Notan

THe 52 week challenge has decided this week is B&W.  Which I like so much better than self-portrait.

When I was in Santa Fe, I went to the Georgia O'Keefe museum.  It was amazing.  I bought a book in the museum shop about NOTAN - the Dark-light principle of design.  I did the first exercise.

The instructions were to cut out dark shapes in different sizes and then place them on a white sheet in asymmetrical balance.  My shapes were too big and they had to much 'direction' since I chose ovoids.  Still, I think I got a lot out of the exercise.

It was good to put down all the different patterns.  It is really interesting how some are really NOT balanced.   I found it very difficult to deviate from symmetry; somehow the blobs kept organizing themselves reflected.  Maybe my shapes were too similar.  

Anyway - here are two that were interesting to me.  The next was to look at them with the black blobs as rocks, then to look at the blacks as "holes"  and then third to look at the white like water flowing around the blacks.  I'm not sure that it will help me make my photos look the way I want.