Project - Notan Master Thumbnails

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Mark as Completed
Course In Progress

Project - Notan Master Thumbnails

74K
Mark as Completed
Course In Progress

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!

Newest
Y J Y
4d
2-value and 3-value studies. Hard some times to tell if a value is darker or lighter (○´ ― `)ゞ
Tori Tempo
Some Level 1 value studies
Tori Tempo
Tori Tempo
Luis Ángel Ruiz de Gopegui Rando
Hello, here I present my still life, I hope you like it.
Luis Ángel Ruiz de Gopegui Rando
Well, here are my first thumbnails. I have to say they came out a bit big, to be honest... (about A4). I missed a fourth value. And I found the drawing difficult. I struggle to identify the correct values, and the boundaries between values ​​aren't clear, I think. In short, quite an unexpected challenge...
Randy P
27d
Worked through the 2-value and 3-value Notan studies. Tried a few different techniques on Procreate for shading.
@madin
1mo
I attempted to do all of the paintings by myself first, then checked it with the gradient maps to double check and make notes on what to fix. Definitely struggled with differentiating the background values.
The guy from BluishDot
(Resubmission) - first, "edgar-payne-2" before watching demos; - second "rembrandt" after watching Edgar Payne Boats silent demo; - third "cornwell" after watching Rembrandt Portrait silent demo. Feedback is highly appreciated.
@pmirko
1mo
this is so fun but so hard to do...tried different brushes and different approaches, but man 3 values sketch is though
@sweethouse
May have spent too much time on details, I'll have to simplify my next attempts!
@sweethouse
Scott N
2mo
Here is a selection of some of my efforts. I had a lot of fun with this and will do a heap more after I watch the critiques.
kutolia
2mo
I liked working with artwork references for this project. Loved how different references are in terms of tones and number of details. And I can see I was more in a hurry with this assignment. I didn't post the first attempt, but watching demos definitely helped in making decisions.
Osagumwenro Igiehon
Here are my attempts, for this round I wanted to be very strict and attempted all of them with 2 tones. I’ll go over some with 3 tones later. The 14th attempt was a piece by Goya which I’ve added. I’d say it was quite challenging. I think I got the best results when I tried to connect shapes together rather than leave them floating.
FlummoxMe
3mo
This assignment introduced me to NC Wyeth and Dean Cornwell, who I want to adopt as art parents. I checked out a book from the library on Edward Hopper, and I’m hoping to use some of his works for more notan master study references.
@lauralana
3mo
This is one of my favorite Hopper paintings and I love your study! Such a great idea to create Notan studies of Hopper paintings since he was such a master at painting light.
@lauralana
3mo
Three value studies. Realized that I tend to make darker values midtones and midtones into darker values when they lay somewhere in between. This was a fun exercise! It also taught me a lot about how the masters spatially organized their paintings, especially Lepage and Rockwell. Really interesting to notice that!
FlummoxMe
3mo
Your shading looks really clean. I like how the texture of the paper comes through!
Yevhen Syrchin
what do you think? I tried to simplify, but feels like made it too much
Thien Minh Pham
I really need feedback on mine I do find it hard to identify the shadow and light.
Osagumwenro Igiehon
I think you did a great job with these! For identifying light and shadow I'd say really focus on trying to squint, It'll make it easier to identify what is light and what is shadow. Just keep at it!
Angelica
4mo
I don’t feel that confident about this but I used the value tool to check myself and it seems like I am doing alright.
Rachel Dawn Owens
The 3rd and 4th pages look especially nice
Theodor Urhed
Did the first half with HB mechanical pencil and the second batch with a wacom tablet.
Rachel Dawn Owens
I think I like the pencil ones more. They are more interesting, especially the Sargent one.
I did not Want to see that
Second attempt on the level 2 assignment. The image is a little upclose since I did not put any borders around the drawing, so I thought it looked better this way, I would love to know if there are any points of improvement here! One word of advice i'd give myself is that I kinda shot myself in the foot by going so dark with a hb pencil, if I didn't I most likely could have reduced the amount of noise in the darker areas, but I guess doing more and more of these will help with that. I also tried to do little to no detail at all and just focusing on the larger, clustered shapes, was that a good call?
Brian Judy
4mo
I love your choice of values for your composition. Came out really great
Melanie Scearce
Yes, this looks awesome!
Laurie
4mo
I haven't been drawing for a while, but trying to get back into it now. I'll do more notans (they are pretty cool!) but posting my attempt at the boats. The 3 shades looked cleaner on the paper, but in the photo I can see all the areas that were not properly filled in!
Rachel Dawn Owens
Nice start!
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Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.
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