Lifting a Dreamer (2002)
If that sketch looks familiar, that's because it's the original sketch by Yiying Lu that later became the all-too-familiar Twitter Fail Whale:
This piece that would eventually become the Twitter ‘Fail Whale’ was originally called ‘Lifting a Dreamer’, and was a personal work – a visual greeting to my friends overseas. In 2002, I had moved to Australia for my foundation year of study in International Design and Media at the University of New South Wales, and I kept in touch with a lot of friends that I grew up with in Shanghai – mostly over mail and MSN.
‘Lifting a Dreamer’ originally featured an Elephant, drawn with pencil! I wanted to create a visual greeting – a visual ‘comfort’ for my friends back home for all the events that I was missing! I also included this image on my website’s homepage, and I would use MSN to send it to friends and family when I could not attend their birthdays and graduations and parties. Basically, I had this giant wish that is so heavy (the elephant), and the birds represented my free spirit and good wishes.
Read more about Yiying and her new wall art collections by LTL Prints: Link - via Laughing Squid