Proko - Project - Notan Master Thumbnails

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Project - Notan Master Thumbnails

Stan Prokopenko

in Drawing Basics

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Drawing BasicsFull course (185 lessons)

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You’ll learn the most important foundational concepts for drawing anything and soon you’ll be drawing pictures out of your imagination or from reference.

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About instructor

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.

assignments 418 submissions

A quick tip about big, medium, and small shapes. Maybe it helps someone out there.

DOWNLOADS

zip

reference-images.zip

17 MB

mp4

project-notan-master-thumbnails.mp4

250 MB

txt

project-notan-master-thumbnails-transcript-english.txt

7 kB

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project-notan-master-thumbnails-transcript-spanish.txt

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project-notan-master-thumbnails-captions-english.srt

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project-notan-master-thumbnails-captions-spanish.srt

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ASSIGNMENTS

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!

gunk

•

I did these a while ago but forgot to post them. I picked out some still life stock photos and artworks that I personally liked alongside the original references. It was really enlightening to analyze how master artists strategically place value shifts that make the important forms pop out from other elements. Now being aware of this strategy, I tried to apply that concept in my own thumbnails I did for fun (they're not attached as photos here) but that was really hard to do without making the composition too flat/graphic. I hope with enough master studies like these that'll become easier someday.

Ronald Moss Jr

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I know it was a fail on my first attempt. I tried to follow the image, shapes and shading as best as I could. I tried to use my eyes carefully. I welcome all criticism, but please keep it positive. Thank you!

J M

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This was challenging on multiple levels. It was hard to find a compromise between only using 3 values and accurately portraying the subject. I am still not sure what was more valuable or how much of the assignment was up to artistic liberties. It was super hard to keep the accurate size of the shapes in relationship with one another. My workflow: Drew the thumbnail Ran the source image through the medium blur so I could picture the subject with less details Drew a digital thumbnail on top of the blur media Review the digital thumbnail and compare it to my original one

Ty Rogers

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11d

2 value and 3 value studies! I definitely have a problem with adding too much detail sometimes...

@kotka

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15d

While doing this assignment I realized I can actually combine two exercises in one, so I used my watercolors to practice my washes and mixing consistency. The results are varied, I did a lot of mistakes such as forgetting to fill in certain areas and then trying to "repair" by going back with a brush (big mistake!) or just carefully expanding some areas a little bit. I have a lot of issues with speed and the paper drying too fast and can't seem to improve it. Maybe my brush is too small... I warmed up with level 1 and then arranged a still life for level 2. I did the water color version first but for some reason decided it was wrong keeping the lemon white at the top and did another version with markers. Turns out I was right the first time, but the oil lamp was more correct in the marker version.

Benjamin Gustafsson

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15d

Probably not exactly 3 values but I just enjoyed myself. Didn't want to think too much and capture the drawings with values in mind

@chrisdzy

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18d

I tried starting with 2 values and then moved up to 3. The beach photo is one I took from a holiday in Spain. These are the drawings I completed that didn’t make me want to set fire to my sketchbook :)

Maren

•

24d

I tell you what, the two on the right were roough. I hope I still understood the principles though.

@almagel

•

28d

@deepanshu12

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2mo

Bag of Snakes

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2mo

Level 1 + 2 Notan thumbnails. Great exercise to focus in on one element of composition.

Simone Couture

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2mo

Interesting to do these. Should have learned to do this a while ago. My live instructor hasn’t shown us how to this. The most she has talked about is that it is a good idea to do a study of what you want to draw before you start but never showed how to go about doing that.

Simone Couture

•

2mo

Giuseppe Benvenuto

•

2mo

Would you guys please critique these? I've just started and feel a bit like I'm sight sailing. Any feedback steering me towards the right direction is hugely appreciated. Thank you.

Clément Douziech

•

2mo

First attempts of notan project

@na_talie

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2mo

Here is my level 2 attempt. Critique ist very welcome 😊

@na_talie

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2mo

Here is my submission for Level 1. Level 2 will follow in a separate post. Somehow, I managed to completely mess up the placement and proportions in the one from Edgar Payne, but I think the values are OK. Also, @Stan Prokopenko said that two values would be harder to do than three, but I found it more challenging to choose three. Did I miss something?

Travis Rossi

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2mo

Level 1 and 2 Notan studies

Travis Rossi

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2mo

After watching the demo and critiques I definitely fell victim to the details and didn’t simply shapes and values enough. I also notice I’m misjudging some values as midtone when they are likely better off being either a darkest or lightest value for this assignment.

William Montalvo

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2mo

Value studies from photos

William Montalvo

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2mo

Value studies. I realized pretty late that I could set the values to whatever I wanted and the darks didn't need to be black. That def changes how I would have approached them.