Friday Night Sketch + Chill

Hey, happy Friday, March 6th, 2026. I always have to look at the calendar because I forget the date. It is 9:20 PM here in New Jersey. The Garden State, and hopefully we're going to start seeing the garden part of the Garden State soon with weather warming up a little bit here. So I'm looking forward to it. I'm sure a lot of people here are looking forward to, uh, spring. So that is what we're going to talk about a little bit, and that's actually what inspired this sketch that we started last night. I wanted to do something that reminded me of spring, flowers, um, renewal. So we have a butterfly-inspired sketch here that I used Sharpie on. We also use some watercolor paints, and we use one of my favorite acrylic ink colors, Reflex Rose. Yeah, that's, that's the actual name on there, Reflex Rose. I'm sorry, it's a little blurry, but interesting name. I love whoever has jobs naming colors. Kudos to you, because that has always been like a dream of mine, just coming up these cool color names. So if you don't know who I am, my name is Jason Nicholas Nicholas. I, um, I'm an architect. I'm also a high school teacher. I teach architecture and CAD, which I love. CAD is like a design class where we use the computer to design things. We have, we have 3D printers, a laser cutter. It's almost kind of like a product design class. That's how I like to look at it. Um, and I love design thinking, so just kind of using our brains, our creativities, our creativity, just to solve problems. So we get a little bit of that here on the Inspired Life. It's mostly sketching and kind of motivational positivity and just kind of good fun stuff. So let me know where you're watching from. Hope you're having a good day. What I want to do tonight is I want to just spend a few minutes— I want to wrap up the sketch I started last night. So yeah, I was looking at it. It's all dried now, so let me hold it up closer. You can see some of the details on it, some of the colors. I really, really do love the colors on this. They're fun. So what I feel like what I need to do is I want to pull out kind of the butterfly a little bit more with some out, um, a darker outline. I don't know if I'm going to use a fountain pen for that or a Sharpie, or I was actually even thinking of getting brave and using a Sharpie creative marker, a purple one. So we might do that. I like to say sketch boldly. So when I say that, it, it really means, um, just go for it. It's paper, it's markers, it's paints, it's, it's disposable stuff, right? So don't be afraid to try to express things, create things. It's really about the creativity, the playfulness, the playfulness that I love, that fires me to do this stuff. So in order for me to be kind of playful I need to think of this as a creative sandbox where I'm just building these castles, right? And the waves might come and take them away. And, you know, sandcastles are impermanent. We, we know they're not going to last forever, but the real joy about sandcastles isn't that they're going to be there forever. It's the actual making of the sandcastle. And that relates to what we're doing here. It's the same, same concept. Um, yeah, so let's just have fun. Let's take this up a level and wrap it up. Cool. All right, so I have some colored pencils here. I definitely want to add some of those. I've been— I want to add some aqua on here. These are, these are my 4 favorite color pencil colors right here grouped together. So we have neon pink, light aqua, chartreuse, which I love saying chartreuse, and, uh, neon yellow. So let's break these out. Let's throw some aqua on there. I got some music going. If you want to follow along, you could go on Spotify. I have a playlist, The Inspired Life. Let me make sure it's the name of it. Maybe The Inspired Life -1, and you can see what I'm listening to. I can't play it live over the air because it's all copyrighted stuff. All right, let me zoom in. I'm gonna get nice and close on this. Am I connected? Why does it say connect? That's interesting. All right, my zoom tool thing's not working, so I will manually zoom by doing this. Um, there you go. I love doing these mixed media sketches where it's a little bit of Sharpie, a little bit of watercolor, some ink, colored pencil. It's fun to add layers on here. I'll typically add the colored pencil towards the end because once it's down, I can't add ink or watercolor on top of it because of its waxy properties. The water will just kind of dissipate off of it. So that's why I like to add these touches towards the end. And I'm just gonna just put dabs of some of this light aqua in places. And if you hear any running and barking in the background, my pup is running in the hallway. I hear them playing with her. Cool. All right, so we got a little bit of that on there. I'll hold it