Iris I could Sketch Forever

Hey there, hope you're doing well. Happy Memorial Day. Uh, today is November— oh my gosh, May 26, 2025. Um, popping on quick, I want to wrap up this iris painting that I started yesterday, so, um Yeah, I think it'd be fun to kind of work on this a little bit. Just get this into position. I'm over on Instagram and YouTube and Facebook. Yes, and on TikTok. All those amazing, amazing technological devices. It's awesome to be able to live stream and just kind of bring something I love doing and putting it out there and hopefully making people feel good, inspiring, encouraging to, um, sketch something, paint something. Just get out of your shell and, and do it. There are no wrong answers. Sometimes I feel like, you know, if, if I hear people say this all the time, they're like, oh, I wish I could draw, or I wish I could paint. You know what, I wish I could do those things too, and I do them. You just gotta do it, um, and don't be so hard on yourself. Just put it out there. Put pen to paper, pencil to paper, color to paper. It doesn't matter. It's just about really having fun and enjoying the journey and the process. So, um, that's my two cents. All right, so I'm going to finish this iris up. Let me just head over here. I want to put some music on so I can get that in my ear as I'm talking to you guys. All right, cool. All right, so great to see everybody. If you're watching on TikTok, hello TikTokers! I can't see your names, but I appreciate you watching. Uh, feel free to like this. I see Sally on Instagram. Sally, hope you're doing well. Great to see you. So let's wrap this iris up. I titled this as, uh, something like Iris I Could Always Sketch, so I'm always trying to come up with iris puns. So I want to add some more purple and just darken some of this up in places. So I let it dry overnight. These mixed media iris paintings for me are about different layers. So we're just going to add some more purple in here. We'll throw down some pink in a bit. Maybe we'll add some yellow. And we're gonna— my goal is to wrap this one up in about 10 minutes. So, um, thumbs up from Sally. Thank you for the thumbs up, uh, thumb, thumbs up. I appreciate that. This is cool. If you're watching on YouTube, I would love for you to like this, subscribe to if you haven't, give me a comment, say hello. Same thing with Facebook. Let's spread the word. My main goal really, guys, with this art and sketching stuff is really just to, uh, just to be an encourager and just share, share with what I'm doing. Not because of what I'm doing is spectacular, it really isn't, but I just want to show you guys that— I'll just show you how fun it is just to kind of mess around with ink and watercolor and Sharpies, colored pencils. So I love how dark that looks there. It looks really good. It's kind of cool. Awesome. If you watched yesterday, I threw down some yellow watercolor on top and it looks really awesome. I'm going to zoom in so you can see that a little bit closer. There we go. Let's move in. So here's the yellow I threw down on top of some of the ink from yesterday. I I really like the way it's drying on there. Looks pretty cool. Maybe we'll just scoot this down a little bit. I'll keep it zoomed in as I'm working on it. So it is Memorial Day. Um, we are blessed to have all those that have served for us, so shout out to people that are currently serving as well. Appreciate, appreciate it so much. And Memorial Day is also the unofficial start to summer, right? So we are definitely in the countdown with wrapping up school for the year, and that's very cool. I love teaching, but I also enjoy breaks. A lot of people think because I'm a teacher I do nothing in the summer. That, in my case, is 100% incorrect. I need to work in the summer to make money and pay bills. Um, so I will be definitely working this summer, trying to, trying to get a couple of things together. So whenever people tell me, oh, you're a teacher, you have it so good, you do nothing in the summer, you only work 10 months, um, yeah, but I am not getting paid those months I'm not working. So I'm just putting it out there. I had a guy tell me once, he's like, you are so, you are so overpaid as a teacher, you guys do nothing. He was like ranting on me. Um, I kind of just bit my tongue. This gentleman who I really don't like to speak with anymore. Um, this gentleman has no clue. He's complaining about, oh, they— oh, they attack your— we're paying your taxes. Well, yeah, I'm paying my taxes too. So anyway, I'm not here to get on any rants, but sometimes I really didn't appreciate the teaching profession until I actually started doing it and all the work that goes into it. So shout out to any of my fellow educators out there. I'm throwing out some pink on top of this as well. Hey, Chip is on Facebook! Chip, great to see you. Yes, see you soon, Chip. I— you have no idea, my friend, how excited I am that we are going to be getting together when