Friday Night Sketching

Hey, happy Friday the 13th. March 13th, to be exact, 2026. Hope you're having a great day. I'm Jason Nicholas Nicholas with The Inkspired Life. I love sketching architecture, and, uh, join me for a few minutes tonight as I kind of work on some sketches I started last night. I want to wrap up this torch, and then we'll look inside the yellow sketchbook. Um, you can see what I started last night, and we'll see where it goes tonight. I hope you're having a great day today. I love, I love sketching for many reasons. It's fun, it's, it's therapeutic for me. It's a great way to get things out of my brain onto paper, great way to wind down from a day. It's awesome for problem solving, brainstorming. Yeah, and it's just also fun for like capturing a moment as well. So I started this torch yesterday. I've done a bunch of torches and I love doing them a lot. They're kind of iconic for me now and they're always different. That's the fun thing. Here's some other ones I've done in the past. You can see how they're all very different from each other. And it's never about perfection for me. Um, it's about imperfection. Just be myself, throw lines down. I'm not looking for beautiful scale, clean lines. Imperfection is perfection for me when it comes to sketching, right? The word imperfect has I am perfect at the end, so I am perfect. Just do you, right? So let's see, I have some tools out here, some colored pencils, markers, watercolors, acrylic ink paints. So I'm just gonna do some grab-and-go tonight creativity, grab with what I have around. And I just want to take this up just a little bit bit here to another level. And I think this Sharpie is no longer with us. Boom. Uh, I feel like breaking out some color pencils. So I might go sketching in NYC tomorrow. Uh, I'll see how I feel when I wake up in the morning. I'm kind of exhausted. I might really need to stay home and just rest up a little bit. Although, um, the group is sketching at one of my favorite buildings. I don't know if I can miss the opportunity, so we'll see. We're gonna play by ear. But one of the cool things about sketching is that if I can't make it to a place I love, I can sketch it. I can pretend I'm there. I can imagine being there. Whether it's New York City or Disney. I'll often sketch Disney Cinderella's Castle. It just— or even fishing shacks or lighthouses in Maine. It just transports me to another place just by using some paper and a pen or a marker, which is really— it's really a cool thing. Feel free to say hello in the comments. I have to open the comment window up. I didn't do that yet. Boom. Maybe not. Let's see my comments. Where the heck did it go? That's crazy. My comments window has vanished. That's okay, it might pop open. You know tech, tech could be wonky. It is Friday the 13th after all. Who knows what could happen? All right, let's throw down some neon yellow color pencil here just to pull out some of the— just a little bit of brightness to this. There's some on here already, but I want to throw down some more just to lift it up a little bit. We'll throw some down here on the kind of the flame area. Boom. I feel like this one is almost done, guys. I kind of like— I like it. I like all the white space on it as well. All right, I think this one is done. Let's do a close-up. Zoom in a little bit. I like the colors on it a lot, actually. It looks pretty cool. And then we'll just— let's compare it to some of these other ones here. And they're all very different, which is so fun. I'm just gonna put it in my, uh, my Lockbie folio here so I don't forget it. If I take this, I'll take this with me tomorrow if I go, uh, sketching. And I'll just keep some in here. Sometimes I keep some blank paper in here as well. And you just fit really nice in that pocket. Awesome. And before I forget, let me put a Sharpie— I usually put a Sharpie— excuse me— a Sharpie in here as well. Let me find one that works. I need some water. Okay, let's see. Does this one work? Yep. Let's put that in there so I don't forget it. All right, all right. So this is cool. I love this because it zips up. It's so nice to carry everything around. You put this back here so I don't forget it. Boom shakalaka. All right. Let's look at the abstract kind of background we did yesterday. So I'm just playing around in this yellow sketchbook. It's kind of a playground for me. I'm just playing around, experimenting with kind of creating abstract backgrounds on pages and then adding, um, sketches or some kind of— yeah, some kind of sketch on top of the background. And it's just fun, it's just playful. It's something I've really never done, and I want to step, step up my, uh, sketching a little bit this year, or at least experiment, try some different things. And you never know, right? You might find things you like. My— I might find things I don't like, but I don't know unless I try. So think of— I'm thinking of this as my, uh, it's just my sandbox, my sketching sandbox. Throw things down and see what happens. So let's do it. So I marked the page, actually. So this is the abstract background that I started yesterday. I added a little bit more earlier today. It should be dry. So let's throw a sketch down on this and see what happens. I'll play around for a few minutes here. Zoom out a smidge. Boom, there we go. All right, cool. Feel free to say hello. Let me know in the comments if you're watching. I'd