closer. We'll throw some down on here maybe as well. And if you hear squeaking, that is not my— that is not my stomach squeaking. It is a dog toy. Welcome to the world of live streaming. Unrehearsed, unscripted, and a dog's got to be a dog. Love it. All right, cool. All right, got some light, light aqua going on there. Let's throw down— let's break out some of this neon pink. Actually, let's break out some neon yellow. And we'll do that. Just want to punch up some of the areas. I really like neon yellow. You can see it there popping. Pretty cool, right? I'm not sure why my camera thing's not zooming. I would have to unplug it and plug it back in, but if I unplug it, we'll totally lose the picture. We'll throw some down here. Yeah, that's looking cool. I like, I like the colors just popping a little bit. I don't get too crazy with the neon yellow. If I start putting too much down, it's going to take away from what's there already, right? So we want to kind of be aware of that. And if you want certain things to pop out, don't add too much of that thing because it'll get lost. Hey Sue, great to see you! Hope all's well. Really long time. I hope you're doing well, my friend. Sue, you, uh, you inspire me. I You are an artist who I have seen grow to incredible leaps and bounds in such a short time. You are awesome. Always great seeing you. Love your butterfly and flower, so vibrant. Thank you, that means a lot. That means a lot. Cool, right? So we have some colors there. I don't know, this— my gut's telling me to do this. And you guys, if you don't know, if you don't know a lot about me and what I— when I'm sketching, one of the things I like to do like 99% of the time is I just go with my gut. My gut's saying to use purple to outline the butterfly, and I'm going to do it in a creative marker. I'm shaking my head because I kind of like the way this looks. Um, but I don't know why it's telling me to use purple. I don't know if I'll do the whole butterfly or part of it. We'll pull out some other creative markers. Um, stay tuned because I'm going to go over a few minutes. I'm going to go over what I'm going to be taking tomorrow. So I'm going to New York City, do some urban sketching, and I'll kind of just show you a quick show and tell of what I'm gonna— what I'm planning on packing tomorrow. So hang around if you want to kind of see what my packing list will be. You're welcome, Sue. You are welcome. I really miss our, uh, I miss our Inkling Zooms with our fellow Inklings. All right guys, I'm throwing purple down. Let's do it. I just noticed I left my watch on. I usually like to sketch with my watch off, kind of gets in the way. Now I feel a little bit looser, right? I think I'm going to do what I usually do with my torches. I usually do like an outline, and I can show you one in a minute. And you know what, I'm actually going to use aqua for the other side. All right, cool. All right, all right, so I just threw those outlines on there. I think it pops the shapes out a little bit more. So it's interesting to me, the butterfly is starting to look like the flower, like they're one. So Probably because I connected the lines there, and that's okay. I, I like it. Again, I'm just— this is a time to be creative and playful and see what works, doesn't work. Um, I do want to use a Sharpie and just pull out some of these details on here. I'm going to use a Sharpie that works. I just want to add some— punch some, punch some black in here, just add some black to the tips of the wings. So this today is kind of just about taking this home, finishing it up, adding a little bit more detail, pulling some shapes out more. The Sharpie is, um, that's strike two. Strike two with the Sharpies. Let's go for another one. There we go. There you go. I'm just coming in here, I'm just adding some detail. Let's kind of hold it up here. My zoom thing is not— the app that connects to my camera is not connecting, so I can't zoom unless I do this. But this is the area— these are the areas I was talking about punching in just a little bit of black on the tips of the wings here. And I'm just going over lines again to pull out some of the shapes more. Yeah, I'm liking this one. I don't think there's too much left to do on it. This one might be done. Let's throw a black frame around it and see how— see what it does. So let's grab some frames. Which are behind me. Boom. Let's see. All right, let's check it out. Put some frames around it. I don't think white would do well. One of the questions I do have is if I do like a sepia or even a cerulean— cerulean blue background could kind of be interesting. Um, we'll start with like a smaller frame. If we just crop out a part of it, you know, what would it look like? Maybe I would crop it out, just get like the top of that flower, and maybe something like that could be a a cool way to crop it. Let's make a bigger opening. Let's see, does this one work? Those are the same size and these are too big, but oh no, not really. If we throw a mat around this I just— I like the black because it really enhances and pops out the colors around it. I would honestly lean towards a smaller framing, maybe the next size up from this one. What size is this? Let me measure this down here. This is— the opening on this is Looks like about 5.5 by— what is the opening? 