Thanks to JoElle Gragilla

Practicing painting techniques is important, but we can certainly benefit by giving careful consideration to our compositions. Composition is the arrangement of objects on a picture plane and it forms the underlying structure of a successful painting. It pays to remind ourselves that we are composing the picture, and while we are informed and inspired by what we see in the photo or indeed in real life, it is up to us to create a successful composition. So how can we improve our compositions? Doing a Notan study can help.

Notan is a Japanese term that means light and dark or harmony and balance, and it is a useful tool because it enables us to look at composition from a purely graphical design perspective. It derives from two words that refer to the amount of ink you use for a pen and ink wash drawing. Nong( ) meaning thick, strong, concentrated, and Dan () means weak, watery. Hence, the term Notan literally means concentrated/weak.

The idea is to use only light and dark to describe the elements in your painting. Once every object or area is assigned to either light or dark (black or white) we can focus on the interactions between shapes and their arrangement. It is an exercise in simplification that allows us to abandon the representational elements and any emotional attachment so we can first build a strong and successful design framework.

Its not unlike observing positive and negative space and understanding the importance of each within a composition.

Have a look at some famous examples of Notan from the Masters. Consider Rembrandt and his Chiaroscuro technique. Look at Notan structure of Whistlers Mother, by James McNeil Whistler. By linking all of the dark shapes together he created a powerful composition and although the white shapes are not big they play an important role in breaking up larger shapes.

During one of our Watercolour New Zealand outdoor painting sessions recently, we took up the challenge of doing a Notan study before diving into our usual process. It was fun and while some of us were reluctant or confused at the start we agreed that it did help inform our composition.

As is expected, in this day and age, there is a Notan app; it's called Notanizer. It turns any photo into Notan for you.

This is an excellent article on Notan

Examples of Notanizer

This is an example of how and why to use Notan to help see the graphical structure and separate the emotion to make the best choice for a composition.

Here the Notan image clearly shows that this can be a very good composition. It has three clear tones of light medium and dark. There is unity between the tones, the light goes into the darks in the background and the main subject is in strong contrast to the light in the foreground. The middle tones mingle diagonally from front to back. If the main subject was repositioned to the golden mean intersection, it would work very well.

Here is the image cropped with the subject positioned in the golden mean area.