Notan is a Japanese-inspired design idea built on light and dark balance, and a cut-paper project is the easiest way to try it. You cut shapes out of one sheet of paper and glue them, mirrored, onto another, so the positive and negative shapes lock together.
Below you’ll find what notan is, a few striking examples, and three simple paper methods with materials, steps, ages and time. Beginners and kids can do the first method in about 30 minutes.
Notan is a Japanese word that means “light-dark balance.” A notan uses an extremely limited range of values: in its most strict form, just black and white; in its more liberal form, black, white, and a mid-tone. source
Despite its simple look, notan can get wildly complicated. Here are a few examples:
Notan lends itself beautifully to quilting as in this piece by Lynn Ticotsky.
This is impressive. (Original source doesn’t exist anymore.)
Materials for a Notan Paper Project
- Two sheets of paper or cardstock of the same size. Black and white is traditional, but any two contrasting colors work. Letter-size is fine to start.
- Scissors. Small, pointy scissors help with detail.
- Glue stick.
- Pencil and eraser.
- Optional: a craft knife and cutting mat for intricate designs. This is for adults and older teens only.
What Is Notan Art?
Notan is a way of designing with light and dark shapes, with color and detail stripped away. Artists look at where the light and dark areas sit and whether they balance each other. If the structure is strong in black and white, color and details can be added later.
The word comes from Japanese: it combines characters meaning dark and light. The idea reached American art education largely through the artist and teacher Arthur Wesley Dow, who wrote about notan in his 1899 book Composition. Many art students have used it since.
Two-Value Notans
A two-value notan uses only black and white. You reduce a picture to its darkest and lightest areas, which gives bold, graphic shapes. The original image can be hard to recognize, and that’s the point: you’re seeing the underlying pattern.
Three-Value Notans
A three-value notan adds a mid-tone gray. This keeps more detail, so the picture usually still looks like the original even without color.
What Is the 70/30 Rule in Notan?
The 70/30 rule is a common composition guideline: let about 70 percent of a design be dominated by one value (either light or dark) and about 30 percent by the other. A perfectly even 50/50 split can feel static, and a design with only a few scattered specks of one value looks unbalanced. It’s a guideline, not a law, and many strong notans break it.
How Do You Make a Good Notan Design?
Group your lights and darks into bold blocks rather than scattering them. If one value overpowers the other, for example mostly white with a few tiny black splashes, the design reads as weak. A good notan has:
- Strong, blocky black and white shapes
- Balance between light and dark
- An unusual pattern where the light and dark areas meet
How to Make a Notan: 3 Paper Methods
Each method takes about 30-45 minutes and suits ages 6 and up with child-safe scissors. You can make any of them easy or hard depending on how intricate your shapes are.
First Method: Rectangle Notan (Easiest)
Ages 5+ | Easy | 30 minutes
This is the quickest way to get a feel for notan, and a good one for kids. Strictly speaking it’s about positive and negative space more than light and dark, especially if you use color. (If you like bending the rules, see our Zentangle project that is more like Craftwhacktangle.)
- Take two sheets of the same size. Cut one down to half its length and half its width. This smaller sheet is the one you’ll cut shapes from.
- Lightly draw shapes with a pencil, or cut freehand. Each shape should start and end on the same edge of the paper.
- Cut out each shape, keeping the pieces in place.
- Glue the smaller piece with the holes in the middle of the larger sheet. Mark the center with light pencil dots first, since it’s easy to be off.
- Glue each cut-out shape onto the large sheet, flipped to the opposite side so it mirrors where it was cut. Line the straight edge up with the edge of the small sheet.
Second Method: Square Notan
Ages 7+ | Easy to medium | 45 minutes
This time use squares. Cut the base paper into an 8.5 x 8.5 inch square, and the cutting paper into a 4.25 x 4.25 inch square, which is one quarter of the area of the base. (A good chance to talk fractions with kids.)
- Center the small square on the base, either flat to the edges or turned like a diamond, and mark the position lightly.
- Draw shapes along the edges of the small square and cut them out, keeping each piece in order.
- Glue the small square down on the base.
- Glue each cut-out shape to the opposite side of the square so the pattern mirrors.
We did both traditional black and white and color for this method. My 16 year old made the cool one on the top right.
Third Method: Half-and-Half Notan
Ages 8+ | Medium | 45-60 minutes
This one looks easiest, but takes a different approach and usually means more cutting, since you cut and place more shapes. The result is symmetrical on both halves of the paper.
- Use one full-size sheet as the base. Cut the other sheet in half, in whichever direction you prefer.
- Draw shapes along the inner edge of the half sheet and cut them out, keeping them in order.
- Glue the half sheet against one side of the base.
- Flip each cut shape and glue it on the other half, mirroring the design across the center.
Notan Tips
Cut into a good amount of the paper. If you only snip a few little shapes from the edges, you’ll end up with large blank chunks and a weak design. Here’s what that looks like:
- Sketch a few ideas on scrap paper first. Shade the dark areas with a pencil or marker and draw the mirrored image on each side.
- If your drawing is about the same size as your paper, transfer it with pencil; otherwise, redraw it. Each redraw tends to improve.
- Try cutting unrelated shapes from each side, and also shapes that make sense once reassembled. Each approach makes you think differently.
- Keep cut pieces in place as you work. For intricate designs, mark a small pencil dot on the back of each piece so you remember where it goes.
- When gluing, put each piece on a scrap sheet so stray glue doesn’t land on your good paper. Swap scrap sheets as they get sticky.
- Craft knives are sharp. Adults and older teens only, with a cutting mat.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is a notan in art?
A notan is a design of light and dark shapes in balance, often just black and white. It comes from a Japanese term for the interplay of dark and light.
Why is it called notan?
Notan is a Japanese word made from characters for dark and light. It was brought into American art teaching largely through Arthur Wesley Dow, who wrote about it in his 1899 book Composition.
What are some easy examples of notan?
Cut-paper notans like the three methods above are the easiest. You can also turn a photo into a black-and-white two-value study, or make a mirrored cutout on a half sheet of folded paper.
What are some famous examples of notan art?
Notan is a design principle more than a single art form, so there is no fixed list. Arthur Wesley Dow’s book Composition (1899) is the classic text, and work like the quilt by Lynn Ticotsky above shows it in practice.
What are the benefits of practicing notan?
It trains you to see the light and dark structure of a picture before you add color, which helps with composition and value planning in painting and drawing.
Materials Used in This Project
ooh- or this pack (I’m a colored card stock collector.)
If you adore colored card stock, you can also learn to draw with it over here. Yep, draw!
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