Still Photographic

27/08/2026

Day 23/30 – Sagrada Família, Barcelona
For the 2 of my 6 followers who have asked, yes there will be daily posts, given I have another 4x 30 Day Challenges planned. So please unsubscribe now if this is going to be annoying - I wouldn’t like it.
What I am doing is series of daily sketching challenges set, judged and scored by ChatGPT. I am not self-marking nor have I any idea how ChatGPT is coring but he scores high and I like it. This is all going on my new website www.theloosenib.com, hopefully I will never have to build another website again.

A lesson today in not believing everything the photograph tells me.
The Sagrada Família has far too much detail to draw it all, so I tried to suggest rather than describe it. Pilot Custom 742 Posting nib, occasionally turned over when I couldn’t resist a few heavier marks.
The pond in the reference photograph was brown. I decided mine wasn’t going to be.
Apparently I’m beginning to make decisions based on what the sketch needs rather than what the photograph tells me. Progress!
Score 8.4/10

23/08/2026

Day 19 - Japanese Temple Gate. This was difficult. I am also getting confused with the level of detail necessary for a sketchbook. The challenge was to simplify a complex Japanese temple gate into a few strong shapes abounding every beam and bracket. I think because I found it difficult I rushed it which may have been a good and bad thing. The overall composition is there but I added too much detail in the upper structure and the right hand roof became confused. The reduced colour palette suits the page as do the splatters even though I smudged some of them. The main lesson was that when the subject becomes complicated, it is often better to draw larger and more decisively rather than becoming increasingly careful and do detail. I was scored 7.6/10 seems quite high but I am not complaining.

30/05/2026

30/05/2026

WIP.

30/05/2026

Starting my sketching journey…