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Thursday's Notan Lesson
by Sharon Gates on 3/6/2010 4:43:45 PM
I've decided to play around with the font size because I thought the default was way too small. No, it's not my age. I've got 20/20 with my glasses on. The folks at Fine Art Studio Online were extremely helpful in changing the last blog entry and a couple of other sections of my website and told me how to do it myself. Althought I'm not computer challenged neither am I a techy (is that right?)...Oh well.
This week's art class was a success! We learned more about using Notan sketches to improve our compositions by evaluating light and dark shapes for better balance. As usual, the class was buzzing to begin with. It takes a while for everyone to unpack, visit, grab coffee. But once we got down to business and everyone watched as I did a demo to illustrate the lesson, the class was anxious to begin their own sketches. I had previously selected some of my own photographs, which I thought had good separation of values. The students used these to create Notans using both a vertical and a horizontal format. The object was to see which presented the most pleasing composition. A lot of beginning painters just select a photograph and try to paint it exactly as it is, which is usually horizontal, since that's the way most people hold a camera. It always amazes me that folks don't think about turning the camera vertically to take shots of tall things like trees, buildings, watertowers, and body shots of people. But that's another lesson.
Too often we are seduced by color. Beginning students in particular want to jump right in to the mixing of luscious colors and slap paint on the canvas, with little or no forethought, only to be disappointed with outcome. Then there are students who have carefully made a plan. They've thought about why they are painting their subjects, they've executed a beautiful preliminary sketch, know where the light is coming from, and selected a palette of colors suitable to the mood and key of the subject. But the painting winds up being weak or lacking in "something" and the student is disappointed. That's where good Notan design comes in, a pleasing balance of patterns of light and dark. If you develop a good Notan plan for your composition initially I guarantee you will experience a better outcome. Remember: think SHAPES, VALUE, then COLOR. Not the other way around.
I was pleased that everyone caught on quickly and some produced some excellent Notan sketches. Sorry I don't have photos for you. I had my camera with me, intending to snap some shots of my students and their sketches, but in the flurry of teaching I totally forgot to use it! I promise I'll do better next time.
To learn more about using Notan, see the article by Sharon Himes on the subject. Notan: Design in Light and Dark You can find more information by entering Notan in the Google image search.
Next week we'll put this information to use by painting from our Notan sketches. I promise I'll have examples for you to see.
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