INKing Out Loud

Hey Janice, hope all's well. Great to see you. Happy Easter to you. Hope you're doing well. Long time no see. Also, happy belated birthday to Denise. I hope she's doing well. Please send her, um, Jason Nicholas, my regards. It's always great to see you pop on. So I'm just doing a quick loose sketch tonight. I'm still sketching the Biltmore. I posted one earlier today that I started last night and I finished earlier today. And I'm just enjoying this building, getting to know it a little bit through sketching. And these are just quick, fast kind of studies based on some photos I took. Um, that's cool. So I'm just doing a real quick sketch with my Sharpie, outlining some things, and maybe I'll throw on some color. This is going to be just quick. Let's see, it's 10:33. I'm only going to be on until like 10:45. I'm going to keep it pretty basic. Let's see, I'm just moving some things on my screen so I can see what's going on. Cool, there we go. So happy Saturday. I want to wish everybody a happy Easter that celebrates. That's going to be amazing. And I'm just moving some things around my screen here. Right, cool. So I just took my Sharpie, threw down some lines. I just wanted to do a real quick loose sketch. This is just part of the Biltmore. It's definitely not the whole thing. I'm just focusing on just a section of it here, and I want to throw down some ink. So I'm going to use my Lamy pen here, and in my Lamy pen I have It's called Apple Snail Ink. That's the color, which I absolutely love. This color, it is my— it's my favorite inking color, actually. And I'm going to bleed some of this. I'm just dipping into— I still have this dirty water here. I just— I love using dirty water because I don't care if things get all— colors get kind of jumbled up a little bit. I like that look. And if I don't like it, I could always just go to clean water, right? So I hope everybody's having an amazing Saturday today. Hope you're enjoying spring. Things are starting to bloom, which is amazing. Always love this time of year, but sometimes it goes too darn fast. Sometimes spring just turns right into summer, so I'm hoping we get a little more spring this year. So I'm just throwing down some of this ink, bleeding a little bit here and there. This is not the actual color of the building, and I'm fine with that. I just trying to capture just feeling and just using colors I like to use. That's okay. For me, about sketching architecture isn't— I'm not trying to replicate exactly what I'm seeing or what's exactly there, but just put my own take on it. And that's, that's just one of the things I love about kind of loose style sketching. Hey, Cameron's in the house! Cameron, good to see you. Hope all's well. So I threw down some ink. I'm going to dip into some watercolors here. I'm going to Break out some turquoise, I think. Alright, cool. So I have just some turquoise and I have some Some of the Apple Snail ink going on here. Just playing around with these colors, popping ones on here, having fun. So this is my just kind of pre-bedtime sketching. I like to do— I feel like I'm most creative at night, and that might be from— go back to my college days where I was in the studio, and Cameron can relate. I was in the studio just working late at night on projects, and I think that just kind of translated all through college, all through my architecture career as well. And even to this day, I just feel— I usually have from 8:00 to 10:00 at night, my brain is dead, and after 10:00 my brain kicks on. So that's a good time for me to kind of get some sketching out of my system before I go to bed. What do you guys think? What— do you have a more creative time of the day? Is it morning, afternoon? Curious to know when, when you find your creative time is on. Elena's in the house. Elena, good to see you. Hi, first time here, love your art style. Do you mind sharing what your favorite tools to use are? I did notice a Sharpie. Hey Elena, good to see you. Thank you for joining us tonight. Yeah, I will definitely— let me go over some of the tools I have on my desk right now. And then I have a link on my website. I'll actually post the link, and on that page you can see a lot of my favorite tools that I'm using. So that's a good resource for you. I'm so glad you're here, and I'm glad you like what you're seeing. Very, very cool. So here's what's on my desk right now. That's as far as I can zoom out. So I have a Lamy pen, Lamy or Lamy, I love these pens. And inside I have ink, the color of the ink is called Apple Snail ink. I love using Sharpies. And some people ask me, why do I use Sharpies? So I like to use Sharpies to start off my sketches 9 out of 10 times. Because I'm typically gonna either bleed some ink or do some watercolor, and the Sharpies won't bleed. So I wanna get a really black mucky mess. So I'll typically start with a Sharpie. Um, and I do like bleeding black ink. For that, I have another Lamy pen that has black ink in it off to the side there. Uh, bamboo brush. Pilot Precise pens. These are my kind of my go-to