SAI GERSONA
Sai Gerona a.k.a pandesaii is a 21 years old bisexual animator and storybook illustrator. She mostly draws sapphics in love in Philippine settings and is mostly inspired by Original Pinoy Music (OPM). She is also an animation graduate of De la Salle College of Saint Benilde. Her works is always inspired by the old practices that she grew up seeing (ex: harana, traditional dances and many more). A lot of the characters she draws usually wears Filipinianas. Other than that, Animated films/shows played a huge role in making her want to pursue art. Shows like Card Captor Sakura and animated films like how to train your dragon and more. They filled her childhood with magic and wonder which made her want to pursue animation.
Her artworks focused on the topic of sapphics. It sends a message of unifying all women who love other women such as, lesbians, bisexual women, pansexual women, etc. Moreover, promoting solidarity among women of all identities. Her works are done through digital art, she uses software’s like photoshop and procreate. Colors and composition are important for her in order to communicate her art through the viewers. According to pandesaii “Color theory if done right amplifies the emotions that you want to portray and a good composition just helps make your art have better storytelling, look better and it guides the people’s eyes to the main focus of the illustration. Studying the basics and the important techniques is really important if you want to do better.” Most of her works are romantic pieces which leads her to use warm colors. Like orange and pink which reminds her of romance, warmth and the sunsets here in the Philippines and it easier for Filipinos to connect or feel familiar with her illustrations.
Social media has been her medium in promoting her art. She has been posting art at a very early age on Instagram and Tumblr via saitheheroine, which was her old pen name. After graduating she then decided to abandon those accounts because she wanted to make queer art. Thus, ended up becoming pandesaii on twitter in 2018. She never really had a solid plan to grow her social media accounts, she just found herself posting art and then her fellow sapphics found her. There wasn’t any solid way of promoting her art but according to her joining art tags really help build her followers.
Like many artists, it is a major struggle in building up a career. Money was a great factor on her career. Without the support of her parents, she couldn’t afford to buy materials. In order to financially support herself, she overcame it by doing her classmate’s art projects and getting paid for it. After all her struggles, she graduated as an animator and already has 5 storybooks under her belt. According to pandesaii, “I haven’t really received any big awards and I’m not really expecting to but I’m really happy with where I am now and extremely excited for the future.” Being an artist and creating art gives her a feeling of freedom and warmth. She gets to express herself and a let her live her passion in the form of her artwork. Hence, she quotes “The freedom and the magic that art brings into my life”.