Interview with a Winner of 2017 Knots Drawing Competition: A Young Birder in the Making

Jeongsu Yuk, the Flyway Prize winner in category C of 2017 Knots Drawing Competition © Eugene Cheah/EAAFP

Shinhye Han
EAAFP Secretariat, Intern

Jeongsu Yuk, a winner of 2017 Knots Drawing Competition, visited the EAAFP Secretariat office on the 28^th of December, 2017. He received a KOWA TSN660 series field scope for the Flyway Prize. He looked so happy to have received the prize, and also have finished Korean College Scholastic Ability Test last November.

We had a short interview with him about his artworks and our drawing competition. Jeongsu has been studying Art at high school, and his teachers introduced him this competition. He completed two drawings in three days.

Before beginning his artworks, Jeongsu did not to know about knots very well. So, the first he did for the competition was to search for as many pictures of knots as he could. He became naturally interested in their adorable figure which became the inspiration for his first artwork.

He put a focus on coexistence between birds and human beings as well as the birds’ appearance; In the picture, a lot of Red Knots are surrounding a girl. They would like to know each other, which shows his curiosity and favor about those birds. “I drew this one with a feeling that I want to get to know knots better,” he said.

When it comes to his second drawing, Jeongsu would like to make a humorous one. He found that a Korean term for ‘Red Knot’ is ‘Red Chest Knot (붉은가슴도요), so he drew a Red Knot showing off its red chest like in a magazine cover.

Drawing an unfamiliar subject challenged him; He made numerous sketches of knots from various compositions according to their breeding and non-breeding seasons. The biggest challenge was expressing the subtleties of the diverse red colors. To accomplish this, Jeongsu used three different shades of red.

Jeongsu said that another challenge was to find out the knot’s Korean and English names. As a person without much experience or knowledge of bird species, he encountered some problems when trying to search for and collect information about them.

Despite those challenges, however, he simply enjoyed drawing the lovely knots and tried to deliver his first impression and likability about the birds through his artworks. “I deeply appreciate the prize as I honestly didn’t expect such a good result like this. I hope this drawing competition would help more people who don’t know birds like me to have interest in these amazing creatures,” Jeongsu said.

EAAFP Secretariat with Jeongsu Yuk and his mother © Eugene Cheah/EAAFP

Awardees’ Photo

We have also received photos from other winners of our drawing competition over the East Asian-Australasian Flyway. Thank you for these amazing photos!