INKing Out Loud - Sketching

Hey everybody, hope you're having an awesome Friday night. It is 10:34 PM. Oh my gosh, I didn't know it was so late. Um, I see Mickey and Becky in the house. Hope you guys are doing awesome. I'm popping on just for a few minutes here. I'm gonna I didn't do any sketching today. It's been kind of a pretty busy day, but I'm excited to do some sketching before I go to bed. And, um, I think I'm going to sketch some flower type stuff. It's a change of pace. Sometimes it's good just to interject and do something different, step out way outside of your comfort zone. Flowers are definitely not in my comfort zone, but spring is here. I've been inspired. Let me adjust my camera. Boom. And, um, Chip's here. Good to see you, Chip. So you guys are awesome. I'd like to play just a little video of my favorite flower that I actually grow right here in front of my house. It's the iris. So I'm going to play a video in a second. I have 8x8 sheet of Fabriano watercolor paper, so I'm gonna work on this tonight. I'm gonna start with a Sharpie, and we're just gonna play, just have fun for a few minutes and all that good stuff. Let me know how you guys are doing. Hope you're having an awesome, awesome Friday. I was blessed today to have a former student come in and be a guest speaker for some of my classes, and It was awesome. She was amazing. The kids listened, focused, asked her questions. She's going to school to be a civil engineer. So it was really, really inspirational for me to have her come in and talk. So good stuff. Like ending the week on a high note. Tips like poppies. Becky's like, always fun to mix things up. Yeah, let me show you guys a short video. Let me pull it on camera here. So it's just, uh, these are irises that I gotta hit the tab here. I started growing them in the other house I lived in. They're really cool, deep purple violet, almost black color. Love them so much that I transplanted them, brought them to my new place. I guess we've been here 6 years, 7 years. They're really cool. So let me show you this. It's just a short video, so enjoy. I just have to figure out how to start it. Here we go. Hopefully you can hear it. There is some music, I think. Awesome. So there you go. Those are some of the irises in front of my house. Yeah, I'm obsessed with taking pictures of them, I admit it. They're just starting, the buds are starting to show now, so I'm thinking maybe next week I'm going to start seeing some of the flowers coming out. Pretty cool stuff. So I thought it would be fun just to, let me just do some sketching. You guys don't really see me sketch flowers, and honestly I don't sketch them that often. I know Chip is in the house. Chip has been doing some amazing acrylics of flowers. So Chip, if you're still here, man, love, love, love, and love your paintings. They are so beautiful. So great, great stuff. All right, let's put on some music. Let me do some sketching. Let me know if you have questions, comments. I think Heather is in the house. Great to see you. Mickey says they are beautiful. Yeah, what I love about them, uh, I love the color. I honestly don't know like what the scientific name is or even what the common name is, but they're really cool. So I'm going to pull up an image, put some music on. I'm going to actually pull up a photo and kind of look at something as I sketch. So let me just— I should have left it open. Oh, here we go. Let's see which one. And my idea is really just to sketch something in my style. Quick, loose, fun. I've pulled up a picture. I'm just gonna use this one. Let's just do some sketching for a few minutes, guys. Again, it's all about being playful. Just wanna make sure— this Sharpie was uncapped all night, so I'm just trying to get it— the ink running a little bit. There we go. So why am I starting with a Sharpie? Because I'm gonna definitely add some, uh, ink to bleed. I have a purple Preppy here. I may even pull out a purple Flair pen. We'll do some ink bleeding. I don't know if I'll do the ink bleeding tonight or not, but we'll see. All right, cool. I'm talking too much. So as I'm sketching, actually looking more at the photograph than the actual paper. So I'm just kind of loosely holding the pen, looking at the photo. Looking at the paper quick, and I'm just trying to capture the overall outside kind of shape I'm seeing. Are the proportions perfect? Definitely not. Is it wonky? Yup. Which is cool. That's the way I want it to be. So I am not a— what's the word— botanical illustrator. Some of you guys are incredible. Sue Kane comes to mind. Sue, if you're on or watching a replay, shout out to you. Sue does what I feel like could be really amazing botanical flowers. So that's a rough outline. I'm just going to go through and sketch some of the other details I see happening. But the real magic with this is going to be when I bleed colors. Well, I shouldn't say magic, but the real fun. Hopefully it turns out to be— looks magical. It's the fun part for me. You kind of got these little— I don't know my flower terminology, but we have this thingy here. Anybody knows what it's called, feel free to put in the comments. I should do my do diligence and study the names of the parts. I honestly don't know what they're called. And we got something in the background here. Um, there's a lot of folding. It's almost like origami when I look at these. You