The Loose Nib

Day 19 – A Japanese Temple

August 23, 2026

The Challenge
Simplify a complex Japanese temple gate into its main shapes, concentrating on the sweeping roof, supporting structure and areas of shadow rather than trying to describe every beam, bracket and architectural detail.

This was hard. I drew it quite quickly, which probably helped because there was little opportunity to become too precious about the complicated architecture. The large roof became the main shape and I tried to let the washes and shadows describe much of the structure underneath. I still got drawn into too much detail beneath the upper roof and the junction on the right became confused. I also managed to smudge some of my splatters, although apparently I am under strict instructions not to attempt a repair. The biggest lesson was that when faced with something complicated, drawing larger and more decisively can work better than slowing down and trying to draw everything.

The Verdict – The sweeping roof is the success of the sketch. It dominates the page, has plenty of energy and immediately gives the building its character. The restrained brown, grey and pale blue palette works well and the unfinished areas beneath the roof help rather than hinder it. However, the upper structure contains too many competing marks and the right-hand roof junction becomes muddled. A couple of considerably darker shadows would also have given the building more depth. The accidental splatters can stay. Most importantly, this looks like a sketchbook page rather than a careful architectural illustration — and that is progress.

Score: 7.6/10. I am getting confused between a sketchbook sketch and a finished painting and I still need to be clearer in my head the purpose of each sketch.
Day 18 – Amsterdam Canal Houses

August 22, 2026

The Challenge

Day 18 was Amsterdam canal houses, with the challenge concentrating on the rhythm of the tall narrow buildings, perspective and reflections. I was supposed to choose where the detail lived rather than treating every building equally, avoid carefully drawing every window and allow some of the architecture to merge together. Reflections were to be suggested with broken marks and shapes rather than drawn as upside-down copies of the buildings. The other important instruction was to keep the colour restrained and leave plenty of untouched white paper. As it turned out, I managed some of those instructions rather better than others.

The Sketch

I tried to concentrate on the overall shapes of the buildings rather than individual architectural details, allowing some windows to become little more than marks. The two banks create a strong perspective into the distance and I used warmer yellows and oranges on the left against cooler blue-greys on the right. In the water I tried to suggest the reflections rather than reproduce the buildings accurately. Unfortunately, once the watercolours came out, my interpretation of “restrained colour” became increasingly liberal and considerably less white paper survived than intended. Nevertheless, I like the liveliness of the result and I think I am becoming more comfortable allowing lines, windows and buildings to remain incomplete rather than explaining everything.

The Verdict – there is increasing confidence in the drawing. The irregular façades, broken windows and wandering rooflines feel much more like a sketch than a careful architectural record, while the two banks create a convincing sense of depth. The warm buildings on the left work particularly well against the cooler mass on the right and the reflections are suggested rather than laboriously copied. However, the brief specifically asked for restrained colour and plenty of untouched paper, and apparently Amsterdam proved too tempting. The right-hand buildings in particular have become a fairly continuous blue-grey mass and leaving perhaps 25–30% more white paper would have introduced considerably more light and sparkle. This is more ambitious than Day 17 but not quite as controlled.
Score: 8.5/10.
Reasonable Tyrant’s instruction: Colour isn’t the problem; knowing where not to put it is. And now stop — don’t touch it again.
Day 17 – Café Corner

August 21, 2026

The Challenge

Today’s challenge was a café on a street corner, with the emphasis on simplifying a busy urban scene rather than trying to record everything. The main things to think about were the sweep of the perspective around the corner, keeping the distant buildings subordinate, suggesting rather than describing the people inside the café, and using changes in line weight and tone to create depth. Most importantly, the challenge was to decide what could be left out.

The Sketch

I started with a quick preliminary sketch while waiting for guests to arrive, which helped me work out the main shapes and decide what was important before attempting the finished version. For the final sketch I used my Pelikan M600 EF for the finer lines and a Sailor Fude de Mannen Blue fountain pen for the heavier marks. Rather than adding colour, I used an ArtGraf water-soluble graphite stick for the shading, keeping the whole sketch monochrome.
Preliminary drawing with loose Nib sketchbook below

I deliberately simplified the distant building and vehicle and treated the two figures inside the café as little more than dark shapes. The graphite gave me a quick way of establishing the large tonal areas without becoming involved in colour. I am beginning to realise that loose sketching is as much about deciding what not to draw as it is about drawing what is there.