sketching pens right here. Pilot Precise. There's a V7. I also use a V5. V5 is a bigger point than V7. I've been pretty much using these since college for sketching, so I love using the Pilot pens. My good friend Roo over at Roo Doodles has got me hooked on using an EnerGel. Pentel EnerGel pen. And these are really cool because— and I'll show you— because you can use these on wet areas and they'll bleed. So I'm gonna pull this out and you can see it's gonna add some hatching lines underneath and it's bleeding. So EnerGels are really cool because you can use them on wet surfaces, on on a wet area. So I like using the Energel as well. For watercolors, I have— I like to use Winsor Newton watercolors. This is a palette here. I don't know the exact name of the palette. I have this. I also have a smaller one as well. These are mostly Winsor Newton colors except the turquoise is from Cheap Joe's, and I believe the red is a Cheap Joe's color as well. So that's kind of what I'm using right now. But if you go to my website, the ink, www.theinkspiredlife.com, um, there's a link there. I'll actually put it in the chat if I can do that. So just give me a sec. So I'm going to go to my website. You think I know my website name? I do. It's got to open the window up on my computer, and I'll just paste the link in the chat. So my style is— I love sketching architecture, and my style is just very loose, as you can see. Quick and loose. And let's see, the inkspiredlife.com. And then I'm going to actually post— let me copy and paste this link. Copy. All right, let me put it in the chat. So here in the chat if it lets me post it. Let's see. So there in the chat, that's a link to a page on my website that will show you a lot of the tools I like to use. If you happen to click on the links and buy anything, it'll connect you to Amazon. I actually get a small, like real small, commission on anything bought through my link. Amazon does not raise the price. It's the the same whether you bought it through my link or not. But I get like a— I don't even know what it is, maybe a few cents. It's not that much. But feel free to browse and let me know if you have any questions. That's kind of just a quick run-through of some of the materials and tools I like— the tools I like to use. The paper. So lately I've been using Fabriano 1264. Watercolor paper. This is a 4x8-inch format, which I really love. I love this sketch, by the way. This came out really cool. Um, and this is also the same paper, it's just a larger format. I think this is, this is 8x10. Let's see. Oops, sorry, 7x10. So I'm sketching on 7x10 tonight. You can kind of see a wider view. Hey, Linda is in the house! Linda, good to see you. Hope all's well. Always great seeing you guys pop in on the chat. I love it. Again, happy, uh, spring and a happy Easter to everybody. Elena, sorry, I almost said Helena. Elena, you're welcome. So Linda, I think you were watching last night, and I just wanted to show you, um, close up how this ended up coming out. It dried really nicely. So you could see I was using that Daniel Smith sample, um, kind of up in this area here. You go closer. And then I actually ended up coming back over it with— I just mixed my own purple from, uh, my Winsor Newton colors, my blue and red, and I just made my own purple on that. New paper towel, one sec. There we go. Got a little bit of purpley in the sky, that's okay. I kind of want this to feel like just a really quick study. I'm just going to come back in with— I'm going to use my Pilot pen and just do some hatching on here just to— I want to start just showing some shadows maybe under the roof overhang. And one of the ways I like to do that is with, with just some hatch lines, either vertical, sometimes I'll do diagonal ones. And for me, this adds just another sense of texture as well as giving the idea of some shadows happening. And I'm just gonna shade in. For the windows, I— notice I'm not drawing every single window perfectly. Really, my windows, I'm just putting in some dark rectangle-ish— not even rectangles, just some black areas here just to indicate where the window openings could be. Um, I'm gonna do— these are two little dormers on the roof here. Boom. I just want to touch some turquoise on there. There's actually one over in here as well. And I'm dipping into my watercolor paint, but I'm actually using a really small amount of water. I just want to punch out some of these areas a little more so that I'm not diluting the pigment too much. Here, I just want to— there we go. Just let that bleed down a little bit. Cool. Linda says, uh, it dried really cool. Love DS watercolor. Yeah, Daniel Smith watercolors are pretty awesome. Um, I only have the sample sheets that I showed you guys last night. Which, which is a really great way just to try the colors out. So I know Daniel Smith can be kind of expensive, but these sheets are really cool just for sampling different colors. Uh, let's see, do I have— maybe we'll play with one of these tonight. Let's see. I'm, I'm going to try this, maybe Imperial