you're up this way, uh, I'm so excited to be spending some time with you in New York City. It's going to be amazing. And safe travels. I know you're headed up this way this week, and safe travels to you, to you guys. Oh, look at these colors! Oh my gosh, I love that pink. Wow. Hey, Danavision is on Instagram! Danavision, great to see you. Welcome. And for anybody watching on TikTok, hey, on TikTok, I'm sorry, I don't see your names. I can't give shoutouts, but I know we're streaming live. Um, feel free to leave a comment on TikTok. I would love to get feedback, or if you have questions, and be sure to like this. That'd be so cool. I'm— guys, I'm really liking the way this is looking. I'm almost at a point where I don't know, um, I don't know how much more color I'm going to add. I kind of like the white space on this. I feel like I could use maybe a little more. Maybe we'll throw a little, maybe a little pink in here. We'll just kind of bleed it. So when I say I'm bleeding ink, all I'm doing is I'm literally just Taking my paintbrush, putting in some water. The water is dirty. I love to use dirty water when I'm watercoloring, um, especially when I'm doing industrial architecture, like old metal rusty structures. I love having— I love having that kind of dirty water. Just adds to the, to the industrial vibe I go for. Grungy. I like to call it grungy, that grungy kind of look. There we go. I just, I feel like I need a little more color in there. It was a little too white. Let's pop this here. Maybe we'll— so I'm literally just tapping my pen on top of the water and letting the ink do its magic, come right out of the nib. There we go. I'm going to zoom out just a little so Instagram guys, you guys can see it maybe a little better. Boom, there you go. All right, so we're breaking out some ink today. I'm just— I'm stippling now. Stippling is really just— well, I'll show you. Stippling is just kind of adding these dots. It just adds another kind of texture to the sketch. I'm really digging this one, guys. It's a lot of fun. I love— I'm going to move this a little to the left so TikTokers can— I mean, Instagrammers can see this. Pretty cool. So I love the way this is puddling right here. That purple is just kind of puddling. I'm going to let it stay there and let it dry like that. Um, yeah, this is, this is so cool, guys. I know I already said this, but I actually, I'm loving this. This is, this is a cool one. You know what, and it's okay to love what you're, uh, what you're creating, whether it's baking or cooking or dancing or arting, or, you know, art— arting like painting or sketching or drawing or sculpting, or it doesn't matter. It's okay to love it. And I sometimes— I feel like we get lost, we get— we lose our way trying to strive for a perfect end result, and we miss out on the fun, the fun of creating. You know, it's— for me, this, this is not about— it's not 100% about point Z, the end. I love what happens in between A, point A, and point Z. That's the creative journey, the creative experience. It has its ups, it has its downs, it has its fun, it has its moments of, ugh, what the heck am I doing? And you know what, for— I just think that is a beautiful process to go through. Um, we learn a lot through that process. We learn what we like, we learn what we don't like. It's all about being playful. You really need to adopt a playful attitude when you're, when you're a creative. Also, you don't— for me, I don't want to create in a vacuum, and I don't mean Dyson. I love my Dyson. Um, not that kind of vacuum, but it's really rewarding to create around a group of other creators. There's an energy and a synergy, a chemistry and a vibe that happens when you are creating with, with, uh, peers and, you know, other people that kind of have that creative idea or vision or aptitude. And it, it doesn't have to be with someone doing the same style or arts or a medium either. You know, I'm, I'm doing mixed media right now, right? But it would be cool for me to be in a studio right now with someone sculpting because I might riff off what they're doing and incorporate it into what I'm doing, and vice versa. There's a chemistry, a connection, um, kind of a magic that happens when we coexist and create together. Um, it can, it can fuel you in different ways. And don't get me wrong, I do, I do love moments of quietness and solitude also when I'm creating. So I think there's a recipe there, a recipe of some solitude mixed with a dash of creative community with a, uh, maybe a pinch of creative research. I'm making this up on the whim. I must be hungry. I'm talking about recipes. Um, it'd be cool. Note to self: come up with a creative, creative fuel recipe, something like that. All right, I'm going to dip in. I want to throw some more yellow on here. So I'm going to grab the yellow watercolor. Hey, Sketches and Some, I see that you're on Instagram. Great to see you, hope all's well. All right, so back to the cooking