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Notan sketches of a creek in the forest |
I love walking through the forest, and would like to be able to paint an intimate forest scene well. But it’s such a complex subject — between the small shapes, textures, low value contrast, and all the neutral colors — that the task of simplifying and clarifying the shapes overwhelms me. This set of notan sketches felt like a good first step at learning to observe what’s happening with a busy forest floor.
While I don’t think these are particularly effective sketches, going through the notan process does help me start to see how mapping out a strong composition of light and dark can provide a road map for making sense of this feeling of chaos.
Focused practice project parameters: complete 100 landscape notans. 3 minutes per notan, 5 notans per session, 20 sessions to reach 100.