Black and White

Most of my artistic tastes and habits were formed during my youth. I’ve written about my introduction to Dali and surrealism and how that affected my style. When it comes to color palettes, though I do play with color in my works, my heart always returns to the simple, austere boldness of black and white.

In school, I was usually armed with a black Bic pen and endless reams of college ruled paper where I allowed my hand to doodle wandering figures and shapes. This was of course done whilst appearing to be taking notes. But my only instrument was the Bic. So whatever I was doodling had to look cool in plain old black and white.

And yes, looking cool is the main goal with every piece. Todd McFarlane, when once criticized that his comic book characters’ anatomy is often proportionally incorrect, he simply said, “Yeah, but it looks cool.”

That’s all I care about too, Todd. Does it look it cool?

For me, looking cool with black and white is easy to do. The contrast is obvious. The metaphors are many. But even if we ignore all that, there is no denying that when matched together, black and white simply looks right. It’s classy, smooth and relatable.

Crosswords. Dice. QR codes.

Piano keys. Pirate flags. Pedestrian crossings.

Old movies. Photographs.

Penguins. Pandas. Puffins.

The combo clicks anywhere. It fits in. Feels right. And we all know it.

It’s as obvious as black and white.