metaphors. I'm going to throw down some lemon yellow. Why lemon? For me, adds a little zest to the painting, a little bit of brightness, just like when you're cooking with lemons, right? You got that kind of pop of tartness and bitterness and zestiness. So we're going to throw some down on top of this. Are my irises— are irises really this color? And probably not, and I don't care. That's part of the creative beauty, right? Experiment. Let's go back to the playfulness. I'm just having fun. That's what it's about, guys. Just break out the fun. Don't stress about the end result. It, it'll happen. Something will happen. You might not love it, you may love it, but you'll definitely learn from it. Cool. Look at the way that color is just kind of sitting there on top, blending and joining underneath. I love what's happening here. I'm gonna try to let it dry and puddle like that. This one's looking— this is fun. You know what, I want to do some splatter on here. Uh, I am going to do— I'm actually going to take my Preppy pen, but how do I want to do this? I'm actually going to take the ink cartridge out, and because I want to splatter— I love the color that's inside this yellow Preppy pen. I like when it's concentrated, so that's why I took it out. I'm gonna put some on here. All right, this takes a little bit of bravery, so take a deep breath if you're watching with me. Take a deep breath. Take a deep breath. I'm gonna put some ink on the end of my brush here. All right, let's see. And I'm gonna see if I can splatter on here. There we go. All right, so I'm literally just splattering some of that on there. I like it. So there you go. So I know Instagram— I think Instagram lags a little bit behind what I'm doing, so stick with it, guys. You'll see the splatter happening. There you go on Instagram. Hey, TikTok world, if you're TikToking with me, give me a— give me a heart. Let me know you're watching this. Give me a comment. Sketches and some holding my breath. Yes, let's build up the drama. Um, this is so fun, guys. I'm really liking the colors on this. I'm going to zoom out a little bit so we can get a more of an overview. So Chip has some cool comments. Chip is saying, I taught in a Title I elementary school for years, loved it. I felt they became my kids. Teachers are drastically underpaid. Yeah, you know, um, there's something really special about teaching. Um, I, I love it. I love being, um, an encourager. I, I feel like I've become a mentor to some students over the years, um, ones that have graduated, you know, 2, 3 years ago, still in touch. They ask to come in and be guest speakers in my classroom. For me, that is really rewarding to have students want to come back and do that. Um, some are doing architecture, some are doing totally other things, and that's cool. My job as a teacher is to open a doorway and let my students try the world of architecture and design. If they like it, awesome. If they don't, that's okay. I just want them to learn and give it a shot. All right, cool, guys. I really love how this is looking. This one might be in the home stretch. And all art, in some ways, our stories by their very nature are incubators for meaning. Chip, that is awesome. I'm gonna put that on screen. I like that. Here we go. That's really good, Chip. I love it. All right guys, what else should I do on this one? Hmm. So when I get to a point where I find myself thinking too much, that's kind of my brain saying, all right, this one's almost done, or you need to step— or I need to step away, but I am not stepping away. This one is going to be wrapped up. Um, I do want to add some colored pencil, and I'm going to break out some neon pink, some chartreuse, and maybe we'll pull out a little bit of neon yellow. And let's I haven't used this color in a while. This is, um, the one I just dropped is— is this Sunshine Yellow? Yes, Sunshine Yellow. So I think I'm going to break out some of these colors, throw them down on there. It should be dry when I do that, but I'm going to maybe— let's work on the stem a little bit. Let me move this up. We'll hit the stem since that's fairly dry. We'll throw some color on there. Very, very cool. If you're watching on TikTok, hey TikTok people, don't you think I forgot about you guys? I just can't see— I can't see your names. I'm actually streaming on YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram all at the same time here. Something I need to— I need to get a little better system so I can actually see my TikTok screen, which is on my phone. All right, so I'm throwing down chartreuse. I love chartreuse, one of my favorite colors ever. You're probably looking at— well, these are my favorite color pencil colors right here. I'll show them to you guys. Um, so these are— this is a cool color called Process Red. I wish I knew where the name came from. I love the name. So Process Red. I think we have Sky Blue. I could be wrong. Sky Blue Light. Uh, my probably number one