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

Ke, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you take us back in time to the first dollar you earned as a creative – how did it happen? What’s the story?

The first dollar I earned as a creative came in my freshman year of college. I was participating in a challenge to create one artwork a day for an entire year. I would draw in a sketchbook and paint a cover for it once I had finished the whole sketchbook. When I posted videos of the sketchbook online, they received a lot of views. People asked if they could buy the same sketchbook I used and suggested that I should collaborate with the sketchbook company to create a special cover. I thought it would be a great opportunity, so I contacted their online customer service and told them about the video I made. Surprisingly, they had already heard of me. It turns out that the people who left comments on my video had also asked the company if they had a collaboration sketchbook with me. The process went smoothly, and I eventually designed three covers for them. I checked their website before writing this answer, and after four years, they’re still selling it. It feels wonderful knowing your art is appreciated and used by people.

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, my name is Ke Yu, and my artist name is Yuke. I graduated from Illustration major of School of Visual Arts in 2024, and I am currently a freelance artist living in Shanghai.

One of my main jobs is to create illustrations for companies. For example, I recently created a series of illustrations for a toy company’s new spring collection. The theme for this season is wedding, so I designed a series of stuffed animals preparing for the wedding of two little rabbits. I believe I am a trustworthy illustrator because I add my own creative touches based on the requirements. For instance, I designed a family of sheep as the wedding dress designers, as wool is easily associated with fabrics. When illustrating the wedding scene for the two little rabbits, I had the branches of two trees form the shape of a heart. While these are small details, they make the scene more interesting. I believe “interesting” is crucial in illustration.

In addition, I have my own online store where I sell my etchings and artwork. I created a set of 128 etchings, centered around the life of a bird. Each etching is 2×2 inches. These images don’t have continuity with one another, but many of them share common themes such as family, school, and the future. When I feel the pressure of creating large and complex paintings, I turn to these small etchings for relaxation. Creating them gives my mind a break, and I hope they can bring the same small, yet inspiring ideas to those who view them.

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

I think my biggest goal would be to create something bigger than myself. Such as a picture book, an illustration or a comic. Something that’s gonna outlives me when I’m dead ; ) When I’m studying art, I learned from a lot of artists’ artwork. So It would also be a wonderful thing and a great affirmation if I could leave behind some resources for future artists to learn from.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I think screenmusings.org could be really useful for visual artists. It’s a website that organizes film stills by color. When you want to find references for an artwork with a specific color palette, this website can quickly help you find a large number of high-quality film stills. Additionally, just browsing them can be inspiring and makes you curious about the content of the films.

Another website I learned about from another artist is the MET Museum’s online collection. On the MET’s website, there are images of their collections from throughout the years. Many of these are in the public domain and available in high resolution.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @yuke_273
• Other: email: [email protected]

Image Credits

Ke Yu