Sand Artist Becomes YouTube Sensation

By: David Morgan
Topics: World Watch

(YouTube)

Susan Boyle, move over. The Internet has a new star, and she plays with sand.

Actually, "play" is too dismissive a term to describe what Kseniya Simonova (left) does.

A "sand artist," she recently demonstrated her gift on the TV competition "Ukraine's Got Talent," winning the top prize. A video of her performance has since received more than two million hits on YouTube.

As described by Ian Johnston in London's Telegraph, Simonova, 24, draws pictures in sand on top of a light table, the images (projected onto a large screen) depicting the effects of the Nazi Invasion.

With a soundtrack of period songs and bombs bursting, Simonova's 8 1/2-minute animated display shows ordinary people suffering the deprivations of war.

It moved the audience to tears, and won Simonova the top prize, approximately $120,000.

David Morgan
David Morgan is a senior editor at CBSNews.com and cbssundaymorning.com.

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by mistiinseattle September 21, 2009 8:00 PM EDT: You are too funny with your "one more person" who will be the next Susan Boyle. Let's see now... that makes about 75 or so of them we have heard of already. :) If this new person really WAS anywhere close to being the star Susan is, you could just use HER name and we would find it googling... but ahhhh no, you use Susan's so someone will see the article. :) A Susan Boyle comes along very rarely in a lifetime and certainly cannot be "manufactured" by the press. :); Reply to this comment