Japanese illustrator Yoco Nagamiya has recently shared a collection of sketchbook drawings documenting time spent in London. Moving between the city's streets, shops, museums and familiar landmarks, the pages offer a glimpse of the places and passing moments that caught her attention.
From the fashion storefronts of Bond Street to the independent retailers of Redchurch Street, the galleries of the V&A and the bustle of Paddington Station, Yoco's drawings record the city through observation rather than formal composition. There are also scenes from Royal Ascot, capturing the particular theatre of race day, fashion and the social rituals surrounding it.
The pleasure of the sketchbook
There is something particularly rewarding about seeing an illustrator's sketchbook. Away from the expectations of a finished commission, the drawings become a record of curiosity: places noticed, people passing, architectural details, shop windows and fleeting encounters. They reveal the process of looking, before an image has been resolved into something more considered.
What makes Yoco's London drawings especially enjoyable is their looseness. Working with economical linework and occasional touches of colour, she captures the essential character of a scene without becoming preoccupied with detail. Buildings are reduced to a few confident marks; figures are suggested through movement and gesture; colour appears selectively, bringing life to particular details.
It is a pleasure to see this more spontaneous side of an illustrator whose commissioned work is so often associated with elegant, delicate and highly controlled linework. The drawings feel immediate and unselfconscious, offering a raw glimpse of her visual thinking and the observations that inform her wider practice.
Yoco’s drawing of us at the Dutch Uncle office - drawn from the roof deck
London, observed
The sketchbook moves through several distinct parts of the city. Bond Street appears through its fashion storefronts, while Southwark provides a different architectural backdrop. Further east, Redchurch Street features familiar independent destinations including Labour and Wait and Barber & Parlour. Elsewhere, the pages take in the Victoria and Albert Museum, Paddington Station and the streets around Fulham Road.
These are not simply architectural studies. People, fashion, bicycles, taxis and shop interiors give the drawings their sense of everyday activity. The city is recorded as a collection of overlapping experiences rather than a sequence of landmarks.
A particularly nice detail is the inclusion of the Dutch Uncle office, placing the visit within a more personal record of time spent in London. The sketchbook becomes a visual diary, connecting professional encounters with the ordinary business of exploring a city.
The Royal Ascot pages
The drawings offer a change of scene, moving beyond London to the racecourse in Berkshire. Their details of dress, spectators and the occasion itself provide another example of Yoco's interest in recording the character of a place and its people.
Drawing as a way of looking
For illustrators, the sketchbook occupies a useful space between observation and imagination. It provides somewhere to work without a brief, deadline or expectation of a finished result. Drawing on location encourages decisions to be made quickly: what to include, what to leave out and how to communicate the character of a place with the fewest possible marks.
For Yoco Nagamiya, these pages offer an opportunity to see that process more directly. Her characteristic sensitivity to line remains evident, but the drawings are allowed to retain their imperfections, changes of direction and unfinished passages. That is precisely their appeal.
They remind us that the sketchbook is not necessarily a preparation for something else. It is a creative practice in its own right: a means of paying attention, collecting impressions and finding pleasure in the act of drawing.
We are delighted that Yoco has shared these pages with us. They offer a welcome opportunity to look beyond the finished illustration and enjoy the simple pleasure of seeing an artist at work.
