Working with Faber Castell and testing new products

August 1, 2022 | 2 Comments


For the last few months, I’ve been working with Faber Castell Australia on a few projects. I’m a featured artist for their Colour4Life competition and last week I taught a workshop to some of the Faber Castell staff.

Today Faber Castell Australia has kicked off their wonderful annual competition #colour4life with some great prizes. This is an Australian competition so if you are ‘down under’ check out the details here.

BTW isn’t Colour4life a great name? I feel it sums up a lot of what I do – sketching has certainly brought a lot of colour into my life. 🙂

This year they have 5 different categories: Portraits, Animals, Nature, Architecture and Freestyle. I was asked to represent Architecture (what a surprise!) and I created this video to show how to use Faber Castell products to sketch a complex building. I chose one of my favourite Australian buildings – Flinders St Station in Melbourne.


Here is the finished sketch which used Polychromos coloured pencils, ink (in a Faber Castell fountain pen), Albrecht Durer Watercolour Markers and Pitt Artist Brush Pens.


I’ll share more about my steps for this sketch in a separate article but here is a sneak peek at my thought process – exploring different ways of combining these materials.


And then last week I taught a short workshop to the Faber Castell Australia Sales and Marketing Team during their annual Planning day. This is the first adult in-person workshop that I’ve taught since the start of the pandemic (hard to believe) and it was so much fun to be teaching in a corporate environment again.  Thanks Faber Castell Australia – I had a blast!


I was asked to use the new Goldfaber Aqua Dual Markers for this workshop and they worked perfectly for the Edges and Shapes exercises I had planned (based on the concepts from my Foundations course). I  absolutely loved combining them with the Polychromos coloured pencils and want to do this more out on location. I’m in such a mixed media mood at the moment, aren’t I?


The Goldfaber Aqua Markers are dye-based water-soluble markers (similar to Tombows) as opposed to the Albrecht Durer Watercolour Markers which are pigmented. BTW:The Goldfaber markers are made with 100% recycled plastic.

Earlier in the year, I used the Albrecht Durer markers a few times on location but didn’t quite achieve the results I was looking for. I now have a clearer idea of how best to use them!

So I’m looking forward to exploring both of these markers further in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

2 Comments

  • Zoe says:

    So impressed with your mixed media adventures. I might have to jump on board and play more, Birthday soon?

  • Jamie C says:

    I’ve been playing with the set of Albrect Durer watercolor markers lately, myself. I got a set last winter and I am enjoying them. I find adding a good amount of water after drawing with them, gives me results I like best. I lose lines and it ends up very wet looking, which I’m finding great fun.

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