Keiko Hayner + ILLUSTRATION ARTIST
Hello! My name is Keiko Hayner, an illustration artist based in Austin TX. I am originally from Osaka, Japan.
Since I was a little girl I have loved drawing and creating. If there were
a pencil and paper, I would spend hours doodling and traveling my
imaginary world. Naturally I wanted to go to an art school for college
and obtained a bachelor's degree in Graphic Design from Osaka
University of Arts in 2004.
I wasn't quite sure how I would make a living with my art and design
skills and techniques that I learned from school. Although my dream was always becoming an artist, it seemed to be such an unknown and impossible dream. I kept drawing here and there as a hobby during those years. When the Covid-19 pandemic happened, I was let go from my previous job in childcare and it was the time a light bulb lighted up over my head that "I need to take this chance now to change everything. Otherwise I will never catch another train to be an artist!" It was surely an irrational decision and enormous change during the pandemic, but I have never regretted to make this transition in my life and looked back since then.
I gathered everything that I drew and painted and started selling at local pop-up markets and art shows. It was really scary to show my work in public for the first, but I have also learned what I needed to improve and received a lot of compliments to feed my confidence over time.
In recent years, I have been working as a children's book author-illustrator. I have been pursuing a mission of creating stories and illustrations that bring the magic of childhood to the world.
Thank you for your time and interest in my work! Hope we will work together in the near future!