Nōtan (濃淡): Making your first Nōtan design, with Rob the Art Teacher

We all need a little BALANCE and HARMONY in life! So, here’s a simple art project for the classroom or for home-schooling. Nōtan (濃淡) is the Japanese word for light-dark balance, or light-dark harmony. Making a Nōtan design is a fun paper-cutting project on its own. It is also an excellent warm-up activity for students of composition, because it teaches about balance and harmony between black and white, light and dark.

When the concept of Nōtan reached Europe and America in the late 19th century it had a huge influence on artists because it treats the balance between light and dark as central to the design of harmonious compositions. If you are an artist looking for advanced uses of Nōtan, I will be making a video “Nōtan for Painters” soon, so hit Subscribe and the bell to be notified when I publish that video.

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PICTURE CREDIT:
"Foreign traders in Yokohama" (日本語) by Utagawa Sadahide (1807-1873), 9th lunar month, 1861. Source: "Foreigners in Treaty-port Japan" John W. Dower. The image is in the public domain {{PD-US-expired}}
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Yo...

MUSIC CREDIT:
“Ukelele” https://www.bensound.com