Purple right here. Imperial Purple. You know, sometimes we think when we make shadows we have to make them black, but if you look in shadows, they're actually made of all different colors. Um, and I'm going to play around. I've never used this Imperial Purple, so Let's mess around with it. I'm going to grab some— you kind of see it bleeding on the card there a little bit. Just kind of rolling my brush in here and let's throw some of this down to create the idea of shadows under the roof. And we're going to say maybe we have shadows on this side of the dormer here. Actually going to throw some in this opening as well. And let's throw some on this side of the dormer, pop that out. Maybe these window arches are kind of recessed in. Really want to lay it on thick. There we go. Where else? Maybe these chimneys where they kind of meet the roof, there's a little shadow thing happening. And I think we're going to— Let's see. Just kind of soften it, maybe a little bit of a softer purple here. And I think I just want to pull some of this down a little bit. Notice I didn't really draw any windows or details. It's just kind of dying off. I like to do that a lot with my sketches, not do a finish, a complete scene, but let it kind of bleed off the ends. And I think it's a cool way just to have the viewer bring their imagination into the, um, sketch a little bit. This is really loose and wonky looking. I like it. Cool. I don't want to overdo it, so I'm going to leave it at that, I think, for now. Alright, put that there. Let's see, I kind of want to do something where the building meets the ground. Um, let's see what I want to pull out there. Dip a little turquoise in. Here. So after this dries, I'll come back in with probably my, uh, Precise Pen, and I'll just do some more ink details on top of some of the areas. I'll do real quick strokes to show, indicate some shingles on the roof. I believe these are slate. I believe these are really slate in reality. So I'll just do some quick— you can kind of see here, this is all I did on here to show shingles. Sorry, just a suggestion of something happening. I didn't draw every single shingle. Hey, try saying that fast. Every single shingle. Every single shingle. Um, even here there's block work. I didn't draw the blocks. I just really lightly just drew some lines to indicate there's block work happening. And I'm gonna leave a lot of white on this sketch. Cool. I think this is gonna dry pretty nicely. So I'm gonna set it aside for now and we'll let it dry, and then tomorrow I'll add some more ink on top of it, pull out some of the details. So I'm just continuing with the Biltmore theme. I feel like I'll be sketching the Biltmore a lot the next couple weeks. I'm also planning a trip into NYC. This coming week. I'm on spring break. Yes! I think I'm gonna go to NYC one day, and armed with my, uh, Lochbie field journal, probably here, bring my field journal, I'll bring a couple of pens, and we'll walk around and do some sketching and some photographing. So that'll be fun. There's one place in particular I'm hoping I get to in NYC. Um, I'll save that as a surprise in case I go there. And, um, it's kind of forcing me out of my comfort zone to go to this place. Not that it's not a bad location in the city, it's just a place I've never been to on my own. So, uh, mustering up the, uh, courage to get out there and visit this place. So we'll see what happens. So hopefully that'll be out next week. Hope you can take us along through video. Ooh, yeah. If I go, I'll do some live streaming for sure. Elena says, looks amazing. Thanks for sharing. Hey Elena, thank you. Elena. Um, so great to have you in here. We have a great group of people that join us. Linda is a longtime Inkling. Linda's awesome. I think we've known each other how long, Linda? 2? Is it 2 years? Maybe. Linda, I have Janice pops in. She's awesome. And Cameron will pop in. We have other regulars that will pop in as well. So welcome aboard. Always feel free to join us. It's so cool. And I also want to thank you guys for liking these and sharing these. I posted a YouTube video today of a time-lapse of this one. So check it out on my Facebook page, there's a link. Hope you check out the time lapse, let me know what you think of it. If you like it, give it a thumbs up or a like on YouTube, that would be awesome. That way we can get more peeps looking at it. Yes, I just said peeps. Let's see, what else do I want to sketch on here? I'm going to sketch a couple more things I think before I wrap up. Uh, let's see, what do I want to pull out? I'm just thinking about like what details and what do I want to pull out on this sketch. I think I'll just let the music take over, music take over for a minute or two. Uh, Cameron says, have you ever been on board the Intrepid NYC, Mr. Nick? Hey Cameron, yeah. I have. I was on the Intrepid years ago, the, um, aircraft carrier, right? So I believe the Intrepid is a decommissioned aircraft carrier that's been turned into a museum. So I've been on there years ago. It might be cool to go back