As part of our Japanese Art Unit, we talked about the Japanese concept of NOTAN. The translation is “dark and light balance”, and we discussed how an artwork can be enhanced by properly balancing the light and the dark colors in a painting. We made paper NOTANS using scissors and colored paper. Students were asked to design their own notans and to draw on all 4 sides of the paper.
STEP 1. Take the colored paper square, place it on top of a larger piece of white cardboard and mark the location of the corners (using a pencil) on the cardboard where you will glue your Notan once you finish. This small marks will help you align your paper as you work on the sides.
STEP 2. Design simple drawings, these can be abstract or you can follow a theme of objects and drawings. I asked my students to use all four sides of the paper. Some didn’t forgot and made two only as you can see in the pictures, but most used all four sides.
STEP 3. Cut out one side at a time, don’t forget to add a second cutting inside the cut you just made, and stick to the cardboard as you go, the first (largest) cut is glued outside and the second cutting (smaller) goes back inside, this will make more sense as you star working on it.. Make sure you align with the marks you traced using a pencil and re-aligning the colored paper as you go.
STEP 4. Make sure all is glued up properly, check for “flappy” pieces of paper and stick them so it looks like ONE piece of paper. The center paper (where you cut the shapes from) is aligned and glued up at the end.
1st Class Art 
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