love to say, hey, how you doing? Um, not in that creepy— that sounds creepy. I want to say hello in a nice way. Um, all right, so again, here's an example. I— again, this is me trying something different, trying to be playful. I just want to experiment. So this is one of the first ones I did. If this is actually the first one I did in here, Um, so I did the kind of abstract background first, and then I came back later and I added the Brooklyn Bridge on it. I think this came out kind of cool. I like it. So it's just very different. So let's— I'm not sure what we're going to sketch on here yet. Let's see, let's see. We'll take out a white gel pen, um, maybe a white creative marker. Sharpie. I need a Sharpie, of course. Sharpie. And we'll roll, we'll roll from there, um, and see where it goes. I have to be honest, I'm actually kind of already seeing a building in this. Um, I'm, I'm actually seeing the Copper Building in New York City. The Copper Building is really, really cool. It's on the East River, right near the 34th Street Ferry Terminal, and it looks like the letter H. It's kind of an H, but the top of the H is almost crooked, and I'm actually starting to see like an H here. With, um, this would be a bridge that connects the two parts of the buildings. You kind of have this bridge area. So I might end up turning this into a copper, copper building-like sketch. We'll see. I know this, this one doesn't work. I think the last 2 weeks. Every show I've done, I keep picking up the same pens that don't work. Let's try this, uh, fountain pen. This is from, from Muji. I like it. It's a mini fountain pen. It's really compact. Let's see, the copper building bends kind of like this. It might be hard to see with that kind of fountain pen, but I'm going to pull out the shapes even more. It's kind of blocking it in a little bit here, and it's really— it's not too scale either. The copper building, the two parts, the vertical parts of the H, are, are closer together in reality. But does this look realistic? No, that is not the goal. Goal is to sketch my style and just have fun with it. Kind of capture the vibes I'm feeling. I think this would be cool if I bring it out and maybe I'll take a white gel pen, see if we can pull out some of the lines. If not, we'll definitely use the marker. Actually, let's start with the white marker here. And this might be the one that is no bueno. All right, boom! Let's put this one— this one can go in the trash, I think. Yes! 2 points! Swish! It was a swish. There we go. Look at that. This is— you can tell it's working now. Look at that. Boom! So I just love how the white is popping out against that background. Just kind of copy the white here, same idea. Of course it's not going to show that well, uh, on the white part, but we— I'm going to try something with that. We're going to try something different. We might alternate colors. Hey, Paula Loves Art, I see you on the YouTube. How are you? Hope you're doing great. Good to see you. See you on the YouTube— the YouTubes. Red, let's do red. We're gonna be bold. I'm gonna boldly go where no pen has gone before. All right, little Star Trek there. Little Star Trek for your night. Boom. Um, you know what, purple. I want to break— I think purple is going to show. Let's break out some purple. Purple, purple. Where is my purple? Here we are. Boom. Am I the only one that talks to their art supplies? Let me know in the comments. Do you, do you talk to your art supplies, or am I the only wacky one here? And if so, that's okay. I don't mind being wacky. It's kind of fun. It's kind of fun. Yeah, see how the purple, you can see it better. And then I'm gonna— I want to use yellow. I think I'm gonna use yellow to pull out this part of the copper building. I want to do hatch lines. Yeah, let's do some hatch, hatch lines like this. I just want to pull out the edge of the building a little bit. Where's the yellow? Let's try this yellow Sharpie marker here. Mm, maybe, maybe it's not really popping out as much as I wanted it to. It's not bad. I might, um, I might go over it again. So sometimes with these creative markers, they're not opaque, so I sometimes will just layer them to, um, kind of strengthen the colors a little bit. So I may end up going over it 3, 3 or 4 times. You can see it's popping out a little bit more now, right? I'm kind of liking it. Let's show some of the windows on here, and I think I'm gonna use a white gel pen only because I've been eyeing it up over there. So let's play with it. If not, we'll, um, probably go back to the white marker. There we go. Yeah, I like, I like that way the gel pen looks on there. Pretty cool, especially against that. I think that was mostly fluorescent red background. There's some orange I see in there, a few other colors, but it's mostly, I think, that red. Cool. Just to give the idea of windows. It's not really what the windows look like on the copper building. Or is that purple? I think that gives a little bit of depth to the bridge there. Thinking about what color I want to do on top of this. Um, I think black. I think we just use black for that. And let me just grab a— see, a black marker. I think black will pop out nicely against the blue here. Let's try, give it a shot, as they say. Let's give it a shot. There we go. Right, so that black, black is really kind of popping out there. Yeah, I like it. Okay, let me zoom in so we can