5.5 by 3.5. So it's like 3.5 by 5.5 opening. I'd go up one size, I think, to finish it. Pretty cool. Let me just sign. I'll sign this one up here. Actually, I am not done yet. Not done. I just wanted to punch some of this neon pink on here. I love adding neon pink on top of orange. Just getting a little variation in here as well. So here's kind of how that orange pink color looks. So here's that neon pink on top of the orange. I love that color. Hopefully it's coming across on camera. It's a fab color, so cool. Sue says, very cool, the black frame does make it pop. Oh yeah, thanks. Yeah, I agree. Like I said, I wish I just had one, one size bigger would have been better. Sue, I'd love your opinion. What do you think Do you think I should add a blue background? It would be a, um, it'd be like a cerulean blue. I don't— I think it's in here. Let me see. I love, I love this Lockbee tool roll. Look at, look at how cool this thing is. Boom. Ta-da! These are more creative markers. Dang, I thought these were, um, that's good to know. I thought these were some watercolor markers. Where the heck are my watercolor markers? Maybe we're not gonna do cerulean blue. Let me check one more place. What is this? I have sepia. I could do sepia background, or maybe I'll just leave it. What's in here? I am so not organized. I'm organized but not organized. Nope. Watercolor. All right, I don't know where my cerulean blue marker is. There goes that idea. I always think of, uh, you when I see neon pink. I love that, that's awesome. What about light purple? Yes. You know what color comes to mind? I think I have it. Let me grab it. It's a Daniel Smith color sample color. Let me see if I can pull it out of my drawer here. Speaking of which, here's a— I didn't even know these were in here. Let me change camera views. Here's some big butterfly sketches. Let me show these on camera. I like the light purple background. That's a cool idea. I'm gonna switch camera view for a second, so you're gonna see my big giant face. Hello everybody, how are you? I just wanted to show you guys these. So I opened this drawer up and look, I found— I forgot I had these butterfly prints I did in here. This one, this was a digital I think that was a digital butterfly I did on my iPad. Probably a year on here. This is from 2000— 2015. So it's kind of interesting. So that's my butterfly from 2015. This is, uh, 10, 10 years later. Well, 11 years later, right? You can kind of see how my butterfly has kind of changed over the years. And then underneath, I actually have another butterfly here as well. This would be fun to do a paint over. So if I take it out and just kind of paint over it pop it out a little bit. But yeah, so those are kind of fun. That was not what I was looking for. I am opening my magic drawer here. Where are those Daniel Smith— here they are. So I have these cool Daniel Smith samples. Hey, thank you, Sue, I appreciate that. Um, I don't think I have enough to do a whole background, unfortunately, but I was thinking this color here. There's one here called Duo Chrome Mauve. This one right here, it's kind of metallic. That might be a cool color for the background. Or maybe this one, Duo Cactus Flower. There's a few different purples. Maybe Duo Cactus Flower would be cool. What else do we have? Got some purples on here. Ooh, wisteria. I like the wisteria color. Lavender. Lavender is pretty. Maybe lavender. I think I'm leaning towards lavender. You know what, let's take a little bit off the palette, the, uh, sample thing, and put it on there, see what it looks like. These samples are pretty old. Hopefully they don't dry out. All right, let's throw some of that lavender on here, get an idea what it might look like. Yes, you could always blend them. You're right. Where's my, um— all right, we'll throw some lavender on here and then we'll, uh, we'll go into kind of packing mode. What I'm going to take tomorrow, and we'll wrap up. So I hope you're having a beautiful day, beautiful weather today. All right, so we're gonna, we're gonna take some of this lavender. I have dirty water here, so it's gonna have some pink in it. I think it's time for me to get another bamboo brush. All right, let's just grab some of that. I don't know how well it's going to show on camera. We'll see. Um, this would be a really pretty subtle background