Drawings

我小时候就很喜欢画画，但根据传统，成了学工程的博士生。我有时侯想，假使我小时候更认真地追求当画家的梦想而把精力放在那方面，我现在会有什么不同？我并不后悔我当初的选择。上了斯坦福，认识现在的朋友。又有什么好后悔的呢？现在画画一半是想尝一下当画家的感觉，一半是不想丢失我的能力。这并不是说我画得怎么样。我知道有很多方面可以进步，但既然画画也只是一个爱好，那下面的画也是个挺好的起始点。

I've drawn pictures ever since I could remember. I've heard my grandmother say that my preschool teacher in China wanted to post all of my pictures on the wall of the classroom, but out of consideration for the other kids, she could only fill 8 of 16 slots with mine.

I moved to the U. S. when I was 5 years old. In elementary school, I took lessons with some of the other kids on the block. In middle school, I took a 6-week art elective course. It wasn't until high school ended that my observational skills matured. I went to China to visit relatives for two months. I didn't have that many relatives to visit, and I couldn't be bothered to travel, so my uncle made some arrangements to allow me to join a local high school art class. I played with color and paint the first few days, but I learned the most working with graphite. Known as 素描, the technique I learned wasn't so much of a sketch as it was a detailed study of proportion. By the end of the class, I learned enough methodology for achieving photorealism to strike out on my own, only to realize that I didn't have the time to dedicate to it as I adjusted to life away from home for the first time.

During the last days of summer before my second year in college, I was motivated one night to try some sketches to see if I still possessed knowledge of the art, as it was slowly starting to fade. (The immediate cause has long since been washed away by the relentless waves of history.) The drawings below chronicle my progression in portraiture in the years since that fateful night.