16 activities, one for each element of art and principle of design. Each has its own learning outcomes, the art history and design practice behind the idea, step-by-step work in Studio Notan, the same idea made by hand with paper and paint, a challenge, and what to look for when it is done.
Foundation, Developing and Advanced
Studio Notan and paper and paint
Mapped to the National Core Arts Standards
What a design is made of
Elements of art
the sheet’s front a flipped piece, showing the back the ground
Cut geometric and organic shapes, predict which will survive the flip unchanged and which will land as mirror twins, and make the two families work together.
Imply a ball, a box and a can with nothing but flat cuts, deciding exactly where light ends and shadow begins, and test how the fold changes the light.
Make figure and ground trade places at the edge of the sheet, plan pieces by drawing in the space outside it, and decide how much empty ground a design needs.
Fold the same cuts into symmetrical, radial and asymmetrical notans, then paint, cut and balance a paper one, and discover how every flipped piece adds weight beyond the sheet.
Cut four studies that each isolate one contrast, combine them into one notan that reads from across the room, then paint and cut papers that contrast in value, hue and texture.
Build a field of identical cuts with Copies and a field of stamped paint marks, then break the rule once and test which exception pulls the eye fastest.
Plan a route through the sheet, build it from stepped cuts checked with Replay, then cut it in paper over painted brushstrokes and test it with a finger.
Repeat one asymmetric motif by sliding, turning, mirroring and gliding it in the studio, print it through a hand-cut stencil, and see how each pattern repeats again across the fold.
Play regular, alternating, progressive and flowing rhythms along the edges of a sheet, with Copies and Replay in the studio and with brush, paper and scissors by hand.
Build notans on the golden ratio and the root-two rectangle, on screen and in painted paper, size every cut by one ratio, and find where a cut stops being a figure.
Write a house style of shapes, angles and colors, and hold a notan to it in the studio and in paper painted from three paints, so every cut reads as one family.