Notan discovery

I had never heard of Notan until a couple of weeks ago, when Marc Taro Holmes mentioned it in a blog post about his approach to #30x30directwatercolor painting this year.
Basically Notan is a Japanese design concept of light and dark that can be used to help with composition in paintings.

Since managing value contrast is something that I often forget when I paint, this is a new tool for me that will help me ask the right questions. Whether I find the right answers when I paint or not is a different matter, but thinking about composition and value before I put brush to paper is as important as the act of painting itself. You could argue that it's actually more important. And there is actually an app that you can use on the phone to 'notanize' your photos - it basically transforms every photo in a strong pattern of black and white, accentuating the value contrast to an almost abstract extreme. Fascinating! So this is my new new thing!!