The Art of Notan: An Artist's Guide for Painting Lights & Shadows

When getting ready to paint, the most important question any painter can ask is this: " What is the light doing?"Take this journey with Dianne Mize as she guides you through recognizing different kinds of lights and shadows and observing and painting their behavior. Dianne introduces you to the ancient concept of notan and how today’s artists can use it to discover and interpret lights and shadows in their paintings. She explains the anatomy of light and shadows, showing how variations in values visible to our eyes result from their anatomies.She illustrates how to construct a notan based on the light source's activity and demonstrates a method for mixing colors that express that behavior using the notan pattern as a guide.Whether you are an advanced painter, a beginner, or somewhere in between, whether your medium is oils, acrylics, watercolor, pastels, gouache, or colored pencil, Dianne Mize’s method for teaching the notan concept as a way to interpret lights and shadows can give you the freedom to express them creatively in your paintings. Read more