know, origami has a lot of folds and stuff going on. I have a student who, she's really good at origami. She made a stegosaurus the other day, which was really cool. So I— she makes really mini origamis. That's a real another cool art form that I've never learned. It mesmerizes me. Alright, cool. Alright. I kind of got that. I'm going to just throw some color down. Let's have fun. I was looking for— I don't know where it is. I'm looking for my Preppy Purple Pen Pal. Perhaps it's somewhere here. I have a purple Preppy, but I don't know where it is. I might have some ink in here. I can tell, um, yeah, I got some of the ink, but I don't know where the pen is. So I might just switch out. I think I'm gonna switch out the blue and just put purple in here for now. Alright, cool. So I'm just switching out the preppy cartridge. Again, this is gonna be fun, quick, loose, see what happens. Need scissors to open this thingy. Welcome to the behind the scenes, the stuff that all of us artists do, just don't usually do it on camera. So I'm sorry about that, but I'm just changing some cartridges out. So you can see I really didn't plan. Uh, this goes here, this is going to go in here. So I'm just kind of screwing this on here. I think I gotta push it down, actually. Set it in place. There we go. Alright, so now I have some purple, or some violet in here. Let's see if it comes out. Might mix with a little blue, but that's okay. So the nib still has some of the blue ink. All right, cool. So I'm just throwing down some purple. I actually like the blue on there. Maybe I'll put the blue— I think I'm going to throw the blue back in here. So I'm taking out the violet and let's— I like the blue. I actually like the splatter that just happened. That's cool. Oh my God, that's going to be awesome. Actually, that was an accident, but I like it. Call it a happy accident. Look at how that's dripping down. That actually worked. That actually is really cool. Wow. I'm gonna zoom in. Look at that color, guys. That is awesome. I, I don't even want to touch it and let it dry for a sec. See if you guys have any questions or comments going on. Heather says good evening. Good evening to you. Mickey, I really like the water drops on the iris petals. Yeah, on that photograph, right? The stamen, maybe that is the stem, and that would be maybe this part here, right? I'm gonna go with you, Becky, because I really— I don't remember what it's called. Like, sounds right. Hey, Camera's House, good to see you. Um, so this is a Varsity, Pilot Varsity pen. Oops. I really love the Varsitys for bleeding ink, and it's really cool just to tap it down on the wet areas, and you can see just how it kind of spreads out in the wet areas. Let's break out some of that— bring back some of that blue. So this will be kind of ink wash that after it dries, I'll definitely come back with, um, my Sharpie or my Pilot pen and I'll add some, some more detail on it. I probably would add— probably going to add 2 or 3 different layers on this one. I kind of letting it dry a little bit because I don't want to make it too muddy. I do want to leave some nice white space on here also. Hope you guys are enjoying this. And again, it's, you know, it's really— it's good to step out of your comfort zone and stretch your creativity. Am I nervous about sketching this on live Facebook Live? Yeah. Or YouTube? Definitely. Because it's not my comfort zone. But I just want to show you, don't be afraid just to put stuff out there. And if you're having fun, you know, fun can be infectious. It can really catch on. And my— hopefully my attitude is really just spurring you guys just to get out there, give yourself a little kick in the butt, and just try something different. I mean, what's the worst that happens? This is cool. Actually, I'm going to add some— what are we going to bleed? Let's bleed some green Preppy. Here's that thing that happens with the Preppies. I pull the back of the pen off. Happens all the time with these. But let's just kind of come down here and just work on the stem a little bit. So I want this to dry. So I'm just throwing down a little bit of the green, dipping my brush in water, and we're just going to bleed it. I think Sap Green would have been a little bit better choice because it's more yellowy. But we'll go with this. One of the things I've noticed about a Preppy versus a Varsity, I feel like the Varsities are better to, to add on wet areas. Uh, the Preppies for me don't really bleed so well on a wet area. Whereas I just like taking the Varsity and just tapping it down, and you'll see. I'll do it here. You can just see how it bleeds. Heather says very organic. Yeah, that organic, that's a great word. So I guess, you know, if you're sketching stuff in nature, you want it to be organic, very, very loose. I mean, how many actually perfectly straight lines do we see in nature, right? Everything is— it's wonky, it's curvy, it flows. So I guess if you're sketching florals, you want that wonky, that curvy, like you said, the organic vibe to it. This is— I love the way this is drying right here. Let me zoom in. Pretty cool. Part of me wants to do this. Should I? I want to kind of blow it across the page. Yeah, no, I'm not going to. I'm going to leave it. I'm going to let it dry. There are other— definitely other lines happening in here for the petals. I'm going to try to play off