Project - Notan Master Thumbnails

Lesson by

Stan Prokopenko

inDrawing Basics

408

Assignments 75

Downloads 6

Project - Notan Master Thumbnails

Lesson by

Stan Prokopenko

in Drawing Basics

408

Assignments 75

Downloads 6

Level 1: Two to Three Value Studies

In this project, you'll do Value Thumbnails to help you see value relationships and organize them into groups. You'll simplify the drawings into just 2 or 3 values. This practice will improve your ability to observe and interpret values in your drawings.

Thumbnails are small sketches. They are intentionally small to help you avoid drawing details. Don't draw the details! Focus on designing the large shapes and assigning them a value.

Reference

In the downloads, you’ll find several images of master paintings. Use the images I provided, and if there's another master painting you're excited about, feel free to study it as well.

Two-Value Studies

Two-value drawings (Notan) use just lights and darks. You'll choose a threshold: anything lighter goes into lights, anything darker into darks. This threshold is up to you, based on your interpretation of the image.

Lights
Darks

Three-Value Studies

Optionally, incorporate a mid value into your thumbnails. The mid value is useful for areas that aren't clearly light or dark and could belong to either group. Including this value helps to categorize those ambiguous areas.

Lights
Mids
Darks

Level 2: Still Life Photos

For more challenge, set up your own still life, compose, light, and photograph it. Use a direct and clear light source to create distinct light and dark areas. Choose a subject that interests you.

Then, do value thumbnail studies from your photo. This is harder since you're working from a photo, not a master paintings, which have a lot of the composing, designing, and simplifying already done. Photos present raw details and noise. You'll need to filter out unnecessary information, focusing on big shapes and value groups. Fight the urge to include all the details.

Remember, this project isn't about beautiful drawings. It's about improving specific skills to help you make beautiful drawings later.

Deadline - submit by Nov 15, 2024 for a chance to be in the critique video!

@mcminnjesse

•

Here's my Level 1 submissions - two 2-tone thumbnails and two 3-tone thumbnails! I wanted to do more, but I was surprised by how long these took! It was a fun challenge to boil the paintings down to simple shapes and angle changes. I was thinking almost exclusively in 2D, which I haven't really done in this course. I did get a little impatient when it came time to shade the thumbnails! I know it takes a lot of patience to be an artist, which is something I still have to work on. It kind of feels like... when you've figured out the answer to a puzzle and now you're just implementing the solution?

Caroline

•

Here are my level 1 attempts.

Scott

•

10h

Level 2. My backyard at three different times of the day.

Brandon

•

13h

Um sorry for the long passage, but I am struggling, lol I am attempting to go with the flow for the value thumbnail, coz I am still not sure which value in the painting = which value in the black and white scale. At first I did the edgar payne's one, I think I am doing it without much thought to it, simply copying every shape in the pic... Later I tried Zorn's painting, coz I am more familiar with drawing people, so I felt great with the flow when doing it. The last one is Richard schmid's one, Just tried to see if any improvement after seeing some of your submission. But nah, drawing nature scene seems too random, and did I block the flow in the painting that guide viewers' eyes? I am also amazed by the shape design in the painting (nature scenes), but not sure how to do that? I have to say, doing value block in is funnnnn, even though it s difficult so far. Heading on to watch the demo next.

@zhiyin

•

13h

I finally cought up! Some comments would be most appretiated. Level 1 attempts. I found it especially hard to do notan on Cornwell. There were many aeras that were somewhere close to value 5 I think. It was very hard to decide if I should include them in the dark values or not. The aeras become quite spotty at the end.

Rachel Dawn Owens

•

11h

When in doubt, you can consider ‘light or shadow’ when deciding a value. These are looking great so far. Nice separation of values.

Rosanne Borst

•

14h

I learned from Paintcoach that usually the most of a painting is made up of mid-tones, and only a small part for the darks and lights. I rembered that while I started to work digitally on this project. Curious about others opinion about this! I found myself up to 1,5 hour working on the Cornwell one in graphite pencil. Decided to make it easier/faster for myself by tracing the big shapes digitally in Procreate than making those as small as thumbnails and putting in the values. Hope this is ok and not cheating :) Since it is a value practise and not drawing?

