Since a little kid, I’ve always dreamed of making my own book. Princesses, fairies and warmhearted witches… All such things made my world cheerful – and motivated. That’s why I made a children’s book for the final project.
“The Starry Night” is a short illustrated book about a journey by a little witch, Stella. Due to the severe pollution in the village, no stars can be seen in the night. Stella decides to draw her own starry night sky, however, she needs a magical paint for it. So Stella takes a step into the very last forest in order to collect ingredients. Thanks to the magical creatures, Stella could obtain all the ingredients… and learn their sad backstories. Stella recognises that the creatures were suffered from people’s egoism. Perhaps Stella could show people beautiful stars for once, real stars would never shine again unless people change their attitudes. Hence, Stella draws a constellation of magical creatures and people, wishing people could understand the importance of nature.
Most of my works are based on imagination. Water colour and pencil are used to create dreamy and peaceful mood within the works. Enjoying such textures while working on the book, I also look for a different theme – the life out of the dream.
Untold Tales and Saturation Point are two projects which I applied the new theme. Both of them are about real life situation: Jesa, the Korean traditional practice to commemorate ancestors, and Australia bushfire crisis occurred in summer 2019 respectively. I especially focused on format for the Saturation Point; despite being a tragic disaster, it is less highlighted because of COVID. So I used Instagram to grab attentions from young generation. At the first glance, only an image of burning forest can be seen in the feed. However, by click-and-slide, the viewer can see more illustrations “behind the drama”. My intention in such composition is to expand people’s interest to situation after the dramatic crisis so that more hand of help can be reached.
“Dreaming of drawing. Drawing of dreaming.”