of where I have some white spots, help that to shape maybe the petals. I want to bleed some purple down here. Let's try an old-school Flair pen. This is a purple Flair pen or marker. I just want to bleed some of that in here. I haven't used this pen yet, so— and see how it looks. And Flair pens also don't like to write on wet areas. And I'm just gonna stipple here, and I'm just gonna let it dry this way. Let it spread on its own and see what it does. I'm not even gonna brush it. I'm gonna break— bring back some of this blue. Hey Linda, good to see you. Hope all's well. Welcome. Mickey says love the effects of the Varsity pen. Interesting. Yeah, Varsity is a really— they're fairly inexpensive. Pilot makes the Varsity pen. You can get them in all different colors. Here's how the area is drying down here that I just added stipples. You can see here, that's how it's looking as it dries. Yeah, I'm gonna— I think I'm gonna leave it at this for tonight because after it dries, I want to come in, uh, probably with my Precise or even my Sharpie, and I want to define— let me zoom out— I want to define— let me zoom out again, I was close— I want to define some of the, um, kind of the petals that are happening here a little bit more. But I want to dry before I do that. So I'm going to leave this one as is. Something really interesting is happening, happening on here. Oh my God, look at this! I hope this shows up on camera. What the heck is going on? Um, I don't know if you guys can see this. I'm going to frame it out. Take a look right inside this frame. There's right here almost a gold color, greenish gold, right in there. I don't even know how that's happening. Uh, it's also happening here as it dries. Right. And again, I don't know if the camera is picking this up, but right in here is almost a gold-green color happening. Boom. And right up in here, this is actually really cool. I'll zoom in super— that's as tight as I can go with the zoom. Wow, I'm going to take my glasses off and look at that. What the heck? It's metallic too. I got to get this on camera. I, I don't know if you guys can see this. This is in person. This is really cool. I don't know what's going on. How the heck did that happen? I want to— that's something I'd like to try to recreate if possible. It's happening really big time in here also. It's hard to get it with the light though. I'm trying. Yeah, sorry guys, I don't think I'm getting it on camera. Um, It is really incredible though. Wow. Dang. I don't know what it is. It's awesome. Sorry, I'm geeky that way. This is the kind of stuff that I just love. I'll try to figure out how to get a picture of it. It's cool. Hey, Landon's House, great to see you. Jean's in the house, great to see you guys. I'm glad you're popping in, saying hello. Appreciate you guys. Um, this looks awesome, love the colors and the layering. Hey, thanks, Elena. So I'm stepping outside my comfort zone, guys. I'm trying to do— this is an iris. So definitely not architecture tonight, but, um, so you got to push yourself, step out sometimes. And I, I don't do florals or botanicals. Um, every once in a while I'll sketch or ink wash a flower, but I'm loving it. It's so much fun. Oh, you can see it, Becky. Thank you. Linda says you can see it. Oh, awesome. Yeah, the green gold, guys, it's— it is uber cool. I'm glad you saw it. Uh, this is really amazing how the ink does different things when it separates. Yeah, right? That's why it's fun just to play with different materials, because you never know what's going to happen. You know, I always say, um, You know, see the world in wondrous ways. You know, be curious and be playful. Be like Alice in Wonderland when she went down that rabbit hole and all these amazing and crazy creative things just happened. We have to be open just to try and be playful. Alright guys, I'm gonna let this dry. I'm gonna do one quick architectural sketch. I'll work on this again tomorrow at some point, but I do want it to dry and we'll add another layer. It'll probably have another layer of color, another layer of black on it, and then I think I'm even gonna bring in some— to finish it, I'm gonna bring in some colored pencils. So, you know, you guys know I love to use— I'm sure my pink will make it somewhere. Probably the turquoise will make it somewhere as well. And I do want a pop of yellow, so I'm not staying true to the colors that this is, and that's fine. I want to be playful with it. All right, let's do a quick architectural thingy. All right, switching gears. Boom. All right, so this was yesterday's falling water. If you guys watched, this is how it dried. It actually turned out interesting. I like it. You know, Linda had a really cool idea about— I think it was the preppy pen, the green. So I threw it on there, and I like the way it looks. Very cool. So I don't know what I'm going to sketch. Let's flip this over, zoom out a little bit. I'm going to clean up my desk here a little bit. What do I want to sketch? I'm just going to sketch— I'm going to do a bridge. You guys know I love doing this kind of perspective bridge view thingy. It's kind of a go-to. So let's just do a little, a little go-to and, um We'll play around with some weird colors on it. All right, we'll use my Sharpie here. Boom. Um, yeah, it sparkles, definitely. Interesting, the stem reminds me of you. Yeah, it does. So when I was sketching, I