The Verdict – This is a considerable improvement on the preliminary sketch, not simply because it is more finished but because the decisions are better. The café frontage sweeps convincingly around the corner and gives the drawing a strong sense of perspective. The pale vehicle and loosely indicated building on the left establish the street without demanding attention, while the large graphite fascia provides a strong tonal anchor.The two figures inside the café are particularly successful. They are barely described, yet immediately read as people. Likewise, the distant architecture is reduced to a handful of lines and marks rather than laboriously explained. These are both signs of increasing confidence in allowing the viewer to complete the drawing.The combination of the fine Pelikan line, heavier Fude de Mannen marks and soft graphite works extremely well. The uneven graphite is an advantage rather than a defect; it gives the sketch atmosphere and prevents the tonal areas becoming flat.There is still a tendency to add more information than necessary around the café glazing, where some of the vertical divisions and smaller marks could have been omitted. That is now the next lesson: having discovered simplification, push it a little further.
Score: 8.5/10
Reasonable Tyrant’s instruction: Stop explaining everything. Give the viewer enough information — then trust them.
Day 16 – A Parisian Boulevard

August 20, 2026

The Challenge

Day 16 took me to a Parisian boulevard. After the confined perspective of yesterday’s narrow Italian street, the challenge was to deal with a much broader scene of buildings, trees, pavements and open space. The aim was to create depth without drawing every window and balcony, concentrating instead on the larger shapes and allowing the details to become increasingly simplified as they moved away. The sweeping pavement and kerb were important in leading the eye into the scene, while the trees and figures were there to provide scale and atmosphere rather than become subjects in their own right. Once again, the real challenge was deciding how much information was actually necessary.

The Sketch

This felt much more like my own drawing. I concentrated on the central building and allowed the architecture around it to become progressively less defined. The sweeping kerb helped establish the depth without needing carefully constructed perspective, while the figures were reduced to little more than marks. The trees were another matter. I am still not entirely comfortable with them and have a tendency either to describe them too much or make them look like an afterthought. Nevertheless, I was pleased that the drawing felt less like an attempt to reproduce a photograph and more like my interpretation of the scene. Trees, however, definitely need more work.

The Verdict – This feels much more like an individual drawing than a copy of the reference. The central building contains enough information to be convincing without becoming architectural illustration, while the sweeping kerb and surrounding buildings create a strong sense of depth. The trees and figures are increasingly becoming suggestions rather than carefully described objects, which is exactly the direction this challenge should be taking. There are still places where the pen could have stopped a few lines earlier, particularly around the roof and balconies, and a stronger foreground shadow might have anchored the scene more firmly. The trees remain uncertain, but that is a problem to work on rather than disguise with more detail.
Score: 8.7/10. I still think that is far too generous, although annoyingly I agree with most of the assessment.
Reasonable Tyrant’s instruction: If you don’t know how to draw a tree, drawing twice as much tree is unlikely to solve the problem.
Day 15 – A Narrow Italian Street

August 19, 2026

The Challenge

Day 15 was a narrow Italian street, with the challenge of creating a convincing sense of depth without becoming too concerned with perfect perspective. I was to begin with the large shapes and the direction of the street, then choose only a few architectural details to describe properly while allowing the rest to remain loose or disappear into shadow. Stronger lines and darker washes were to stay towards the foreground, becoming lighter and less definite as the street receded. A single connected area of strong shadow would hopefully do more work than lots of small details and, inevitably, I was reminded not to draw every window, brick and drainpipe and to leave some of the paper untouched.

The Sketch

This felt like a useful step forward. I concentrated on getting the street to lead the eye towards the small building and figures at the end rather than trying to construct perfect perspective. I also began to leave parts of the architecture deliberately unresolved. The right-hand wall in particular contains surprisingly little information, yet still seems to work as a building. I was less restrained with the road, where I put grey washes down and then apparently decided they needed explaining with quite a few additional black marks. The upper-right building also became rather enthusiastic, with the roof, balcony and windows all competing for attention. I still find it difficult to believe that leaving something unfinished can sometimes make it look more convincing, but I am beginning to see it happen.

The Verdict -The depth is excellent. The eye goes straight down the street towards the little building and figures at the end, and the converging architecture works without feeling mechanically constructed. The left-hand buildings are particularly successful: there are enough windows, balconies, doors and bits of masonry to establish their character without describing every damned thing. More importantly, parts of the drawing are finally being allowed to remain unfinished. The road is slightly too busy; the grey washes already describe the uneven surface and perhaps a third to half of the additional black marks could have been omitted. There is also a small battle taking place in the upper-right building, where several strong elements compete for attention. And the familiar complaint remains, although it is getting smaller: some foreground windows and doors have received one line too many — no longer ten lines too many, just one or two.
Score: 8.5/10. I certainly didn’t agree with the Reasonable Tyrant and would have given myself a few marks less, those bold lines at the bottom of the buildings.
Reasonable Tyrant’s instruction: If the wash has already said it, the pen doesn’t need to say it again.
Day 14 – A Venetian Doorway

August 18, 2026

The Challenge

Today’s challenge was deliberately different. No grand building, skyline or famous monument — just one battered Venetian doorway. I was no longer allowed to make drafts or use pencil first: straight in with the fountain pen. I found this uncomfortable because every mistake would be permanent, and initially it actually made me feel less loose. One useful lesson from my Sketchloose workshops came back to me, though: start light and go bolder. That works remarkably well, provided I remember to do it. The Reasonable Tyrant wanted me to concentrate on the character of the old wall without simply copying every crack, brick and patch of peeling plaster. The green door was to remain relatively pale, with the dark semicircular opening above providing the strongest tonal contrast. There were also two particularly important instructions: “Do not paint a swimming pool” and “You are not allowed to draw every brick.”

