Advancing with Watercolor : "The Rivers Edge" Composing with Notan

THE IMAGE

The image this week features a more intimate look at the rivers edge. In fact if your ever looking for an interesting subject look no further than the shore line of any body of water. When we zoom in we find all sorts of interesting things such as sticks and stone mud reflections!!

At first glance the photo is not really so inspiring - if wee zoom in we can find something a little more simple and a little more inspiring. I am using the grid to think of aligning the tree that hangs over the water. This also gives me a closer look at the shore. Still because of the flat light and abundance of green it is challenge to see a painting in this subject

THE PROJECT

The project or challenge is to use some compositional tools help us make a more compelling image from a scene or image that is not so great. In fact sometimes it is good to work from a scene or photograph that is not really compelling - the goal being to extract or form something that is compelling and still has a root in the scene. Working with the idea of Notan helps us distinguish subject from background making it easier to paint from a complex scene.

Sometime our vision interferes with our perception. Our eyes tend to regard everything as the same we see the light on a blade of grass with the same clarity as a distant mountain. This leads to a painting where the background competes with the subject - We need to use our grey matter to extract the essence of our subject and find a satisfactory image.

NOTAN

2 Value Notan Study 3 value Notan Study

Notan is a Japanese word that means - “light dark harmony”

• Notan refers to the balance between light and dark elements.
• You can use notan studies to explore the different arrangements or patterns of lightand dark elements.

• Depending on how diverse the values are in your subject, you could use either a 2, 3,

or 4 value notan study. Most of the time, a 2 value notan is all that is needed.

NOTAN DESIGN

In this first example we use a 2 value Notan Design to paint the main subject of trees and reflection on the white paper. Do do this we need to look for the simple shapes and group of shapes that capture the main subject - we paint these in clack - if these shapes are connected the over all feel is strong and descriptive and captures the essence of the subject. Its a god reminder of the subject and the what we need to express it

We will also develop a 3 tone Notan using a mid tone to create the simple shapes we need in a background. This shape is painted first and the not an is painted on top of this shape. The image instantly becomes more complex but our vision and approach remain simple and essential