It’s wise if you are a beginner to start off with pencil. It’s important to get massing and composition right—and just to get used to drawing architecture, especially if you have no formal training. It’s quite daunting to go straight in with pen, even a very fine liner.
I’d recommend a B or 2B pencil. Anything softer will be prone to smudging, and the line quality of anything harder is more difficult to sketch with. Don’t worry about using an eraser if you’d like to (kneaded erasers are best), but if you keep the lines light, then you shouldn’t need one. And if you do choose to use a pen, don’t be concerned about getting the lines just right. You can draw them very faintly and work over them later.
STEPHANIE BOWER,
Notre Dame, Paris, France
This sketch by Seattle architectural illustrator Stephanie Bower shows the interior of Notre Dame in Paris, looking up toward its vaulted ceiling. Stephanie prefers to draw in pencil, and the delicate quality of her pencil work allows the watercolor to take center stage here. It is the contrast between the deep purple shadows and creamy stone (albeit mainly in shadow), underpinned by superb draftsmanship, that make this such a gorgeous drawing.
SIMONE RIDYARD
Paraty, Brazi
I like the quality of line achieved with a fineliner, and the fact that every mark is permanent is a challenge too, but it isn’t for the faint-hearted—you need to practice and find your own way of drawing. It’s not as forgiving as pencil, although it doesn’t smudge either! I established the massing and composition of this sketch very lightly using fineliner, then worked into it in more detail. I don’t mind that not everything is strictly accurate; it’s a sketch after all.
JAMES HOBBS
City of London Skyline, England
Here’s a completely different approach by London artist James Hobbs. James’s work is wonderfully stylized; he draws with thick painterly lines, but don’t be deceived by the simplicity of his drawings. It takes time and practice to draw in such a bold way.
Unlike my Paraty sketch at the top, which was drawn in the historical context of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, James distills his panoramic London skyline down to just basic shapes—towers, churches and cranes—since his sketch was created as a coloring-in project for young children. “Drawing with this in mind made me draw in a different way: I closed the lines, like a stained-glass window, and simplified the view.”