thought the same thing. I sketched bamboo. I sketched kind of— bamboo has like these nodules here. So, Linda, that's so funny you said that because when I sketch it, I thought the same thing. It's like bamboo. Very cool. All right, let's do a bridge perspective. I haven't done one in a while. Kind of my fun go-to sketch. Do this really fast. Some of you guys out there own some of these bridge perspective sketches. They're always fun to create because they're always different. Different colors, different styles. Sometimes I'll have an arch like this, sometimes I won't put an arch on there. So I guess if someone asked, asked me what is my go-to sketch, it's going to be this kind of wonky perspective bridge view. So I'm going to block it out with Sharpie. I like this song. I think we'll just— well, uh, throw some watercolor on here tonight. I'm trying to keep it on camera. Let me do it this way. There we go. Cool, so I'm just throwing down some different colors on here quick. Fast, loose, fun. Hey, take care, Mickey. Have a great night. Thank you for joining. Appreciate it so much. So I'm just pulling out some of this structure with this turquoise color. Excuse me. Okay. Oof, sorry about that. All right, cool. So I threw some color down. I'll let it dry. I'll throw in a little bit of ink and I'm going to wrap up. This is the type of sketch where after it dries, I'll come back and I'll add some more ink on top of it. But I do want to just— let's sketch in some of the cables on this bridge. Lots of times I will have more than one sketch going, especially if I'm waiting for something to dry. So I'm just sketching kind of the, the cables on the side of the bridge here. We have some in the background here as well. So you can kind of see that's what I was just sketching here, just indicate cables happening. And then I'm going to just sketch in some of the X cross bracing here. It's pretty awesome. I love the way this, um, I love the way watercolor dries. You can kind of see, I'll zoom in a little bit. I'm going to keep a hard edge here. I like it. Right there. You see some granulation happening where— right down in this area. I really love what's happening with the colors right here. Pretty neat, right? Am I the only one who thinks that watching watercolor dry is incredible? It's so fun. Little kind of splotches happening here. I love the pops of red right here. Looks pretty cool. I like the colors happening right here with the yellow, the orangey, the blues coming together. So there you go. I think this is going to dry pretty nicely. Focus, focus. There we go. Awesome. All right guys, all right, I think I'm gonna wrap up. If you have any other questions or comments, let me know. I appreciate you guys watching so, so much. Let's see how the— let's see how the other iris thing is drying, and then we'll, uh, sign off. Zoom out so you can see that. You can see— yeah, you can see. I like to also create the idea of reflections, maybe like a wet road surface. So you'll see lots of times I'll just wet the area and I'll pull, kind of pull the paint down to help create the idea of maybe some reflections going on. Um, this could use some— a pop of Preppy Yellow on it. Where's my Preppy Yellow? Yeah. We're going to take some Preppy Yellow and throw it on here because I, I love the orangey yellow of the Preppy Yellow. I feel like I need a little bit of pop happening with that yellow color. You can kind of see it right here. Boom. I'm going to throw some here in the foreground as well. I might bleed that one. Let's bleed that a little bit here. I don't know if you can see it. I just did it here. And then I want to add some I like to do things in threes, so I have 1, 2, and then maybe something— my brain's saying maybe to add something to pull us maybe this way, maybe up in the corner here. Sorry, so right up in the corner I threw some as well. Alright, let's see the iris. Where is it? And this is how the iris is drying. It's not done. I definitely have to add some more to it, but It's kind of where we're going to leave off with it for tonight. Still some wet spots. I think it's a fun start. All right guys, so we went from botanical to architectural all in. I don't even know how long I've been on. Um, I appreciate you guys so, so much. I hope you have an amazing Saturday. Thank you for the likes and the comments I see in the chat. Um, Linda, it was great seeing you. Becky, great seeing you here as well. Elena was in the house, welcome. Elena is one of our newest members, so it's always great seeing Elena pop on. Um, Jean was in the house. Jean, it was great that you checked in. Mickey was here. Cameron popped on. Heather was in the house. And Chip I think I got everybody. Thank you guys so much, I appreciate y'all. Have an amazing rest of your Friday, have a fantastic Saturday, and I'll be on again at some point over the weekend. I'm not sure when, but yeah, thank you so much. Keep paying it forward with your creativity, guys. Uh, it goes a long way, it definitely does. Peace and live creatively. See you guys soon. Have a great, great night. By the way, this, this gold color is blowing my mind. Holy cow. I gotta go back, back and watch the replay because I don't know what I added, how that happened, but it's really cool. Take care, guys. Where's the button? Cameron, have a great night. Good seeing you, man. Oh, it's over here.