When I was young, I was not interested in Japanese art at all. Although I don't know this is an aging thing, I love Japanese art now. Probably, I had gone abroad many times and hung out with people from oversea, my experiences made my mind change.
I am a china painter and mostly I paint on white porcelain. Since a couple of months ago, I started learning sumi ink painting called suibokuga or unpitsu from my porcelain painting teacher in Kyoto. I am taking the lessons with porcelain painting lessons. She used to say that when we can handle brushes well, our painting skills improve much better. I believe in that and practice.
My first assignment for the unpitsu is drawing one of orchids called shunran. Right now I am struggling with making negative spaces. It is difficult where I make the spaces. It is also hard to make ink color values. Since I believe that practice makes perfect, I would love to make efforts.
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Negative space is hard! When I draw, I tend leave no space ^^b
Yeah, I understand you. I tend to leave small space as well, lol
Try drawing with white chalk on black paper. Watch the negative spaces as they emerge ! I love Japanese calligraphy. is that ‘sho’ ?
@Adam123 That's a great idea! I would love to try it to understand the negative spaces.
When we make a copy of handwritten sutra, some people use black papers with real gold. They look so pretty and I always think I want to try it when I look at these. It's a kind of sho. I don't know this person but when you look at the black paper with the gold letters, you know what I am talking about it. Here is the link: http://taniblog112.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-244.html
Wow what stunning calligraphy ! Thanks for sharing. A question about negative spaces please. Does “notan” in Japanese mean the register of something/nothing ? TIA
@Adam123 You are welcome. I am glad that you like it. The "notan" means color values in Japanese. Especially when we use monotone colors, we tend to use the term.
Thank you.
You are welcome.
‘Notan’ is used in EN as well, especially EN US. It’s the continuing influence of the art instructor Dow a hunted or so years ago. He was very influenced by Chinese & Japanese painting, so it’s an oriental import into EN. It doesn’t indéf mena tonal values (not couloir). I was just wondering what’s the Japanese word for something/nothing or black/white , which would be a print making term from the wood cutting technique. I would love to know. maybe you could ask your art teacher ?
I am not sure the words " indéf mena tonal values (not couloir)" but I guess you are talking about "ukiyoe".
ChatGPT : The Japanese word for “notan” is “濃淡” (nōtan), which refers to the balance between light and dark in an artwork, particularly in traditional Japanese ink painting and sumi-e. It focuses on the contrast between positive and negative spaces to create a harmonious composition.
ChatGPT : The Japanese word for "something" is "なにか (nanika)" and for "nothing" is "なにも (nanimo)."
In traditional Japanese printmaking, the concepts of positive and negative space may not have direct equivalents. However, artists often work with the interplay of filled (positive) and empty (negative) areas within their compositions. The terms "shin" (positive) and "kū" (negative) are sometimes used in Japanese art to describe these elements, but they don't exclusively refer to positive and negative space in the same way as in Western art terminology.
In Japanese woodblock printmaking, the term for positive space is "欠き彫り" (kakihori), which translates to "carving away," and the term for negative space is "盛り彫り" (morihori), which translates to "building up." These terms refer to the process of carving the relief image into the woodblock and leaving the areas to be printed (positive space) while removing the surrounding areas (negative space).
Sorry for the typo , notan does indeed mean tonal values in English but be aware that it’s a specialist art term that few outside of the art world, will know.
Wow, thank you so much for the explanation. Even though I am Japanese, I have no idea the woodblock terminologies. I learned a lot.