Friday 8th November 2024
FCSA are fortunate that a number of members have agreed to share their knowledge and understanding of different elements in art by leading demonstrations on club evenings. This evening Marie Bunce led everyone in a demonstration of what is meant by the term Notan.
Here is a quick definition: “Notan is a Japanese term that literally means “light-dark harmony”. Artists use “Notan studies” to explore different arrangements of light and dark elements in a painting without having the distraction of other elements like colour, texture, and details.” ( Draw Paint Academy). Marie began by saying it is a very simple concept and this is one of the times when it is a good idea to start with a photo in order to explore it.
Marie reminded every one of the grey scale in art. With Notan it is a question of trying to forget all the greys and concentrate on the very light and the very dark, the white and the black.
Some artists such as Rembrandt or the Renaissance painters tended to the dark end of the scale, while the Impressionists were certainly more concerned with the light. Most detail is to be found in the middle of the grey scale with far less detail in the darkest shadow or the highest high lights. The challenge tonight is to start with only the dark and light.
Marie suggested that you can try varying what elements you decide to focus on as can be see above where she has treated the chimney and the shadows in a different way in her two images. Marie then shared a harbour scene by Peter Caldwell, who was known for using strong black & white images. Once the dark and light areas have been established it is possible to add some details.
It is also possible to render the result in colour as Marie demonstrated by producing a colour version of her image using blocks of colour that were in the same tonal range as she shows here.
It was time for everyone to have a go for themselves and Marie moved around the room helping people to see when they had concentrated more on a line drawing than a Notan one. The room was at full capacity and the following are just some of the work that was in progress as a result of what we had been told.
Write up by Carole Head.