Day 12 – The Colosseum

The Challenge

Day 12 was the Colosseum, but rather than choosing the familiar postcard view I took a gamble on a much more unusual angle. The challenge was to continue what I had been trying to learn over the previous eleven days: simplify rather than describe everything I could see, use fewer marks and stronger shapes, and most importantly allow some of the paper to remain untouched. The Colosseum could very easily become an exercise in drawing hundreds of arches, stones and architectural details, so the real challenge was deciding how little I actually needed to put on the page.

The Sketch

I used a Pilot 742 with a Posting nib and Octopus Elephant Black ink. During the drawing I discovered that turning the Posting nib over produced wonderfully heavy black marks, which gave me a completely different line from the normal side of the nib. Predictably, once I discovered I could make those marks, stopping was another matter. I am happy with this drawing. It is certainly not perfect, but it feels considerably closer to the sort of sketching I am trying to achieve. It is also significant for another reason: this is the first drawing in my new dedicated sketchbook, the point at which the scattered first eleven days became The Loose Nib.

The Verdict – This was the strongest drawing of the challenge so far. Choosing the unusual viewpoint was a risk, but it paid off because the Colosseum feels monumental without needing to show the whole building. The heavier reverse-nib marks give the drawing real authority and work particularly well against the finer architectural lines. More importantly, there is evidence here of genuine simplification: areas are left unresolved, the paper is allowed to provide light and the building is suggested rather than exhaustively described. There is still a tendency to become enthusiastic once a new mark or technique starts working — particularly those delicious heavy blacks — and knowing when to stop remains part of the lesson. But Day 12 feels like a step forward, both technically and stylistically. 
Score: 9/10. 
Reasonable Tyrant’s instruction: The fact that a pen can make a wonderful mark does not mean you have to make it everywhere.

I particularly like that last instruction for Day 12. It connects directly to what happened with the Posting nib andforeshadows the recurring theme that has emerged all the way through to Day 17: discovering something that works, then learning not to overdo it.