I went straight in with the pen, without a preliminary pencil drawing, and used watercolour afterwards. The doorway itself worked reasonably well and I was pleased with the strong dark above the door against the lighter green. Working directly in ink was uncomfortable at first, but it forced me to accept marks rather than continually correcting them. Unfortunately, faced with all that wonderful old Venetian brickwork, restraint deserted me somewhat.

The verdict – This is a successful sketch, but it revealed something important about where my style appears to be heading. My natural instinct is towards expressive, slightly irregular, energetic linework, and that is beginning to become recognisable. The danger comes when I encounter texture — bricks, stonework, windows or tiles. At that point I have a tendency to stop sketching and start recording. And yes… I went a bit brick mad. The lesson from Day 14 was therefore not really about drawing a Venetian doorway. It was about learning that texture can be suggested rather than catalogued.

Score: 8/10.

Reasonable Tyrant’s instruction: You do not have to draw every brick for the viewer to know that it is a brick wall.

8/10 – I am more than happy with that!
Day 13 – Sydney Opera House

August 17, 2026

The Challenge

Day 13 was the Sydney Opera House and the instructions sounded simple enough: use one fountain pen and my normal watercolours, draw the Opera House rather than a diagram of it, and keep the wash restrained. There was also an additional rule that at least 40% of the page had to remain untouched, with no splatter simply because an empty bit of paper was looking lonely. The Reasonable Tyrant was not looking for architectural accuracy but for confidence, simplification and rhythm — particularly whether those repeated sail shapes felt as though they belonged together. Finally, I was supposed to stop when the drawing was finished rather than when I had run out of things to add. Yeah Right!

The Sketch

This was supposed to be a practice sketch. Unfortunately, halfway through I started to like it and persevered to the end. I am not naturally drawn to lots of colour and generally prefer monotone work, but on this occasion I used watercolour and, despite subconsciously ignoring a fair proportion of the instructions, I was pleased with the result. The repeated sails were the real challenge: there is enough similarity between them that getting one badly wrong could upset the rhythm of the whole building. The exercise also reinforced something that keeps cropping up in this challenge — leaving untouched paper is not the same as leaving something unfinished. Sometimes the white paper is doing part of the drawing for me.

The Verdict – Despite the rather casual relationship between the instructions and what actually happened, this worked. The sail forms have enough rhythm and variation to read convincingly as the Opera House without becoming a careful architectural rendering. The drawing has energy and confidence, and the restrained areas of colour work better because they are surrounded by untouched paper. Where it begins to lose some of that confidence is when I continue working an area after it has already said enough. That familiar temptation to add another line, another wash or another bit of information is still there. The lesson from Day 13 was therefore less about drawing the Sydney Opera House and more about recognising when a sketch has already done its job.
Score: 8.4/10. Where the .4 came from I have absolutely no idea.
Reasonable Tyrant’s instruction: When the sketch has said what it needs to say, stop talking.

I particularly like that final instruction for this one because “learning when to stop” is becoming one of the recurring themes of the entire first challenge.
Day 12 – The Colosseum

August 16, 2026

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.
Days 1 to 11 — Where This Started

August 16, 2026

I didn’t set out to start a website. I simply decided to give myself a 30-day challenge: one loose urban sketch each day, using fountain pens, ink and the occasional wash.

Day 1 was the Flatiron Building in New York. The idea was simple enough — look carefully, draw more loosely, stop worrying about every line being correct and, perhaps most importantly, learn when to put the pen down. That last bit may take a while.

These first eleven days happened before The Loose Nib existed. They were spread through sketchbooks I already had, alongside notes, experiments and whatever else happened to be on the page. Most of them are in a Draw Every Day sketchbook, the sort you get in garden centres, which my wife gave me for Christmas in 2024. The fact that I didn’t start using it properly until 2026 either demonstrates my procrastination or lack of motivation, or both. The book is only A6 in size so each square was A7, which makes each drawing rather cramped.
I had no idea I would eventually put any of them on a website. So rather than tidy them up retrospectively, I’m leaving them much as they were. This is where the journey actually started.

Looking back at the first few pages, I was clearly still trying to develop a loose style, which I continue to struggle with. There are rather a lot of lines — and apparently I felt the need to write notes to myself everywhere.
I didn’t know it then, but these rather crowded sketchbook pages would eventually lead to The Loose Nib.

Days 9 to 11

Let’s not talk about the Eiffel Tower, clearly still learning a style. Lowest score by The Reasonable Tyrant – 6.5. I liked Day 10 and 11 and doing daily sketches with feedback was helping me develop what I think may well be my style. I was also enjoying the process as much as the finished sketches — choosing the pens, experimenting with different nibs, making mistakes and gradually working out what I wanted my drawings to look like.

Somewhere around here, the idea for The Loose Nib appeared. I asked ChatGPT if The Loose Nib was a good title for a website and, following some to-ing and fro-ing, here we are four days later with a website.

I decided to start a new sketchbook dedicated to my Loose Nib journey. Not because the drawings suddenly became better, but because I wanted a record of where they went next.

Day 12 would be the first page.

Onwards.