really think that way. The only reason I thought I should’ve started drawing sooner was because I thought my drawing skill was tremendously lacking compared to those who has been drawing since they were very little. I thought that in order to become a good artist, I have to catch up with people who’s been drawing for many more years than me. However, I realized that’s not really true.
I started drawing pretty early in my life for fun but as I got older I stopped like many other people does and all I did was doodling on my note randomly when I felt like it. It was after I became 18yo that I started drawing seriously and spending more time on making art. When I went to Art school I was surrounded by people who were younger and has been drawing longer and better than me. At first, I always didn’t have confidence in art I create because of that, but that is the reason I tried hard to work on not only techniques but also expression. I decided not to go with drawing style that has to rely on super precise rendering or great sense of color, and focused on going with drawing style that I can enjoy and at the same time express what I want.
So I think having late start doesn’t always disadvantage you and even give you new creative perspective to approach your work sometimes.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My main expertise in art is creating illustration exploring my own inner world, a small moment in life, female relationships and such. I also look into fashion clothing and interior design a lot as decorative elements in my illustration so that I can design more detailed character and environments, and I think that’s what makes my art unique. I like thinking about what kind of items characters posses and what kind of clothes they wear in my illustration. I think the key to establishing you own style is caring to put a thought on small minor detail and adding them to your piece so that you can make your story deeper and different from others.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

The goal in my creative career is to be able to support my life by freelancing. I want to use my illustration skill for someone’s use, whether it’s advertisement or editorial, so getting more work and feeling connected to a lot of people through my work is truly a meaningful life goal to me as an artist.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist is seeing reaction from my clients or people who see my work at art fair. To me, what made me happy was always the process of creating art and I used not think about what happens after I made a piece. However, seeing people smiling looking at my work and hearing positive comment about it feels very special and truly rewarding. Seeing people who are happy with my work in person always makes me feel really glad that I didn’t give up on creative career.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/y.emily.i/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yeiart/

Image Credits

Yumi Emily