see this closer. Zoom time, zoom time. Yeah, I'm liking it. Uh, neon yellow. Let's put some neon yellow in here. I like how these colors are overlapping here. There's also a cool texture that's happening here as well, so that's kind of fun. And I'm just using some neon yellow on top of some of this just to boldy up some of the yellow that's there already. I love doing these mixed media pieces with colored pencils and acrylic paint and markers and Sharpies. It's so fun. And hopefully I'm capturing kind of a feeling of energy, like an energetic vibe with this. So last night on this livestream, I was talking about some words that come to mind when I think of New York City. Energy is definitely one of them. So I like to try to capture a sense of energy with my NYC sketches. All right, let's see, let's put some, uh, another song on here, and I think I'll wrap up with this one song. We'll listen to it and probably wrap up after it. Excuse me. Let's see, what song? I don't know, I'll just hit random. We'll do the randomizer here. I wish I could play it for you guys, but I don't want to get copyrighted. Oh my gosh, I am sleepy. There we go. I got to throw some chartreuse on here. Yeah, there you go. I'm liking the chartreuse on here. That looks good. And then we got to throw some light aqua too. Break out some of that. Can never go wrong with light aqua. Yeah, I like this one. I think this one might be done. I don't really know what else to add to it, so my gut's saying stop. So that's one of the hardest things to do sometimes when I'm working on sketches, is knowing when to stop. So here, here are a couple of pro tips, things I look for, signs that, hey, I need to kind of stop what I'm doing. Um, one, probably the biggest indicator for me is if I'm starting to think too much about what I want to add, whether it's a color or more line work or other shapes, textures— when I'm starting to think too much and I'm— when I stop sketching or creating, that for me is a huge, huge sign that I'm done. And my brain right now, you may have noticed if while you're watching that I kind of slowed down a little bit because I'm starting to think, um, I'm looking around, right? Should I add this? Should I add that? And that kind of stops the flow. And I'm all about, for me, I want to sketch, um, the flow, keep the flow going. I like to call it grab-and-go creativity, just keep grabbing stuff here and going with it. So slowing down I think starting to think too much is one way I know to stop. Another thing is— it's just— the other thing is really just a gut reaction, like, okay, that's enough. Or things are starting to look too chaotic, maybe. I mean, this is pretty busy, but if things are looking— maybe not chaotic, but muddy. If things are starting to look muddy to me, like in my brain, and visually it's just becoming a big glob of, uh, globiness. Yes, we are very technical on this show. A big glob of globiness. Then I know I gotta stop, right? It's like, uh, putting— I don't know if you chew gum. If you think about chewing gum and you put like a, uh, I don't know, I'm making these flavors up, an apple-flavored gum, and then you At the same time, you'd start chewing cherry-flavored gum, and then, you know what, you grab a piece of regular bubblegum-flavored gum, and then blueberry, and just mix all these different gum flavors in your mouth. It becomes just a big muddy, mucky mess, and it just loses its taste. So, it's another kind of way just to kind of stop. And don't feel like once you stop, you can never come back. You could always come back and revisit. Your sketch, your paintings, your artwork later. Add stuff if you want. Sometimes I'll revisit paintings years later or sketches years later, and I might add stuff, and that's okay. And sometimes not. So there's a couple just kind of tips about knowing when to stop creating. And I can think I accomplished what I wanted to, you know. I got the cool abstract background, which is what— which is my goal for this sketchbook, is I just want to keep playing with this idea. See where it leads to. And, uh, I got that and I was able to pull out some kind of New York City building. And this one happened just to be the Copper Building because I saw— if you go back and watch the beginning, you may— you'll see the two shapes here and there's kind of the bridge there already. And in my brain when I was looking at it, I'm like, hey, that's the Copper Building. Boom. So that's kind of how that happened just by pulling out shapes that were done on the abstract background. It's kind of cool, kind of cool. It's just a different way to work those creative muscles. Um, awesome. All right, I think I'm gonna wrap. It's 9:27. I am exhausted. It's been a long, long week, um, and I appreciate you guys watching, whether you're watching live or the replay. Always feel free to leave comments. Feel free to— I would love for you to hit that like button, that thumbs up button on YouTube. Uh, subscribe if you haven't. Let's keep growing this channel because I want to keep spreading positivity through creativity. And I believe now more than ever we need to start just reconnecting with our inner beings, who we are, rediscovering ourselves and our souls. And I really think that Um, expressing your creativity through art can be one of those ways to do that. All right guys, until we meet again, sketch boldly, live creatively, and inspire endlessly.