July Challenge - Notan Concept

Fighting a major art slump, I started doing some surfing hoping to find some inspiration and came across a term I hadn't heard before......Notan Art.

What I found first was related to paper crafting where you use black and white paper cutting out shapes from one color paper and creating a mirror image by pasting the cut pieces on the other color paper.  Something like this illustration I did.

Notan is Japanese for Darks/Lights.

Not wanting to use actual paper, physically cutting out and pasting shapes, I decided to emulate that process using Procreate on my Ipad.  My first trial was using my miniature bear, Opal, and sketching out the contour shape working black and white.  Then I decided to go one step further by repeating using complementary colors.

As I continued to research Notan Art, I came across where people combine it with Zentangles.  Using Opal in black and white, I proceeded to add some doodling of repetitive marks for added interest.

Intrigued with the black/white results, I dug even deeper and learned that the Notan Concept is used in sketching and painting.  A lot like value sketches one might do before going into a formal painting and incorporating the negative painting concept as well.  At least this is my understanding or perception of this whole process.

Great article on the principle and usage of Notan when painting.

Another web page that includes a couple short videos.

Playing with the various ideas found in my research, I worked the following.  A couple taking it further adding other values.

The first example with the cranes I am not real crazy about.  Not so much the technique but the composition or layout of the dark areas versus the light.  It was worked from a photograph and I feel after seeing the placement of values that I chose a poor photo to work from.

Went back and chose a different photo...one I had used before as reference for a sketch I worked in one of my journals....re-worked the three-value by mapping out the darks and lights.  I definitely like it better.  I chose to leave out the pole in the front and add more foliage to frame the cranes.

This next is another that I worked from a photo which has turned out to be one of my favorites.  I like the balance of black/white areas.  I sketched the one black over white and then cut/pasted the one with the white over black (digitally speaking).

Next is a grouping which includes the above and a few others I worked for the July challenge.

As a twist to the above, I also worked this last one adding in color after the initial black and white.  After adding color, I change it back to black and white mode to see the value range I achieved by adding the color.

This shows the steps I used to create this before adding color.

After a long dry spell, I am really enjoying this exercise playing with only lights and darks.  To me it is intriguing and a nice break from worrying about color or being so detailed.  The bonus is learning something from this with values and placement within a composition.

An added bonus to working on the Ipad, I learned a few things with my Procreate App I didn't know it could do.  GREAT, provided I don't forget what I learned.......ha ha.