A note on Notan

This week’s obsession has been notan. A word that I’ve come across only recently, but a style that is prominent in a lot of my work. My diary sketches are just one example. Notan is black & white, or a composition with a harmonious balance of dark and light values. Successful notan is more about design – designing the spaces on your canvas. As a landscape architect I'm trained to design space in the landscape, and subconsciously I probably transfer the same principles onto 2D compositions. In the days before CAD (computer aided design) the layout and drawing of plans using only a black Rotaring pen was good grounding for notan, especially if you only had a black and white printer and were hopeless at Pantone pens like me. I have realised that if I start and finish a painting in colour, I ignore “design” in terms of value, whereas perhaps my monotone work is more successful. I’ve collected a few notan images on a Pinterest board and have been looking through eyes with notan filters all week! I’m also been helping my parents have a declutter, and have unearthered more examples of my very early notan tendencies, including wine labels I made for my late grandfather’s homemade wine, and here are some more from this century...