Day 34 – A Window Through A Ruins

Day 34 – A Window Through the Ruins. Today I return to my own photograph of the Erechtheion on the Acropolis in Athens, concentrating on a small window opening and the stone immediately around it. The objective is to suggest the weight and thickness of the wall without describing every block.

Using my Sailor 1911 and Terre d’Ombre ink, I draw the left-hand study first. It feels solid, but the strongly outlined stonework is more enclosed and detailed than I intend. In the right-hand study I make a conscious effort to leave more unresolved, allowing broken edges and softer washes to suggest the surrounding wall. I add faint lines afterwards to indicate continuing masonry, followed by blue in the opening because I feel it needs that separation from the warm stone. The projecting blocks and narrow shadows help establish that the immediate window surround sits back from parts of the wall. The right-hand study achieves a better balance of structure and suggestion, although a few peripheral marks contribute less than the edges already left incomplete.

A useful exercise in discovering that suggestion can come from where a line stops or a wash fades; it does not always require another mark.
Scores: left-hand study 7/10; right-hand study 7.5/10.