William Xu

Interviewed by Jasper Kirchner. Transcribed by Lauren Yi

Grade

12

Mediums

Colored pencils, pencils, and paints

Classes Taken at Harriton

Music Technology and Production, Electric Piano Lab, IB Visual Arts

Interview

Art Focused Questions

Please briefly introduce yourself as an artist or a person in general.

I am William, I am a senior at Harriton High School. Interesting bit about me is that I came here my freshman year from China, I didn’t grow up here. I didn’t go to any middle schools that you guys all know of. (Bala Cynwyd, what a weird name). In terms of art I started taking sketching classes in elementary school mostly because out of all the activities the chinese name for drawing sounds cool, so I decided to pick it at like 6 years old or something.

What artistic media do you primarily work with? Do you prefer one media over the other?

I primarily work with pencils and colored pencils because those ones were the ones that I learned when I was young. I also like painting. I’ve started to learn painting since junior year when I joined IB visual arts, mostly because they require you to learn more than one medium so I kind of had to. It’s a fun experience, it’s really different from pencils (really really different) but the skills still carry over somewhat. I’m good at pencils but I want to say painting is my favorite because, I guess just because it’s new and I’ve been working with pencils for way too long.

What’s it like working with pencils or painting, and can you go over your typical process?

Since I’m better at pencils, I'll do the process for pencils. Okay I, unlike most people, I struggle the most with outlining. I have a really bad habit of drawing the outline really heavily and then erasing it later a lot of times. It’s something that I really should improve on but I’ve never really bothered to. In terms of coloring, I always start with the darkest bits and go from there. But especially for coloring pencils, you usually have to make a coloring plan first and that also takes a while. Outlining and making the coloring plan, those are the most suffering bits but otherwise from then on it's easy you know what you’re going to do so you can just do it. 

Is there a thought process you go through before starting a painting or a drawing? Do you think of something beforehand or do you just start drawing?

I guess I just start drawing. I would pick the thing I would outline first and that’s really about it. In terms of color still, sometimes I have to stare at a painting for a long time to figure out the color because some of them are really confusing to figure out. Like, you can often find me with a blank paper with a bunch of colors that all look the same.

Is there anything that you find frustrating about the process?

Figuring out the colors for sure. Especially when a lot of stuff have multiple colors too and it's not just one color from dark to light.

What do you believe is your strength and weakness as an artist?

Well my weakness is definitely outlining and figuring out the colors. My strengths is that… okay actually I’m really good at just looking at something and just drawing it and making a good outline but I have that perfectionist tendency to erase it again and again even though it’s probably pretty fine. So yeah, it’s my strength and my weakness as well.

Do you have any favorite visual artists? 

My favorite visual artist is… I don’t know the name. Do I have a favorite one?  I have a favorite genre. I like realistic art. I like less… Maybe Da Vinci is my favorite artist. Just because abstract art it’s too much about the message while realistic art has both the message and arguably better technique. So I really admire those that have the best of both worlds, have really deep messaging but also really impressive techniques such as Da Vinci.

Do you base your art pieces around a central theme?

I’m kind of forced to in IB visual arts (or else you won’t get a good mark) you have to base all your artworks on a central theme to… it’s on the rubric. Many people didn’t do that at the start and they had to kind of BS their way through. They had to fit a theme to the art. So if it was like an artwork just of a tree they’re like “Oh this represents capitalism, this represents teenage growth, this represents my story as a young, whatever, a young kid growing up, facing my struggles.” They had to add a meaning to it but it often doesn’t work well. But otherwise if I’m not drawing for IB visual arts I’ll just draw whatever I want.

So I’ve seen your art downstairs, is there a message? When someone sees your art is there a message that you want them to take away from that? Or just any of your art pieces? 

For the artworks downstairs, the message is, the theme I picked is teenage struggles so every piece depicts different teenage struggles such as scrolling addiction where it's just a guy looking at his phone and the brain is like exploding or whatever.

How do you see yourself in your art? 

Okay so for the pieces downstairs the ones that I’ve worked on the most is I sometimes use myself as an example. To be honest it's just because  it's best to just draw myself, take a picture of myself, it’s easier that way than asking someone else “Oh can I take a picture of you and I would draw you and put it on my artwork? And it might turn out bad but I would still draw you?” it’s just easier but I guess some of the struggles also represent my personal struggles so it fits the theme.

Was your art inspired by any personal experiences? 

Yeah, the ones downstairs it's just teenage struggles so it's my struggles, others struggles that I’ve noticed. But for many of my artworks that I do in my freetime I take inspiration from TV shows, youtube videos I watch. When I was in middle school I actually went to this artist studio in China. There's actually an artist who draws concept art for Lord of the Rings so it was actually insane. His art, I took a lot of inspiration from him. His famous saying is that to make something fantastical it just takes a bunch of real things to get it.

Do you have any goals as an artist?

My goal is to not forget how to do art in college because art I think is really valuable, especially in school. Recently most of the classes have not been focused on any form of original thought. It’s mostly just the teacher teaching you the concept and you memorize it. So I’m glad art is a really effective way to nurture that creativity that is being less and less nurtured as you go on with your life.

What advice do you have for students who are passionate in art but unsure of pursuing a career due to financial concerns?

My philosophy is that you should work on your career first and when you're decently successful and you have more freetime, go do art. Don’t worry about if you have art skills now and you’re afraid of losing it. You probably won't. From freshman to sophomore year I didn’t draw that many artworks but then somehow my artworks in junior year are better than the ones before so I think even though you’re not actively doing art your brain is still kind of doing it.

What’s your taste in music? Do you listen to music while you’re creating art?

I don’t have a genre that I prefer. If you look at my playlist there’s just a bunch of languages. There’s like Chinese music, English music, French, Spanish, German. If I like it I put it down.

What clubs/electives do you partake in at Harriton?

I take art, I am the leader of Zenith (who is making these interviews). I was in art club but then I got busy so I quit.

If you could have any superpower what would it be and why? It could be anything.

I would probably predict the future. Even if you have an insane superpower, super strength, some laser eyes whatever, I feel like, there’s going to be good sides and downsides. If we’re going really hypothetical here you would be famous and they’re going to steal your toothbrush, steal your whatever… like it [an insane superpower] doesn’t sound like a good thing to have compared to just predicting the future which is more secure, that’s more like a safe option.

Speed Round

Favorite food? 

Coconut

Favorite drink? 

Mango flavored bubble tea

Favorite restaurant? 

Restaurant in China called “Wong Steak”

Favorite ice-cream Topping? 

Gummy bears

Favorite Animal? 

Dogs

Favorite Song? 

The Black Panthers Theme Song by Kendrick Lamar

Favorite Color? 

Black

Favorite TV Show? 

The Big Bang Theory

Hobby? 

Walking my dog.

Favorite Book?

The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin