Translating Notan Excerpts

Notan: A Creative Journey

The subject is Herefords grazing.  One cow is looking out at the audience while the other three go about their business.  Light coming from the left joins with shadows entering from the bottom and upper right to create the context within which we see these subjects in their environment.  This interrelating of shadow and light creates the Notan of the scene. 

 

Notan is a Japanese word meaning dark-light.  Its original visual use was to create two-dimensional designs in black and white, the purest and most ancient we know being the yin yang symbol.

 

The Notan concept relating to visual thinking didn't enter western art until the 19th century when we believe it was introduced by Oriental art scholar, Ernest F. Fenollosa.  In the early 1920s, American artist and teacher, Arthur Wesley Dow, a colleague of Fenollosa, was the first to apply Notan as a principle to Western art in his book, Composition.  In this text he attempts to blend the Eastern concept of dark/light with the Western approach to negative/positive.

  

But Dow was handicapped by the mainstream trend of his time.  Consequently, his efforts could not transcend that attitude beyond abstraction.  With that era's concern being two-dimensional space rather than a translation of images within space, shadow as a construct of light was not a consideration.  He took the idea of Notan as far as he could within the context of his time.  We sometimes forget that during the Abstraction Expressionist era, shadow and light gave way to negative-positive shapes and value relationships.  

What Dow did though was to introduce an idea that has become a valuable tool for realistic painters today.  Even though he could not quite see the Notan construct in the natural world, subsequent artists have seen it clearly.  Like any discovery, this one began with an insight that eventually became a working tool.  Today we understand it as a principle with which we can comprehend shadow and light and one we can use to undergird the composing process.

Winter Morning on the Tallulah   Oil on Canvas

For several decades, my personal work has been based on Notan. It is the basis for all our instructional videos.  Our newest series digs deep into the Notan process, showing how we capture and create Notan, how we can find variations with in it and how we can creatively translate it into a painting.  We hope you will find within these tutorials a breakthrough that will burst your creative stream wide open.

The Tracing Debate

One of the hottest controversies in the painting world revolves around tracing projected photos onto the painting surface versus setting up a preliminary drawing free hand.  Many painting teachers actually teach students to trace projections rather than showing them how to do a preliminary drawing.  Students follow the practice innocently without realizing the limitations tracing puts on their work as well as their artistic growth.

 

Here are my thoughts about this practice: 

1. Tracing projections deceives the artist into thinking he/she is a more accomplished artist than they really are.  
2. Tracing denies the artist the exhilaration of making visual discoveries during the process of setting up the preliminary drawing as well as during the painting process.. 
3. Tracing deceives the viewer into thinking the artist actually shaped the images.
4. Tracing blocks opportunity for growth.  It creates a dependency.  
5. Tracing inhibits making open-ended composing decisions.
6. Tracing creates a fear of learning to draw.
7.  And most important, I think:  tracing blocks individual expression.

I know of nothing more freeing than feeling confident about drawing.  I suspect, though, that the practice of tracing began because of shaky drawing skills or at least an insecurity about drawing.  But five decades of teaching drawing have proven to me that anybody who wants to can learn to draw. I've seen it happen again and again.  And with the right teacher, it can be easy to learn and a joyful experience.  

Creating Your Style

(Note:  Henceforth, content from each Composing & Drawing Tip Newsletter will appear here each Saturday morning.  If you are subscribed to both, feel free to unsubscribe from one of them to prevent duplicates arriving via email.)

During the twenty-four years of our private art school, we held a student show at the end of each twelve-week session.  Amid these, responses to student work that delighted me most were people asking how many teachers we had.  Folks couldn't believe that the diversity of styles had emerged under the same teacher.  Even the first quarter drawing students' work was already showing a unique style.

 

What I have noticed among all performers, whether artists or athletes, is that those who excel and reach greatness have a unique style, unlike any other.  An example is evident in baseball pitchers.  Craig Kimbrell, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz each have baffled one hitter after another, yet each stance and pitch is totally different from the other.

 

There are three kinds of styles:  the imitated style, the evolved style and the hybrid style.  The imitated style comes from the performer's intentional adapting a style of someone else.  The evolved style is often called "self-taught" because it is one that comes naturally to a person without any conscious influence.  The hybrid style mixes all that comes naturally mixed with influences by what one sees in or is taught by others.  What we notice is that the style of our greatest performers is most often hybrid.

To the question of how does one find one's style, the real answer is by not trying.  Those who do try eventually lose their natural expression to mechanical imitation, but those who focus their attention of developing the skills required for masterful performance will evolve their unique style without trying. 

We are not to worry about whether our style gets influenced because whatever we identify with in another's skill set is inherently ours to begin with, otherwise we would not recognize it nor desire it. A skill is universal, it is how something gets done.  It is not a talent, but an ability.  In the long run, when our focus is on developing and practicing our skills, each of them will become our own.  We will grow our own signature use of it.  And out of that our style emerges.  

An Inner Reveal

Today I'm sharing with you glimpse of my private world, the life of my sketchbooks.  Over the seven decades of being an artist and teacher of art, I have filled dozens.  Not all have survived.  Two of my favorites were stolen, but none of that matters today.  What's important is that these thousands of pages reflect moments of presence, moments when I explored with drawing, painting and writing reflections of my inner world.

A lot of the time, it's within the sketchbook that I work out ideas for a painting...

 

...or for teaching a lesson.

 

At other times, I explore with notans  scenes I see around me.  (You can sit in one spot and find dozens of paintings!)

Or I write notes to myself or find solutions to some dilemma.  I often hide poetry within these pages.

I  love baseball, so often I'll do gesture drawing of the players while I'm watching a game.

And I do many, many quick studies.

My sketchbooks are my home.  They are where I live the most intimate moments of my art.  While with them, there is no censorship, rather only the most authentic moments of my artistic life.

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Breaking Out of Prison

One reason some artists avoid drawing the nude human figure is that, more than any other subject, every mark counts.  Not only is the drawing's success dependent upon the artist's seeing things in the right place, it also demands the artist's confidence in wielding the drawing tool.  A mark intended to define a shadow in the lower back can translate to a wrongly placed hip.  A drag of the finger smudged with charcoal can result in the appearance of a misplaced nose.  A slightly misaligned buttock can cause an onlooker to accuse the artist of imitating Picasso.  So many things can go amiss that too many avoid the intimidation rather than face the challenge.

Avoiding intimidation never solved a single problem.  Rather it imprisons us, causing us to place ourselves in a box where we feel safe and surround ourselves with excuses for being there. The only way to find freedom--to break down the walls of that box--is to enter into the place where the intimidating starts and act.

Being unsure of the drawing materials is quickly corrected by daily practice with the materials, becoming conscious that pencils, charcoal, conté or pen are tools, not mark makers.  Doing studies from master artists' work by attempting to make your tool replicate the marks made by the master artist rather than trying to replicate the image will do wonders towards building your tool's vocabulary.  The Michelangelo drawings I've included below are excellent ones from which to build this skill.

(Michelangelo drawings from The British Museum)

A combination of quick (gesture) and slow (contour) drawings--where your intent it following what your eye is seeing--is an excellent way to gain confidence drawing the figure itself.   To begin with make your focus to capture only the movement--what the figure is doing, rather than the shape.  That's the gesture.  When doing the slower contour drawing, make your intent ONLY to follow your eye along the edge of each shape, inside and outside.   Aim for only one thing at a time and above all, avoid trying to make your drawing look like the subject:  keep your intent on the process.  If it's gesture you're studying, then focus only on the movement; if it's contour, focus only on the edges of the shape.  Just that and nothing else. It's all about controlling where your attention is.

Michelangelo gesture studies

Michelangelo contour studies

For exercises aimed to build your confidence, using photo references is a good way to go and, in spite of what the purists say, if it's helpful towards building your skills, then do it.  If you don't have good photos, the website Pose Space has excellent photos created especially for artists to study from.

If the intimidation comes from either the drawing tool or the subject, I have just shown you a way to enter that place of intimidation and break through it.  Once it's broken, you will have gained a freedom within which your drawing tool can go wherever you want it to go.

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Moving Forward Towards Freedom to Create

What we do reflects what we know as well as what we don't know.  Knowledge is not static nor is it finite nor is it limited to study from what others have learned.  Rather knowledge comes with freeing ourselves to learn:  the freer our minds, the more open we are to discovering what there is to be learned.

In my college teaching days, I encountered a student who rebelled against taking the required drawing courses because, in his words, he already knew how to draw.  His mind was blocked to what these courses might open up to him, to the depth and breadth the experience itself might provide for his artistic growth.  He saw himself as possessing a singular skill with which he was satisfied, an attitude that imprisoned him from recognizing a possibility for further growth.

Similar attitudes prevail about composing paintings.  Many artists develop their technical skills, but ignore composing skills, concluding that to focus on composition is to constrain their creativity.  Such attitudes can block avenues within the creative process, causing the results of one's efforts to be contained within technical exploration alone, no matter how rich one's experiences might be.

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In Praise of Gesture

Gesture drawing is our most direct tool for absorbing the essence of what we see.  Simply defined a gesture drawing captures the movement the artist feels within the subject.  It is the artist's rapid response to what the subject is doing, not how it appears.

Artists have been doing gesture drawing for centuries, but not until the early 20th century did it get its label, thanks to Kimon Nicolaides who left for us a comprehensive study program in his book, The Natural Way to Draw.  (First published in 1941 and available free in a PDF file HERE.)

We are accustomed to contour drawing where the shapes' edges are meticulously followed, our more deliberate or cognitive approach.  Gesture drawing does just the opposite, following the movement of the subject--a more intuitive approach.  Nicolaides taught that both are necessary, each balancing the other.

Here's how he introduces the comparison:

Below, from Nicolaides' book, student drawings illustrate the power of gesture drawing to express what the subject is doing.

Three of our historical masters--Rembrandt, Leonardo and Michelangelo-- each left us volumes of drawings with copious gesture studies among them.  Most often these would be quick studies, responding to something that caught their eye or towards an upcoming painting, but sometimes they would flesh out the gesture drawing with values, as Rembrandt does with his lion sketch.

Rembrandt van Rijn  "Lion Resting"    c. 1650

At other times, we get to see the pure gesture itself, exampled in these Rembrandt studies of a baby nursing and "St Jerome Reading to a Lion".

Rembrandt van Rijn   Study:  Baby Nursing      c.1635

 

Rembrandt van Rijn   Study for St. Jerome Reading    c. 1652

And among the hundreds of Leonardo da Vinci's scientific and analytical drawings are many gesture drawings.

Leonardo da Vinci   Study for the Trivulzio Monument, c. 1508

 Leonardo da Vincin     Study for the Sforza Monument, c. 1488-9 

Even among the many beautifully formed drawings of Michelangelo are his gesture studies.

Michelangelo Buonarroti   Sketches for two separate projects    c.1503

My favorite drawing of all times is Michelangelo's study of Madonna and Child where we see all the gestural lines and restatements along with his beginning to flesh out the form within the gesture drawing itself.

Michelangelo Buonarroti  Madonna and Child Study  c. 1525

One of the most intriguing and exciting uses of gesture I've seen lately is that of artist Omar Rayyan.  His paintings begin with a gesture drawing.  (You may click on any of these to get a larger view.)

Within this drawing, Rayyan searches for the image and begins to develop it in paint.

He continues by refining the drawing and adding more paint as the piece develops.

This process continue until the piece finds its conclusion.

 Omar Rayyan   "The Duel"   Watercolor, 11x17      2011 

Gesture drawing is the closest thing to meditation an artist can experience:  it is drawing without thought, responding with the senses without making judgments.  It is the purest form of observation, taking the artist directly to the essence of the subject. It requires letting go and taking in the world as it is without any intention other than experiencing the subject.  It is fun, relaxing and gives the artist a refreshed sense of renewal.

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Switching a Few Gears

Let's switch gears a bit and take a look at our work habits.

No matter our style of painting or our personality, there are ways to enable our painting process to move along more smoothly if we practice just four simple tips:

1. Do quick idea studies before beginning to paint.
2. Squint, not just once, but often throughout the process.
3. From time to time, turn the piece upside down to check how the composition is working.
4. Stand back--often.

Doing idea studies: 

Call them scribbles, gesture drawings, concept drawings, preliminary sketches--the label doesn't matter.  What does matter is that we get involved with the subject we've chosen before we begin to paint it, and that we explore a few composing options while we are becoming acquainted with the subject.  It is surprising what we see once we make the first quick sketch.

Here is one of my idea studies and a painting that followed:

"Sautee Herefords"    OIl on Canvas    2008

Here are a couple of idea studies Andrew Wyeth did for his painting, "Karl."

Andrew Wyeth     Studies for "Karl"

Andrew Wyeth     "Karl"   Egg Tempera  

As you can see, neither my little gesture drawing nor Wyeth's initial sketches depict our final compositions.  Rather, they are both initial reactions to what each of us saw, a kind of private note-taking, getting to know the subject while  mulling over how the composition might work.

Squinting:
Nine times out of ten, it's the details of the images that get between us a good composing.  To squint at the subject, not just once, but often from beginning to end switches our attention to the structure of the whole thing, showing us how darks are connected, how lights flow from one area to another, how an array of colors fall into a simple value range.

Then squinting at the painting itself enables us to see how the parts are fitting together and how what's happening within the painting is relating to the subject matter.  It's as crucial to the overall process as the brushstrokes themselves.

Dianne Mize  "A Look Back"   Oil on Canvas

Turning the painting upside-down:  
Turning the painting on its head periodically during its development can tell us volumes about how the composition is working.  Oddly, if it's working right side up, the composition will work upside-down.

Here's one Pat Weaver's paintings.  Notice how her composition works both ways.

Pat Weaver       "Racetrack"     Watercolor

Standing Back:
     We can't really see how a painting is developing unless we put some distance between it and ourselves.  Several times during the process, it's a good idea to stand back at least ten feet from the painting to see how the whole thing is coming together.  The larger the painting, the further we need to stand back.  Even very small works are more accurately seen from some distance.


With all the things we're giving attention to during the act of painting, it's easy to let slide the more simple things we can to do to keep check on what's going on.  If you're not already practicing them, I recommend these four tips as keys to better composing and stronger painting.

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Considering Economy

I've always been intrigued by how much can be said with so little when the saying of it is in the hands of a master.  There are volumes contained in Emily Dickenson's simple lines, The soul selects its own society, Then shuts the door... or in the simple Rembrandt drawing of a woman sleeping.  Ten simple words describing an entire mode of living;  less than three dozen strokes expressing a human in restful sleep.

"A Woman Sleeping"   Rembrandt van Rijn  c.1655

Let’s dust off the economy principle: say more with less.  It is easy for the artist to get caught up in multiple images and excessive details, but doing so can cause a feeling of disorganization or visual confusion.  Sometimes the work is stronger because of what was left out rather than what was included:  when we provide just enough information for the brain to become engaged, we can enable the viewer to participate, to mentally fill in what is not there.

Let's look at how economy is used by three artists from three different time periods.

Jan Vermeer, 17th c. Dutch painter, utilized economy by simplifying value range and shape patterns. Take a look at the simplicity of shapes and values in his Young Woman with a Water Pitcher.

