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teven Wong Chun-hei, who used
to do frequent outdoor sketch-
Sing, can only paint virtual scen-
ery at home now as pandemic wears
on.
The 34-year-old landscape artist
has started “travelling” and painting
with Google Earth since March 2020.
He shares his works with his 2,255 fol-
lowers on Facebook.
Wong has “travelled” to many
places, such as Salisbury Cathedral in
England, which he visited before, and
Merry Cemetery in Romania. Wong
also takes virtual tours to some des-
tinations he never thought he could
visit in real life, such as unreachable
sites around Mount Fuji.
Other than painting alone, Wong
occasionally invites friends and fol- Individuals taking on the “Google Earth Sketching Challenge” are
lowers to join his virtual trips by ini- required to paint sceneries on screen.

tiating the “Google Earth Sketching
Challenge”.
In the challenge, he tags friends
under each of his virtual scenery
paintings and provides them with a
GPS coordinate that refers to a spe-
cific place. Individuals taking on the
challenge are required to paint the
scenery on screen. Participants in-
clude Wong’s social media followers,
as well as famous local artists Chow
Chun-fai and Yeung Hok-tak.
“I am surprised that artists who
have not been tagged by me on Fa-
cebook still voluntarily join the ‘chal-
lenge’,” Wong says. “Although all art-
ists I tagged previously accepted the
invitation, there is no large circula-
tion, as it takes time to finish a piece,”
Wong adds.
“Though I enjoy sketching with
Google Earth, I still prefer doing out-
door sketching. But for the moment, it
is the best alternative I have, ” he says.

Innovating under the Pandemic
Wong Chun-hei virtually travelled to Mount Fuji in August 2020. As fears of COVID-19 infection
(Photo courtesy of Wong Chun-hei) keep buyers away from galleries, exhi-