color. I wish I had a whole like pan of it, but we'll see. If it looks awesome, I can just— I see, I think I can order just a pan. I think, Sue, I think you're a big Daniel Smith fan if I remember right. They have a color, I don't know if they still make it, it was like a— I want to say Cinderella. Color that was beautiful. I could totally have the name wrong. Let me see how far I can push this color. So I'm putting water on the paper to help spread the watercolor a little bit more. Again, I have, I have all these other samples as well, so we can just throw a bunch on here. I like the way this is drying. It's looking really cool. Cool. So I'm just going to tap it down. Boom, boom, boom. Tap it down in some places. Grab a little more, and then we'll grab another color. All right, let's grab another one we talked about. Let's try Duochrome Mauve. It looks, it looks metallic to me, so maybe it'll dry with some metallic on it. Not Metallica, that's, that's the band who I actually just heard a few minutes ago. Who would have thought you could paint butterflies to the music of Metallica. Yes, you can. All right, so this is the Duochrome Mauve. I really want it thick on here. Su had an awesome idea about a light purple background. I think that's Ingenious. I think it's very cool. Great color to go with the other colors on here. I love this aquamarine color right here. Oh, actually, these colors are so beautiful. They're so like rich. So I'm just dabbing it in places just to thicken it up. A little layer on top of a layer. All right, I think that's all I'm going to get out of this one. All right, and then let's grab, um, that cactus flower color. Paper towels over here. I hope my Mac is waterproof because I just Let's just say I got some water on it. That's okay, I already— I have some acrylic paint on my laptop. It's all good. All right, this is that cactus flower color. Oh, this— I love the way this is drying, guys. I can't wait to I'll bring it up close. This is drying so nicely. Wow, it is hard to get some of this paint off the sample. I don't know why. I have— love Daniel Smith paints. I have most of them. Wow, that's awesome. The Cactus Green would look great with the lavender too. Oh, I like this green. There's a green here, it looks really cool. It's called Sagoro Green right here. This is going to shine beautifully when the light shines on it. That's cool. I, I am— I don't know if you have any pro tips for me, Sue, but I am having trouble getting the paint off the card. I don't know why. Maybe I could add more water. Maybe just me not adding enough water. I didn't— maybe the paint just has to be activated because it's been sitting for so long. There we go. I just think I had to really saturate it. It has to activate. It's me being, being impatient with it. So here's a great example of why I like to use black Sharpies. I'm going over like the antenna of the butterfly, and the black ink is not bleeding because it's that Sharpie. So that's why I will more than not just use Sharpies to start my sketches. Gives me the freedom to come back and add ink or watercolor washes on top, not worry about it bleeding. All right, that's that cactus flower. Let's do, uh, one more color. How about Maybe we'll grab some— maybe we'll try some of the darker, this violet color. Duo Violet. Duo must mean something in Daniel Smith world. There's like a key down here on this sample card, so I'm looking to see what says Duo if that means anything. No, I don't see anything. Oh, look at this color! Wow, this is violet purple. This is a color I feel like you can go a long way with a little bit. That really punches it out. If you're just joining me, welcome to the Inkspired Life, where tonight we are not sketching. Architecture. We're in butterfly mode, thinking of the warm weather, waiting, waiting for spring to arrive here in New Jersey. This is kind of like my rain dance. We'll call it my spring dance, trying to get the spring to happen. Tomorrow's going to be in the 50s, which is awesome. It's gonna feel like a heat wave to us. Looking forward to it. Be a nice day to go to NYC. I'm planning on going. I'm not 100%, not 100%. I got stuff I need to get done here, but we'll see. I like that color. All right, kind of blend these together. Let's, let's throw a little bit on this side maybe. I'm just going to layer this on top of that— I forgot the name of it already— the first blue we threw down. Or was that lavender? I see, I lost track now. But that's why we have a video, we can go back and watch. All right, here we go. So we got a cool background happening. Um, I will hold it closer, you can see how this is drying. So that was fun. Thank you, Sue, for inspiring the colors. Love it. But yeah, these Daniel Smith water sample cards are a really cool way just to try different colors out. I've had