Meet Yueming Li | Illustrator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Yueming Li and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Yueming, what habits do you feel helped you succeed?
Reflective thinking is a very beneficial mind habit for me. I make a point of summarizing and analyzing my work from time to time and I continue to collect the works of other successful illustrators to study and reference, mainly focusing on their narrative and modes of expression. The process provides direction for my future creations and reminds me to pay attention to problem-solving and improving myself, helping me to open up my mind and strengthen my aesthetics. Reading about others successful work from within different fields can often inspire my own creation process.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Initially, my work had a deep influence from animated feature film concept art, and that’s where I started exploring illustration. What I like most about the illustration is that it can convey richer information than text and contains strong visual expressive. Creating illustrations gives me a lot of freedom but also a challenge. I like to solve all kinds of problems during my creation process, which helps me improve more efficiently. The difficulty I encountered in illustration design is that I can improve my drawing techniques with the number of creations. But producing great creative elements in works requires long-term practice in creative thinking. In order to meet the needs of the market and concepts, illustration design needs to strike a balance between imagination and reality to ensure that the illustrations are both functional and ornamental.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I will take my friends to New York because we all enjoy exploring food and art. Uluh is a Chinese restaurant in East Village that all of my friends love. The Met area is a perfect place to do sketches indoors, and Central Park for outdoors. If they bring dogs, Boris & Horton is a great dog-friendly cafe in which to spend time.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Peter de Seve and Carter Goodrich are my favorite illustrators. Their works are very humorous and each of their characters has a strong personality, something that influenced me a lot when I was child. I discovered most of their illustration works on New Yorker covers. This magazine is one of the best places to collect and explore different illustrator styles, allowing me to see how they approach their work; it has influenced me in terms of my subject choice and art style, as well as my interest in observing stories and characters from my own surroundings.

Website: https://www.yuemingliart.com

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