Now you can see all my new illustrations and sketches. Finally I updated it! I divided by mediums, such as watercolor, acrylic, oil pastel(I’ll update soon.), pen&ink and paper collage. Also I added images from my sketchbooks. This sketch style was totally new to me and I enjoyed sketching more details with my fountain-pen.

Here are some examples. I posted more. Please check them out!

Then, David Yurman asked me if I was available to attend the
same event in California! I was so excited to travel to the west coast as a
fashion illustrator! I left the JFK airport around 8pm heading to Los Angeles
on April 28th. The flight arrived on time;
at a little past Midnight.  I took
a taxi to the hotel at Costa Messa. It was very nice hotel, but I was very
tired. (It was already close to 2AM!) Although I slept only 4hours, I felt good
and ready to do live-sketching at Mission Viejo, CA next morning! The set-up
was very similar to the store at Tyson’s Corner with a large table placed near
the store in Nordstrom. It was Friday and very busy at the store. A few
customers asked me if I could draw portrait from the photos of their kids or
mother. I love live-drawing a lot. I don’t know why but
drawing from photos always made me a little uncomfortable.

But the customers’ happy faces after seeing the portrait
I’ve done for them made me feel very happy. Here are the examples of my
portraits.

Next I was heading to Tyson’s corner near Philadelphia. They
set up a round glass table at the middle of the floor near their store in the Niemen
Marcus, which was in such a beautiful mall
and a huge one too! Setting up my table made me a little nervous, but once I started
drawing, all the fears were gone. It’s a sheer joy to draw in live. People I
met were so nice and it seemed they were happy to see my portrait of them. ( I
really hope so! ) It was 4 hours event and I was able to draw a lot! Here are the a few
photos I took.

Last month, the famous jewelry designer, David Yurman
emailed me if I was available to do live-fashion portraits at one of their stores
for celebrating their new design Châtelaine collection. My reply was, of course, “Yes,
I love to do it!” and I ended up doing live sketches for David Yurman’s events
at 4 different places. How wonderful was that?!

The first store I visited was a boutique store in King of
Prussia Mall, near Washington DC. I had a wonderful time of doing live sketches
for this event, which was a nice party
style, with black dressed waiters
serving cocktails and hors d’oeuvre to their clients, while a private photographer taking photos. I sat in the cozy
corner of the store. It was lovely setting and the table was nice and wide enough
to put all my art supplies. I normally draw full fashion figures, not just
facial portraits. But I really enjoyed spending my day drawing portraits of
their customers.

For my paintings, I used pen and ink for outline, and added watercolors
on the paper to finish. (size: 9x12,
cold press, 140lb)  It took average
of 7 minutes per work. (3 min for drawing the lines, and 4 min for
watercoloring). I asked customers to relax and
let them do whatever they wanted to do. If they liked to talk to someone, I
just let them do it. I just tried to work fast and capture their features
quickly. Here are the sample works I did and photos.

A few months ago I had opportunity
to do live-sketches for Paul Stewart event at
the National Arts Club.  I had
about 7-10 minutes to finish drawing for each person who wanted their portrait painting done by me.

I was so excited to be there. I enjoyed
drawing and talking to people.

It was a great event to participate
as live-sketch artist and at the same
time, I enjoyed looking at the display of stunning Paul Stewart fashion collections!

Here are some of my live-sketches I did.

I went to the Society of Illustrators for the sketch night; Vanity & Friends on 5/28th. I was excited to be there again!

5 min. Sketches at the sketch night.

Last Thursday, April 2nd, I went to a Sketch Night hosted by fashion illustrator  Bill Donovan at the Society of Illustrators.  I had a great time drawing the unique and playful fashions of designer/Artist , Scooter Laforage.

I’m so excited about the launch of my new site : Art Studio Yuko.
I love to share my passion about Fashion Illustration, all things beautiful, interesting, charming and even something not so pretty, but  captivating.