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Woman paints portrait of basketball player Yao Ming with a basketball

Shanghai-based painter Hong Yi painted a beautifully detailed portrait of recently retired Houston Rockets basketball star Yao Ming. And she did so with the most appropriate tool she had: a basketball.

"Here's a painting of NBA superstar Yao Ming I did, with some red paint and a basketball! I guess all those years of basketball training in high school did come in handy!" the artist wrote.

Watch a time-lapse video of her work below.

This was Yi's second attempt at the portrait. The first painting was twice the size and couldn't withstand the heavy winds that day.

She was determined to try again.

"So the next weekend, Joel and I went to another place to get this done. I reduced the scale of my canvas by half, and prayed that there wouldn't be wind. And guess what? Everything went incredibly smoothly; you can't imagine how relieved and happy I was!" she wrote.