Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Clover Li. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Clover, appreciate you joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

My current work are mostly made with tablet, but my journey of learning to make art definitely start with brush and paper. Before I knew I loved drawing, I practiced Chinese calligraphy for nine years since primary school, that helped me understand the rhyme and mood in the lines and shapes. When I was not doing calligraphy, I loved doodling as a kid. On my textbooks, my desks, everywhere even on a dictionary. And reading all sorts of picture books motivated me to mimic the drawings in them. These prepared me to pursue art as a kid.

When I became more and more serious about pursuing illustration as a profession, I started to looked at art more analytically. I would browse through as many art as possible and mark which caught my attention, then try to learn from what I like about it. Whether it’s the color palette, Light and shadow, or mood, or character design, I alway try to understand what it is that makes me resonate with this work, and try to infuse such quality in my own work. I found it very effective in improving my work.

While I learn from others consciously or unconsciously, I guess if I had more opportunities to play more experimentally with different mediums, it might benefit me more with forming a unique approach/style. So I would say fear is definitely one of the biggest obstacles stood in the way of learning more. Fear can easily push you to make art that pleases mainstream standard, sometimes that diminishes one’s distinctive voice.

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?

Hi, this is Clover, I’m an illustrator and designer based in New York City. I have been exploring and making illustrations for over a decade now. Although I am always looking forward to expanding the range of my work, a sense of naïve, a dreamy but vibrant color palette, careful depictions of characters’ emotions and atmospheres, love of nature are things I aim to demostrate in my work.

I also love to keep brush strokes or blends of watercolor in my work. I think that makes digital works feel warmer while keeping the splendid visual effect that is achieved on digital platforms. Apart from the technical aspects of my work, I love to make works that advocate for empathy, cross-culture, cultural identities topics. Nature, animals, life and drama/literature are big inspirations for me as they made me love this world, and I wanna share such joyful feelings with my audiences.

In my visual thesis project at FIT, I created a children’s book ‘The story of the Doggo Prince’ , where the doggo prince transcended his misconceptions about other animals as he ventured out his home he has never left before, by overcoming fear and prejudice, he came home with treasures he never expected to have found. The project was honored the New Talent Merit by ijungle illustration award and shortlisted by Hiii Illustration 2021 which I’m so proud of.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I think it’s both a good and a bad time to be an artist right now. The good thing is that you have multiple platforms to promote your art and reach out to art directors and agencies through emails for work. But it’s also a time where people are overwhelmed with images and visual online, the spirit of craftmanship, the passion of creating sometimes can be easily neglected. Personally I think it will really benefit the illustrator community if more space are open for illustrators to sell their works or merchants freely, more workshop/resisdencies available for illustrators to apply and make art that celebrates the current culture and society. Also the rates of illustration especially for editorial illustration need to be raised to a great extent. Many publishers are still paying illustrators with the rates from decades ago. Last but not the least, I believe the AI development deserve more careful consideration and restriction, there should be more transparent and thorough discussion over the area.

Making art is not doing charity, it’s artists’ heart and blood they put in their work, such efforts and talents need more understanding and appreciation as it’s such a big pillar of our culture.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The pure freedom in creating something authentic and communicating your love to the world with people are the most rewarding aspects for me of being an artist. Seeing people’s smile or getting emails from people saying how my work made their day absolutely fill joy in my heart. Because that’s my initial heart to become an artist, that is using my visual work to give people moments of peace, to soothe their stress from life and work. It’s incredible to see something you created from your soul and imagination impacts audiences’ heart and mind, to make them feel what you felt, to view the art in the way you directed.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thecloverli.art
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shuyitheshiba/?hl=en
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clover-li-illustratordesigner/