them for a few years, so I, I don't remember how much they cost, but I think I ordered a sample pack. I think I would— I think I was watching a free online workshop from Daniel Smith and they had a, like, a code or something you put in to get a discount on samples. So I think that's how I got these. You might be able to get them on Amazon, I'm not sure, or maybe from a Daniel Smith website, probably. All right, cool. Let's hold it closer, put the frame around it again. Let's pretend this is pretty much done. It'll be done once it dries, but I want to see you guys— show you guys what it looks like. So here's what it's looking like. Look at how this is drying. I love— I'm loving this. This is my favorite part right here of the background. I love those colors. And after this dries, it definitely will transform. And I could already see some shimmering going on in this light, so I'm sure it'll be really cool when it's done. The duo colors shine and reflect a few different colors. All right, that makes sense then. How pretty is that going to be? You need— that's enough of water and it takes a while to activate. Okay, yeah, it's a little— it's very different than, um, the Cotman, Winsor Newton paints I use here. They activate pretty quickly, so I just need to be more patient with the Daniel Smith colors. This looks great. Let's put a frame around it. And then we're done with this. How many times did I say I was done with this one tonight? Y'all know me. I don't think the light is doing justice. There's probably too much light on here. Awesome. All right, and this actually looks very cool with like a double mat around it. Wait, what if I do— I'm getting too— I'm getting too Matty here. Too Matty. Shout out to Maddie. I know a Maddie. I know a couple Maddies. So Maddie, if you ever watch this, um, Here we go, we do like a frame within a frame. That's too much though, now I'm getting too cray-cray. But I like to double matte on that. Stunning, absolutely stunning. Oh, that is a good word. I will take you for— I will accept that from you, especially from you, because you are so talented. Awesome. All right, done with the butterfly. I'm gonna go through what I'm gonna pack up for tomorrow. Be kind of a quick, quickie thing here, so feel free to stay on, anybody watching, if you want. If not, tune in later or another time. You can kind of see my travel sketch stuff for tomorrow. No particular order, here we go. I am gonna take I decided I'm going to take this bag tomorrow. I have, I have a lot of bags. I realized I have like 4 maybe different ones. Um, I wish I could zoom out, but my zoom thing's not working. That is unfortunate. All right, I can't zoom out, but this is a Brooklyn bag. Let me go to the— let's go back to this camera. All right, here's what I'm going to take. I'm just going to take this cool Brooklyn bag. If you guys don't know, I have a thing. I love Brooklyn Industries. I have a hat, I wear their shirts. They don't sponsor me, I'm just saying I love their stuff. I've only used this bag once or twice. It's pretty new looking, but I like it because it could fit— I want to take the sketchbook I've only used it once, and I just love the yellow color. Um, I love it has an elastic, it keeps it closed, and it's hot press paper, so it's kind of smooth. Uh, here's a sketch I did of the steel stacks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Oops. So that's in here. So I thought I would bring this tomorrow and sketch on this. It does bleed through though, so I'm going to bring this, and it fits nicely in this Brooklyn Industry bag here. It's pretty cool. This has a lot of pockets in it too, which is awesome. Has a nice couple flaps in here and pockets inside. Sorry, I'm not really doing a great job showing it on camera. Um, it has a really nice zippered area in back here as well. It's kind kind of concealed. So like pickpockets, you always gotta think about pickpockets wherever you go. So it's kind of a good thing to prevent pickpocketing. All right, all right, so that's kind of that. I'm going to also take with me my— of course I'm going to take my Lockbee Field Journal, 100%. This has to come with me, there's no questions asked. Asked about it. I'm not even going to change up the pens I have in there. So I have different color pens, my multicolor pen, which reminds me that I need to bring my Statue of Liberty torches. I have them in here. I do. So I like to bring these Liberty torch sketches with me. Probably do one on the bus as well. Sometimes I give them out. So they go in there. Boom. I have a— my graph paper. I like to write notes in here and think and brainstorm, so it's like a brainstorming kind of book. And then I have, uh, just a plain paper pad in here. I might add something else. I'm very paranoid when I go sketching, uh, in the city about having