As promised earlier in the week, here is a step-by-step explanation of the Flinders Street Station sketch that I did for Faber Castell Australia‘s #colour4life competition. See here for more details about the competition including a short video.

For this sketch I used a combination of ink, coloured pencils and markers (both permanent and water-soluble). My use of markers in this sketch relates directly to what I would normally do in watercolour and I’m following the techniques that are explained in full inside my SketchingNow Buildings course.

I started drawing the main elements of the building in Light Cobalt Turquoise Polychromos (my new favourite coloured pencil) from the top of the dome, down the centre of the building and working outwards.

The goal of the pencil lines was to map out the main structure and not to draw everything. I then switched to pen (using a Faber Castell Grip Gold fountain pen with Super 5 Frankfurt ink) following the same principle of drawing the main features first.

I used the pencil lines as a guide only – correcting as needed – and I tried not to get distracted with the details until all the main structural elements were done. This step took the longest.

Next I added some ‘texture’ with the coloured pencils – the joint lines in the yellow parts, the bricks and ribs of the dome.

Then it was time to add the Albrecht Durer Watercolour Markers. A little bit goes a long way with these markers so one stroke was often enough to fill in a whole shape.

I worked one colour at a time applying the marker and then adding a little water with my brush.

Some green for the dome and the first layer of grey for the windows.

Once that layer was dry, I switched to Pitt Artist Pen (permanent pigmented brush markers) and added shadows and details.
The shadows were done with an ultramarine blue and a mid-grey colour and then I added some darks with a warm grey. The Pitt Pens were great for areas that needed crisp edges.

Most of the sketch was done now so all that remained was to add a few final details – coloured pencils for the people and a few ink details that I had missed earlier.

More shadows and then a light grey wash for the ground.

Here is the final sketch! It was really fun to use my standard steps with some different materials.