Notan is a Japanese word for light-dark and consists of a two value arrangement of shapes. It can be used as a tool to define and simplify shape and value patterns. So it may seem counterintuitive to say that Notan is not about light and dark. But it’s true. Notan is an exercise in simplification and […]
Break Temperature Not Value
Nature is, as John F. Carlson said, an overloaded property room, and often as landscape painters we find it challenging to create a painting that has a sense of unity, as opposed to being a composite of parts. There are many “picture-making” strategies for simplifying and unifying nature into a work of art, such as […]
Carlson’s Theory of Angles- An Introduction
It was over 20 years ago when I first got my hands on a copy of Carlson. I had wandered into the bookstore at the Scottsdale Artist’s School trying to escape the overwhelming odor of maroger and of course went straight to the landscape section, which was what I was really interested in. I picked […]
Sky Values- The Key to Big Atmospheric Skies!
One of the most important ingredients for painting big atmospheric skies is getting the values right. We know that generally speaking the sky will have the lightest values in the landscape because it is the source of light (think Carlson’s Theory of Angles- if you don’t know about that you should!). The value of a […]
Four Value Studies and Notan
Notan is a Japanese word for light-dark, and consists of a two value arrangement of shapes. It can be used to define and simplify shape and value patterns. Notan (two values) and four value designs are not based on how we actually see the world; they are constructs that we can use to see and […]
It's Warm In There! – Lessons on Color Temperature
One sunny, breezy day over twenty five years ago, I was painting boats at a picturesque harbor on the Maine coast with my teacher and mentor Ned Jacob. There is some sort of special hell reserved for artists painting boats, especially boats that are moving. bobbing up and down and generally not staying still! But, […]