again sometime. There's a little dormer over here I just want to sketch. It's kind of a cute dormer happening here. So yeah, the Intrepid, the Intrepid's a really, uh, it's a cool place. There you go. So we got a little dormer happening on the roof. Just wanted to pop that on. Alright, I'm going to sketch some roof shingles on here. I think I'm going to do it with— what do I want to do it with? I think I'm going to do it with a Flair pen, actually. So here's another pen I like to use, are Flairs. I like the old-school Flair pens. Let me see if I can pull one out. Is this an old school? No, that's a new school. Here we go. So this is an old school Flair pen, Flair marker. Um, here, let me pull out a new one so you can see the difference. That's not a Flair. So the old school Flair pens have ribbing on the barrel here. You can hear it. Really cool. They don't make them like this anymore. They've changed them. The new ones kind of stink. But I have some old ones here, fortunately, that we're just going to kind of sketch with. So here's what I like to do. I'm going to go really quick. And I'm holding my pen very, very, very lightly. It's actually a little darker than I wanted, but that's okay. I can bleed it. So I'm just trying to get— just to indicate the idea we have shingles going on. I might soften out a little bit. It came out a little darker than I was hoping, but that's okay. Again, I just like to have fun and play, but the Flair Pens— the Flair pens— oh my gosh, I can't talk— bleed. So you can see I can soften them, which I like that look actually. So I'll do the same thing over here on this side. I'm gonna hold the pen even looser. It's amazing, these pens are really old and they're working really well. The reason I'm holding it loose is I like to have what I call skippy lines, They're kind of skipping a little bit. The texture of the paper is picking up. The texture of the paper is showing as well. I'm not trying to do really precise architectural or technical lines that are dark and solid. I kind of like skippy lines or dashed lines sometimes I'll call them. So you get kind of a broken look. So when you hold your pen loose over textured paper, the texture of the paper helps to create that look, which is pretty cool. And I'm going to bleed these a little bit. Oops, it was the wrong cap. Put the right cap back on. I'm going to bleed these a little bit, just add some water just to soften them up a little. Here we go. That looks better. I like the way this is drying over here. So now we have just the idea of some roof shingles happening without drawing all the roof shingles. We've known each other 2 to 3 years. Oh wow, so much fun. I can't believe the time has flown by. Cameron says, "Correct. How about the Growler as well? The submarine dock next to it is funny that that's where your father and mother met on Fleet Week." Oh, that's so cool. I love that story. Very cool story, Cameron. Um, I don't remember the Growler, to be honest with you. Um, I— if it was there when I went, I'm sure I probably visited it as well. Something just made a dinging sound. I don't know what the heck that was. What was that sound? I got like a notification sound, but I don't even know it's turned on to notify me. Weird, weirdo beardo. Oh, my camera died out. That's weird. So you guys are now looking at my iPhone camera that turned on, which I think that— that's weird. That's so funny. I don't know how my iPhone connected to my, uh, Live stream. That was an automatic thing. Let's see, is that back to normal? Hey, now you guys can see me. Hope you're all doing well. So the cameras are playing tricks on me. It's all good. There's back to the desktop. That was weird. So there you go, guys, that's cool. So I'm going to let this dry for the night. I think it's Got enough done on it. Thank you for watching. I appreciate you all so much. And you can see I'm using the same colors for these Biltmore sketches, so the colors will just help to tie, um, tie the theme together. So that's one way if you like to do series of pieces, sometimes a color scheme is a great way to help tie, tie things together. As well as the subject matter. So cool. All right guys, I mean, if you have any final questions, I hope everybody has an amazing Easter Sunday. And, um, yeah, I probably will not be on live tomorrow, but since I'm off next week, I'll try to pop on now doing some sketches. That would be so fun. So Cameron, thank you for popping in tonight. Linda, always a pleasure to see you. Lena, again, welcome. It's great having you in here. Hope to see you come back and join us again. And for anybody else watching, I always appreciate you. And Janice was in the house as well. Um, guys, you're awesome. I appreciate you. Having a great, great rest of your night. Hey, what time is it? It's after 11. Oh my gosh, I I was only gonna go to 10:45. Time flies when you're having fun. Alright guys, take care, have a great night. Peace and live creatively. See you soon. I'm trying to find the finish button. I just made my face bigger. Whoa! Good night, guys.