Yoko Loftis (b.1983) is a Japanese artist living in Oklahoma. She was born and raised in the Greater Tokyo area, at the age of 19, she moved to Shawnee, Oklahoma. After graduating from St. Gregory’s University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2006 she collaborated with an Oklahoma author to illustrate the children's book "Legend of the Reindeer Shoes." She continued her career by painting murals for local businesses as well as teaching classes in drawing and painting for local art galleries. 

 

She began painting custom portraits for pet owners in 2013 when she started working at the locally owned pet boutique. That time her children were young and she painted nights and weekends outside of working hours at the shop.

The clients she met at that time were local and that’s where she started enjoying the opportunity of “painting their beloved fur-iends."

In a few years she began taking commissions online outside of Oklahoma through this website. Through the decade she has commissioned more than a hundred pet portraits as a side business and gradually she paints full time to keep creating commission pet portraits. Besides pet portrait, she creates still life paintings, particularly skulls as her main subject. 

 

She aims to convey realism with visible brush strokes in oil painting, in her interpretation of the subject.