value studies and notan: simplify a subject into light and dark masses

Reduce a subject to two or three value masses before you paint: squint, set a value scale, and check your study against five measured landscape paintings.

7 min read

A value study strips a subject down to light and dark so you can judge the arrangement before color and detail distract you. The classic version is the notan, a Japanese word meaning "dark, light" that Arthur Wesley Dow used for the massing of tones of different values [1]. You make a small study of two or three values, decide whether the pattern works, and only then commit to a full painting. This guide covers the study itself and shows you where to see the same simplification in finished paintings.

What you need

A small sheet of paper or board, about the size of your hand to a postcard. Small size forces you to see masses rather than details.
Soft charcoal, or black ink, or oil paint in a dark and a white. Dow names ink, charcoal and oil paint for three-value studies [2].
A paper stump or a cotton cloth for spreading charcoal, and bread or a rubber (eraser) for lifting lights [2].
A broad brush if you work in ink or paint, so you cannot draw small shapes.
A subject or reference image. Use a photograph you did not take only if you want to see how tone alone describes form; Solomon recommends studying other people's photographs from this point of view [3].

Step by step

Set aside color. Goethe argues that the artist learns to imitate sooner by considering light and dark independently of colour and getting to know them across their whole extent [4]. Decide that this study is only about lighter and darker.
Find the main light by squinting. Solomon's method is to nearly close your eyes while looking at the subject. If two light passages seem equal, close your lids further until one is almost lost; the one that survives is the stronger [5]. Use the same method for the shadows and everything in between [5].
Name one predominating light. Solomon observes that a figure or solid object generally has one predominating light passage, and every other passage must be lowered in relation to it so that it can predominate [6]. Pick yours now and protect it for the rest of the study.
Block in two values first. Dow's notan is the harmony of dark and light spaces, whether or not they are colored [1]. Cover the paper with your light value, then place the dark shapes. Work out the pattern of the shapes, not the objects they represent.
Cut the space with the main shapes. Dow's advice for his flower exercises is that the space should be cut by the main lines, and that a small spray floating in the middle of a large oblong is not a composition [7]. The same applies to a dark mass: let it connect to the edges and relate to the other shapes, rather than sitting alone in the center.
Add a middle value. Make a scale of three values and keep to it [2]. Dow starts students on flat tones in three values, and he lets them add one or two further notes once they can appreciate definite intervals [2]. Treat the middle value as a group of shapes with its own outline, not as a blend.
If you use charcoal, build it up gently. Spread a sketchy tone of soft charcoal, pass over it lightly with a stump or cloth, and avoid grinding the black into the paper, which makes an opaque smoky tone [2]. When you have a luminous middle gray, sketch in the darks with soft charcoal and take out the lights with bread or a rubber [2].
Check from a distance. Look at the study from across the room or squint at it. You should be able to read the subject and the pattern at once. If the picture only works when you read the details, simplify the masses again.
Move to more values only when the pattern holds. Dow has students work with five or seven tones before attempting original composition, and he asks them to paint freely, without too much thought of scales and intervals, letting gradations enter where needed [8].

Why masses, not outlines

Harold Speed describes two extreme ways of approaching form: outline, and mass. He recommends studying both, and says that mass drawing with paint introduces you to tone values and the expression of form by planes [9]. He adds that, with practice, you learn to observe and portray the tone masses, their shapes and values, to which all visual appearances can be reduced [9]. A notan is that reduction taken as far as it goes, which is why it is a useful first exercise before a larger painting.

The study also gives you something to judge. Solomon says that the delicate differences of tone throughout an object, or throughout a picture containing many objects, constitute what is called "breadth" in light and shade [6]. A value study is where you decide those differences before you are invested in the painting.

Common mistakes

Treating two lights as equals. If you cannot say which light is the strongest, nothing predominates. Squint until one passage disappears [5].
Letting color decide the values. A saturated red or a bright yellow may look light or dark depending on how you judge it. Check by squinting or by looking at the study in black and white, as Goethe's separation of light and dark from colour suggests [4].
Making a dark mass an island. A dark shape floating in the middle of the sheet is the value-study version of the lone spray Dow warns against [7]. Connect it to an edge or to another shape.
Using too many values too early. Dow keeps students at three values until they can handle definite intervals of tone [2]. If your study has six grays, you have not decided anything.
Overworking the charcoal. Grinding it in produces an opaque, smoky tone and loses the light of the paper showing between the particles [2].
Making the study too large or too careful. A study that takes an hour has stopped being a study.
Copying the study mechanically. Dow does not want an exact system. He lets the artist keep freedom of execution and add notes where good effect needs them [2].

Study these paintings

field-sunset-by-ivan-aivazovsky is the clearest case of a big, simple notan. The record describes extreme contrast: a nearly black silhouetted hill, tree and foreground scrub against a brilliantly lit sky, with the lightest values around the sun and golden clouds. Squinting reduces it to three zones, and a narrow band of middle values appears along the path and the far hills. Notice that the sky is blended softly while the silhouette edges are sharp where they meet the bright sky.

house-with-red-roof-by-georges-seurat works in a compressed range but still resolves into three zones when you squint: light sky, a mid-value field with horizontal banding, and a dark tree mass on the right. The darkest value is the deep brown-green of those trees, and the lightest are the sky and house walls. Look at how little contrast the painting needs; the red roof is the warmest, most saturated note rather than the darkest or lightest.

shinnecock-landscape-with-figures-by-william-merritt-chase divides into luminous sky at the top, a warm golden field in the middle, and a coherent dark line of trees and foliage anchoring the horizon and foreground. Locate the sandy path as a distinct light middle value, warmer than the sky. The edges are soft throughout, so the value masses carry the structure.

sheep-by-joseph-farquharson puts its darkest darks in the right-side tree trunks and branches, which anchor the picture, while the snow supplies the lightest lights. The record sorts the rest into light foreground snow, warm middle-distance trees and pale distant mountains, with the sheep as the most concentrated warm note in the mid-value group. Compare the crisp branch edges with the soft, rounded edges of the snow.

the-seine-at-saint-mammes-by-alfred-sisley shows what a value study looks like when the range is narrow. The record describes a mid-to-light range with almost no true darks except the shadowed trees on the far bank; river and sky sit in similar pale zones. Squint and the darks cluster along the tree line while water and sky read as one luminous family. Try making a three-value study of it and see how few steps separate the values.