Jan (Johannes) Vermeer   Young Woman with a Water Pitcher   c. 1660

In the close up below, we can see more clearly how each shape is defined by a simple light and a simple dark, uncluttered with details.  Not only that, but if you squint you can see how the value areas are simplified:  rather than a wide range of darks, all darks are closely related in value.  The same is true with his lights.  Squinting reveals a clear light/dark pattern of shapes.

Two hundred years later John Singer Sargent, too, found ways to say more with less.  In his painting, Parisian Beggar Girl, Sargent uses simple value ranges and shape patterns much like Vermeer, but defines these with gestural brushstokes, giving each shape its own directional movement.

John Singer Sargent   A Parisian Beggar Girl  c.1880

In this close up, the movement of brushstrokes is as evident as the shapes themselves, yet clean and simple enough not to overpower the shapes they are describing.

Jump forward another hundred years to painter, Carolyn Anderson, who like Vermeer and Sargent uses simplified shapes and close value relationships, who like Sargent uses gestural brushstrokes to define the movement of shapes, but who takes these a step further with lost edges, merging shapes into one another while keeping their felt delineation, allowing the viewer to fill in what Anderson has left out.

Carolyn Anderson   Portrait of a Man  c.2008

In the boxed areas, look at how the hair and both shoulders merge into the background:  three examples of how adroitly Anderson simplifies with lost edges.

Even though their work spans more than three hundred years Vermeer, Sargent and Anderson are like-minded artists when it comes to knowing how to use economy, showing us how masters utilize the familiar old adage:  less is more.

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Creating Within an Intention: Rabatment

What do the sonnet, the waltz and a rabatment have in common?

Each is a form--a pattern for how parts of a creation will fall into place. Each is like a seed that will be an oak tree, an egg that will become a hawk, or a ball of clay that will be turned into a vase.  The pattern is determined, but what gets created within that pattern has yet to evolve.

Another way to say it is that time-tested forms give an artist an opportunity to create within an intention.  In painting, we select a subject, then we have the option to apply a form to help determine how we place the images. The form we choose is our intention for how we will communicate the subject we have chosen.   The rabatment of the rectangle is a classic form for creating within an intention.

A rabatment is the square found on either end of a rectangle.  For each horizontal rectangle, there is a right rabatment and a left rabatment.  For each vertical, there is an upper rabatment and a lower rabatment

When choosing the rabatment as our intention for composing a painting, we have all sorts of creative options for making it work by assigning the inside and the outside of the rabatment each a distinctive role to play towards how the painting communicates.

One way to do this is to place the most active images within the rabatment itself, then insert an "onlooker" within the remainder of the rectangle, creating a structure that engages the viewer to identify with an  image on the outside looking in.  Here's how I did this in a 2007 watercolor of blue jays.

Dianne Mize    "Committee Meeting"    Watercolor

 As you can see, I placed the two conversationalists within the left rabatment and the onlooker outside of it.

Another scheme is to place the major activity inside the rabatment, then to lead into it from the outside like  Carla O'Connor has done in her painting, "Tatoos."

Carla O'Connor     "Tatoos"    Watercolor    

Probably the most classic use of rabatment is to show a major theme inside the rabatment and minor theme on the outside, as illustrated by Robert Genn's painting, "Brittany Port."

Robert Genn    "Brittany Port"   Acrylic

Wassily Kandinsky, a 20th century abstractionist, made a similar use of this plot in his painting, "Composition X."

Wassily Kandinsky    "Composition X"     Oil

It's always refreshing when an artist takes a traditional form and uses it with an unexpected twist.  Mary Whyte did this in her painting, "Passages," where she puts the major theme outside the rabatment, making the rabatment support the theme of the painting rather than the other way around.

Mary White    "Passages"     Watercolor

Like the sonnet is to poetry and the waltz is to music, the rabatment in pictorial composition has endless possibilities for exploring ways we can enable our paintings to communicate.

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