Asel Sabyrzhankyzy, the Kazakh artist who regularly goes viral on social media, found herself in the spotlight again after posting a video of herself drawing a portrait of Cristiano Ronaldo with a ball, QazMonitor reports citing Tengri Lifestyle.
The video where she is seen kicking a paint-covered ball into a large canvas gained the artist more than 3.7 million views and 30,000 followers on TikTok. By the end, the haphazard blotches of color blended to reveal the face of the famous Portuguese football player.
Her work was inspired by the ongoing World Cup in Qatar. "I think soccer is a good sport, and it needs to be popularized among young people so that we could also raise champions like Cristiano Ronaldo in our country,” Asel said.
The painting was made on 100-by-120-centimeter wood instead of canvas. The artist used two balls of different sizes for the spots. It took her 8-10 hours plus a whole day of shooting to finish the product.
Dozens of offers to buy Ronaldo’s portrait poured in from the first day – but none of the conditions satisfied her yet. Asel shared that one of her requirements is to be able to take the painting for an exhibition if necessary.
“In the video, you can see that besides the hands and the ball, there were also clothes and shoes in the paint. I kept almost all of the clothes and the ball itself from the video. I will use them in the exhibition as props and also give them to the future owner of the painting since they are also part of my art. The basin and jeans had to be thrown away because they were no longer usable."
As for the reaction she received, she admitted that she expected her work to receive a lot of coverage.
“TikTok has a very kind audience – there were many positive comments and zero negativity. Everyone tagged Ronaldo and asked him to buy my portrait. Most of the comments are foreign – from Portugal and Qatar. I'm glad that my idea was a success!”
