David Stern

Black and White Magic

Black and White Magic

BY DAVID STERN

New York, USA

David Stern’s professional art career spans over three decades and his work is included in museums and private collections nationally and abroad. Here, in a few pages, he shares some art and some mobile art philosophy.

Step 1

A line takes on volume and makes space in a two-dimensional medium.

All the drawings in this chapter were done with the app “Zen Brush”.

Step 2

Sometimes, I feel lines are not enough to define the space the figure is situated in; here some shades of gray convey the idea of the platform and the dark tracks.

Step 3

Adding a second figure changes the entire exercise into a more complex image with figures interacting in some way, opening new straits of meaning.

The Kiss

Step 1

I stayed with the principal idea of the drawing throughout the entire process, which took about an hour, trying to solve the formal problems of two heads in interaction, kissing. The first two images show the beginning of the drawing; note that the second (male) head is still positioned behind the female head in a frontal way, without any perspective shortenings.

Step 2

By continuing, I started to foreshorten the male head projecting out of the frame of the format. This adds a bit of dynamic and allows the viewer to get “sucked in” to the drawing. I also used the eraser on the app to “lighten” the drawing and give the few defining lines more prominence.

Step 3

Finally, I added some gray shade in the negative space between the heads. This brings out the two principal forms of the heads, but also keeps the drawing ambiguous, creating independent forms which now dominate the heads.