- Describe the concept of Notan - use the terms positive and negative space.
- How did you approach creating this piece? Had you ever used an x-acto knife? Did you encounter any difficulties - either with the design or cutting the contrasto material?
- Was your piece successful? Why or why not? What would you do differently next time?
In the west we use separate terms such as positive space and negative space, dividing the idea of light-dark into separate components.
On paper it is easy to see that dark shapes cannot exist without a surrounding area of white. White shapes cannot exist without dark to define it. The two elements are really one. This is an eastern concept of yin-yang that each is what the other is not."
(Source: https://millis.itslearning.com/ContentArea/ContentArea.aspx?LocationID=640&LocationType=1)
Notan basically uses the positive and negative spaces as a divider or use it to define certain areas that do or do not exist in an art form. By doing this, we learn of what does and does not exist in there negative and positive spaces. In order to do this a black sheet with a thin white sticker on it (Contrast-o film) was necessary. With this and an X-acto knife, we had to cut out of a 4x5 rectangle of the 8x10 "contrasto material" and then reflect or shift it anywhere where it would be logical or significant. When doing mine, I initially thought of doing the interchanging semi-circles only, halfway through though I thought it could use a bit more spice so I started adding some black spikes down to the semicircles which I then decided to reflect. On the other side I continued the semi-circles and after finishing I realized its similarity to a sun and moon, so I then added some kanji characters of "fire" (actually wanted to put down "sun") and "moon", a sort of spiked circle in the middle, and some more spikes on the "sun" side of the Notan. Although looking back at it now, I wish I had made the spikes more precise in order to get the white spikes opposite it to look better and I also wish that I had put a bit more detail into it even though I couldn't think of anything else to add that wouldn't ruin the image. Overall though, I believe that this project was pretty successful in showing art themes and themes of negative and positive space as well as a "only one chance" kind of theme which if you made a cut then you couldn't erase or take it back.