enough paper, so I'll take this with me. Boom. And yeah, just in case I don't have enough paper, I have more So, um, and this I actually like because I'm gonna— I like to use this one. I'm doing double spread sketches, meaning I'm stretching it out to 2 pages. So here's a subway sketch. Gotta hold it sideways, unfortunately. Um, and then here, here's my fave, my favo fave. I'll just skip to that one. I love— this is my fave Grand Central sketch I did last time I was in the city. Pretty cool, 2 pages. So I love to take this just to have that to do on, uh, to spread out. So I'll take that. So this is going boom. Um, I also love this because it zips. Honestly, if I could only take one thing with me, I would take this. I would just— I probably honestly could just take this. Um, it would just be a pain because I'd have to carry it everywhere, but it has a handle on it. That's, that's a thought. That's a thought. All right, so I'm going to take that. Uh, no watercolors. I'm not going to take watercolors. I don't, I don't really like urban sketching with them. They take too long to dry for me. Of course I'm going to take some colored pencils. Gotta throw my faves in there. I should probably sharpen them. Uh, pro tip: I like to sharpen my colored pencils on both ends so I don't have to worry about bringing a pencil sharpener with me. So you're gonna hear some pencil sharpening noises. Pretend we're doing ASMR. No, I am not blending a smoothie right now. It's looking like I'm going to need to replace these soon. They're getting kind of short. Let's talk about the rubber band that's on there in a sec. All right, cool. All right, so I got these sharpened. These are my 4 favorite colors: light aqua, neon pink, neon yellow, and chartreuse. And here's the rubber band secret pro tip. Since these are getting really short, um, they would get lost in the bottom of this pocket, so I put the rubber band on there. So that I can put them in the pocket. Boom. And the rubber band kind of present— prevents them from sliding all the way down. Cool. This zips up. So this is coming with me. And I might be packing too much, as I'm thinking. I'll bring— I'll bring the— my creative markers as well. I have to be honest with you, lots of times I don't even use a lot any of this stuff, and I'll add color when I come home. So, but let me just throw those in there so I have all my colors in here. I want light aqua, yellow, orange, blue, white, red. Yep, that's good to go. I also love this pouch. If on the other side I wanted to— some places you go to like museums will only let you sketch in pencil. So, um, I have a whole section with just kind of pencil stuff in there. I know, is this all going to fit in that bag? It should. Sharpies, of course. And on the tech side, here's another pro tip. I need to bring, um, I take a lot of pictures, like a lot, so I need to bring my battery backup. So I got a cool battery backup here I can plug my phone into. This one's cool, it also plugs into a wall, so if I'm eating somewhere I can plug it in and charge it if I need to. It's pretty cool battery pack. And then I also have this one, so I got two for when I go to Europe, when I go to Spain and Italy, uh, end of this month. Next month. Um, I'm going to take a lot, a lot of pictures, so I got 2 backups. But this one actually is a magnet. It just goes right in back of my iPhone, which is cool. It's a little thick though, a little heavy. I'm— I wish it was thinner. I like to take pictures with using one hand and click, click, click, but it's kind of bulky. But you know what, it's a battery backup. And yes, I'm listening to Green Day. All right, so those are going to go with me. Very cool. And that bag I showed you, and I think that's it. Yeah, that's it, guys. Um, thank you so much for watching The Inspired Life tonight. Sue, it was a pleasure having you in the chat and talking with you and getting some creative feedback and input. You are a delightful human being, and I am honored and privileged to, uh, to know you and to be a creative friend with you, for sure. So thank you, uh, so much. And everybody else watching, whether you're— if you were ninja watching or you're watching a live stream, I do appreciate you guys as well. Remember on the YouTube to hit that like button, thumbs up, subscribe. We're at 1,000 subscribers, yay! Let's keep it going. My next personal goal is 3K, 3,000. Um, we get— we did our 1,000 sketch giveaway, so I mailed that today. So, um, that was fun to give away a torch sketch. Cool. All right guys, until we meet again. Sketch— until we meet again, does that sound kind of cheesy? Let's, let's, let's, uh, I don't know, until we sketch again. I need to work on that. Until we sketch again. No, I don't like that. Um, take 3. Until next time, sketch boldly, live creatively, and inspire Endlessly.