Rachel Dawn Owens

•

Tracing is a fine tool to use if you’re trying to save time, but you won’t learn as much. Your Cornwall studies look really good. I like how you designed the shapes. Everything is designed nicely together. The digital studies look cool too. I like the different iterations that you tried. Thank you for sharing!

@saschu

•

14h

I found it really difficult to make some decisions in still life. At first, I did only used the middle value for the candle, but later decided to change it mostly to dark, to get more contrast. And I did make at first the shadows on the tablecloth darker, but later changed it all to the medium value.

Rachel Dawn Owens

•

The first two look especially nice. You did great when simplifying the values from master paintings. I think you could simplify the still life more. Don't worry so much about drawing a candle or tablecloth. Simplify things down to just shapes and values.

Phil Lam

•

15h

Elie Eid

•

15h

Jyayasi (*Jay-o-she*)

•

20h

I had hard time maintaining the mid-tone value uniform throughout the study as I was seeing so many values quite different than the mid-tone but of the shadow family. For level 2, in the study of the photo of my composition, I did two studies, one with two values in the shadow family and another with two values in the light family, pushing all the shadow into one value. I like the 2nd one better but a lot of the information got lost. Any tips will be highly appreciated.

Rachel Dawn Owens

•

Either composition could be correct. It depends on what sort of look you would like your drawing to have. Keep trying different iterations. Nice work!

onigi *pronunce [on-ie-gee]*

•

23h

Level 1 challenge! 1. Two value study on Cornwell's. 2. Two value study on Zorn's 3. Two value study on Joaquin's but it doesn't look good, so... 4. I tried it again with three values(2B and 6B), Charcoal. I made the 4 x 3 inches thumbnail for this but it might be too small as value training.

Ben Whitfield

•

Level 1 attempt. I did 4 thumbnails with 2 values. I found it really hard only using 2 values to make what I was doing identifiable. I will attempt some more using 3 values next time

Mike See

•

Level 1: That waterfall, though.

Martin M

•

Level 1 - Question! Which should I prioritize while grouping values: 1) Put similar values into the same group even if it means breaking the shapes. Such as a persons coat and the background wall merging into one group thus breaking the silhouette. Example - in my drawings the person hunched over the table in the 3 value version has their back merged together with the wall as the values are similar. But this breaks the silhouette. OR 2) Keep the shapes by pushing some colors into other value group. This will keep silhouettes intact but changes values of some objects. Second question: Should I aim to capture the correct value of the group as well? I now noticed that I was so focused on the grouping of values that I forgot to figure out where on the value scale the group actually should land. I just defaulted the darker tone to as close to 10 as I could and mid colors to somewhere in the mid. I guess I should try to figure out which value number best represents the average of the group.

Rachel Dawn Owens

•

This is a demo I made for another student, and I think it would help you as well. It looks like you’re doing exactly what you need to for this project. Keep drawing more.

Mipupu

•

I think I simplified it too much. I had fun with it, but the result is strange: looking at my drawings it is impossible to understand what is going on there. And I don't know how to avoid this problem without making too much detail.

Rachel Dawn Owens

•

I really like what you did with this one

Daniel Lucas Nizari

•

Here the first 3 drawings. I tried to avoid detail but looking at the just released demo, I believe I can go a bit further with detail :).

Rachel Dawn Owens

•

These are great!

Cecilia Stagni

•

L1 studies

Suteja Rao

•

My Value studies. I found it quite useful to start thinking in values

@skalet80

•

Did some more tries at the assignment with two drawings with three values and one with two values

@purpleart

•

Here are the first attempts. Found the landscape particularly tricky as abstracting an already abstract wideangle lanscape ended up looking confusing to my eyes.

Jim H

•

Nice @purpleart I like those boats especially. I might have to skip ahead to the Notan section to join in the fun....

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Stan Prokopenko

Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.