“If you get tired, learn to rest, not to quit.”
Banksy
#180530#
Ever since the drawing that I made for Yoona on her birthday last year (FOR YOONA: OH DEER YOONA), whatever artworks that I have made for her thereafter, be it for Christmas or Chinese New Year, they always come with a pair of deer horns. It’s like I’ve since identified Yoona with the image of a deer. So for her birthday this year, it is no exception too, but this time, I’m giving her a luxurious pair of golden horns.
Just like for her last year’s drawing, I also chose her current instagram profile picture at the time of the drawing as my reference picture for her face (I didn’t mention this in my previous blog post for her but yeah, my reference photo of her face was also taken from her instagram profile picture last year).
I faced many problems when I started working on her drawing which took me a span of 4-5 days (with a break in between) to complete. Just when I needed some peace and quiet to focus on my drawing, I felt easily irritated by my environment, particularly my father who would constantly ask me for help with his computer among other things. I also caught a cold and had to keep blowing my nose with lots of tissue papers while sketching her face on drawing paper. Under such ill and less than conducive condition and environment I was in, I found it difficult to get her facial proportions right. I often had to erase and re-draw, and then erase and re-draw again. I usually prefer to draw free-hand rather than using the help of grid lines to guide my drawing, but I guess the drowsiness of my flu affected my judgement of, let say, how wide her cheek bone or jaw was. In the end, after much failure, I resorted to using ruler to gauge the distance of each of her facial features to finally get a decent sketch out of her face. Conclusion: drawing Yoona’s face wasn’t easy! 😝
I then took a 1-2 days of break in between and I actually recovered from my flu quickly and was well and healthy again. But when I resumed working on this same artwork again on a Sunday which I was prepared to dedicate the full day for, I oddly caught a cold again. It was as if it was destined that I had to be sick while working on Yoona’s drawing. Nonetheless, I was determined to finish this overdued artwork that Sunday afternoon.
I pretty much went with the flow during the process of piecing this whole artwork together and played around with the existing spare art materials that I had left with me at home whenever a need arose. My original idea was simply to have a bird resting on the pair of golden deer horns on top of Yoona’s head. I searched through my bag full of coloured papers that I have gathered over the years and found this large-sized, red square paper which I thought was perfect to be used as the canvas background for my artwork. So I proceeded to paste my Yoona’s facial sketch, the shiny golden pair of horns and a colourful bird that I made using watercolours myself on this red paper. But it turned out looking rather empty – there were too much empty red spaces at the sides and top of her head. While contemplating on what more I could do to make this artwork look richer and more meaningful, I found an unused set of foil butterfly stickers (usually used for scrapbooking) among my art material collections which gave me an impromptu idea to add in some butterflies in the background too!
At first, I added some butterflies and just when I thought it was already good enough, I counted them. Six butterflies. Then an idea struck me. Why not make it seven? Then these 7 butterflies could represent her 7 other sisters in SNSD! And if Yoona is the deer, then I would like to think of myself as that bird who is resting on her horns which is an apt reflection of me who is currently taking a break in between jobs too. Suddenly the meaning of this artwork came into life! Suddenly everyone’s role became clear through this artwork. It was an artwork that represents the teamwork among all 8 members of SNSD together with SONEs. 👭👭👭👭
I was so happy with how my artwork turned out that I immediately shared it on my personal twitter. And what caught me even more pleasantly by surprise was that the tweet unexpectedly garnered some positive reactions from the public! There were some shares and likes by presumably other Yoona fans, which was an unusual activity on my personal twitter. But that was already a huge encouragement to me to know that I had done well with this artwork. 😍
https://twitter.com/invariant_stars/status/1013344729830838273?s=19
But statistics and the eventual development of this artwork aside, my original intention of the idea behind this artwork (just the bird and Yoona’s horns) was to tell Yoona to take a rest like the bird resting on the horns whenever she feels tired of flying. As far as I am aware, she has been so busy and occupied with work this year. After starring in the hugely popular season 2 of the reality show “Hyori’s Bed and Breakfast”, she has since received numerous endorsement deals and is currently busy with her fanmeeting tour around Asia. And I think not long later, she will also be busy filming her upcoming action movie “Exit”. I can only imagine how tiring it must be for her mind and body to always constantly be on the move. So I would like to remind her to slow down at times to recharge before each project and take care of her own health, which could be a possible reason why I always seemed to fall sick while making this artwork. And the eventual addition of the 7 butterflies could be an indication that her other 7 sisters in SNSD are also supportive of her successful solo activities – and we are all flying together.
FIGHTING YOONA-YAH! All the best for all your current and future activities and stay healthy! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! 💪🏼💗🎁
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