What is the difference between the image A and image B below?

Each appears to be a notan.  Each was generated from this scene.

 

The difference is that image A is a computer generated indexed version of the scene whereas image B is an actual notan drawing of the scene.  So what's the big deal?

Think of it like this:  If I'm sitting at a piano keyboard and you, on the opposite side of the room, hear beautiful music coming from the keyboard, is it my playing you are hearing or a recorded disk of a professional playing?  It's beautiful music so what difference does it make if it is I or someone else when I am obviously the one sitting at the keyboard?  There is a parallel here between allowing an app do a notan for you and you doing the drawing yourself.

A big reason for doing a notan drawing is to discover the pattern of shadow and not-in-shadow.  While doing so, two things are happening simultaneously:  you are informing your inner artist and you are rendering that information with your own hand--your own style.  A computer won't do that for your, nor will any of the apps for your cell phone.  

Too often, we artists shortchange ourselves by trying to take an easy way out because we don't trust our skills to be adequate.  That is fear doing its job. That fear has no place in an artist's work.  It can only stifle the joy of real discovery and true expression.

If, after watching my video lesson (it's free) on notan, you feel challenged by the idea, try this: 

1.  Get a black felt tip pen and some paper

2.  Draw a rectangle about one by two inches

3.  Squinting at the image below, then allow your felt tip marker to paint within the small rectangle just what you see in shadow and nothing else.

4.  Do a second one and a third one.  You might surprise yourself at what you find the second and third time around that you didn't notice the first time.  Do this for yourself.  

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Our free Notan: How and Why video is available at the eStore.  It is also on YouTube HERE.  Meanwhile, this week's video lesson, Guiding the Eye with Gradation, is now available at the eStore.