My Black-and-White Era
Wanting something to write about for an art-themed post, I pulled out an old folder of my past work for the first time in a long while. But after flipping through each piece and giving it a second look, nothing quite said “this is the one,” so I put it right back in the closet where it came from.
Yeah, that’s right, this is what I used to do. And this is who I used to be. What’s saved in that folder are old pieces of work, along with self-portraits from that time. All of them were hand-drawn in monochrome, done in black colored pencil.
During the latter half of my time living in the U.S., I got hooked on using black colored pencil to build up deep shading in my drawings. Since you can’t erase and fix it the way you can with a regular pencil, I think I was essentially backing myself into a corner where failure wasn’t an option.
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My apartment was on the third floor of a building facing a main street, but my room itself faced north and stayed dim. I’d brought in a wooden easel I’d bought from a big art supply store and set up to paint in that room. Looking back now, it was a town with no shortage of art supply stores — two large ones, two mid-sized ones, and several art schools besides, so maybe that’s not so surprising. I never actually attended an art school myself, but one of the stores offered a student discount card, which I made use of. …Anyway, this isn’t meant to be a trip down memory lane about the places I used to live, so I’ll leave it there and get back to the story of my monochrome period, when I painted nothing but black.
In that room, I kept a large mirror on my desk. Staring into it over time, I started drawing self-portraits in black colored pencil. In practice, I worked from a small photo of myself as the main reference, while also studying my reflection in the mirror to check the finer details. After that, I got into a habit of searching online for images of famous painters’ work and copying their color pieces in monochrome. The design work that came in from Japan around that time followed the same thread — it was for an apparel brand with a strong, distinctive identity, and the black-and-white style fit it well.
Even after moving back to Japan, I kept painting in black for a while. But then, one day, out of nowhere, I picked up oil painting and did a complete 180 on my style. What had been pencil drawings on paper, done like sketches, turned into abstract oil paintings on canvas full of bold, primary colors. Looking back now, though, that was really just the start of a longer search. I think I was asking myself, “What do I need to paint to feel settled?” — caught in a kind of reverse culture shock as I adjusted to a new life, searching for some emotional stability. I suspect I’ll probably keep painting something or other for the rest of my life.
So, why was I painting nothing but black back then? And is there anyone out there who knows the answer already reading this post? If I ever feel like going into more detail, I figure I could always make it a private, locked post — that’s the thought I ended up with.
