Artist with a bird's eye view

After finishing her postgraduate studies in 2020, Liu decided that it was time to become a full-time illustrator, as she can support herself with the money made by painting. She is often commissioned by magazines, book editors and video game companies to draw for them.

During her postgraduate years, she also co-published a book, titled Zhongguo Shenhua Ditu ("a map of Chinese myths"), for which she drew 30 illustrations.

Liu likes to read stories, especially short fiction that inspires her paintings, and she finds that ancient Chinese fairy stories inspire her a lot. "Animal photography can also be revelatory to me," she says.

The anthropomorphic bird drawing actually came about by Liu casually killing time while taking care of her father, who was hospitalized last year. She saw a photo of some sparrows and decided to draw them into human figures.

"I think birds are lovely, like elves, and their feathers are like colorful clothes, so I was thinking what if I turn them into lovely girls and their feathers into hanfu (a traditional Chinese style of clothing)," she recalls, adding that she is a fan of hanfu.

It only took her a couple of hours to finish the painting.