favorite color in watercolor or colored pencil or Sharpie Creative Markers is like an aqua color. This is Light Aqua. Sunshine Yellow. Neon Pink. Neon Yellow. Chartreuse. And then this is actually just a cream color. I really like the cream color. And here, um, I just bought these recently when I was out in Charlotte visiting two amazing people, Chip and Rue. Um, it was a life-changing visit. Those guys are incredible human beings. But anyway, we went to Oh my gosh, I'm forgetting the name of the art store. Jerry's? I think it's called Jerry's Art-O-Rama. And I just picked up these colored pencils. I never used this brand before, and I want to give it a try. I think I got the store right. All right, all right, let's see. Let's throw some more color on here. Let me see if I can get closer for the— you guys on TikTok. Is that better? All right, TikTokers, I hope that's a better view. I'm not sure. So this is some neon yellow. After it totally dries, I will come back with my Sharpie and add some final details. Um, we will not see that here live, I don't think. Oh my God, I love this neon yellow. It's like using a highlighter, which you can definitely use. I have highlighters here as well. I have a couple, a few different colors here. Don't be afraid to use highlighters on your art. It's not, it's not just for highlighting books or text. I just got like a TikTok thing to co-host with someone. I'm like, huh, no thank you. So I am just kind of touching some yellow here and there. I don't want to get too crazy. I don't know if I'm going to do what I did with this iris I did last week, I cut it out and put it on black paper. I don't know if I'm gonna do that with this one here and— or not. Oh, this is cool. I put some yellow up here. Let me see, just shifting this over on Instagram so you guys can see it better. Um, I put some yellow highlighter, kind of— it's almost backlighting this part of the flower here, and we'll throw down— we'll throw down some neon pink. Um, personally, I like to usually add colored pencil at the end because once it's down, I really can't paint over it or bleed ink over it because it's, you know, it's pencil, it's waxy, it won't— the ink or paint won't stick to it. So I like to come back at the end and add my color pencil touches. These mixed media— I love doing mixed media. Sketches, or sometimes I call them sketch paintings because it's a little bit of both. Yeah. Oh my gosh. All right, this is— that is so fun. Wow, very cool. Jerry's is correct. Thank you, Chip, I appreciate that. What a cool store that was. I would— next time I'm back in Charlotte, we got to go there again. That would be amazing. Next time I'll bring, I'll bring some, bring more money. Um, and then we're going to use some Sunshine Yellow. Check out this color. Look how this color just makes you feel good. And honestly, that's how I pick colors a lot when I'm When I'm, when I'm painting or inking or sketching, I just kind of go with my gut feeling. Um, how, how did the colors make me feel at that moment in time? So, you know, that's kind of not a secret or anything, but that's kind of how I pick colors. Oh yes, this color looks cool on top of the purple. Wow. Wow, this is so cool, man. I am so glad I decided to do this right now. So I had a pretty productive day on this Memorial Day. I did some— well, first I attempted to fix my lawn mower. I have an electric lawn mower and some— one of the wires is going wonky and I figured out a cheat code that if I take the COVID off where the wires are, it works. Yeah, after I took the thing apart a couple times and bought a replacement part. And anyway, you don't want to hear about my lawnmower woes. But anyway, I did that, did some yard work, trimmed the hedges, um, had a nice lunch with my, my better half, my my much better half, um, celebrating our, man, 24th wedding anniversary today. How cool is that? 24 years. Wow. God bless her for putting up with me all these years. It takes a lot of patience because my brain, as you probably know, is all over the place. Um, so we had a nice lunch together And you know what, we're pretty chill people. We actually had lunch at Panera and it was such a delicious sandwich. We sat outside. I don't need to do anything fancy or fussy. I'm so casual. It's the simple things, right? Just that finding that time just to even connect and sit down. That's what it's about. And then we went to a little park I'm scouting out 'cause I might do some sketching at this park. There's a cool old train station building that's been converted. Into a, like, a little public use building. Where's my chartreuse? Let's, let's try this one. What is that? What do they actually call this? This brand is, um, Caran d'Ache. They call it spring green. It kind of looks like chartreuse. All right, I do want to Let me see if my Sharpie works here. All right, it's not dry enough yet. All right, I gotta wait till this dries. I want to do some— irises have these kind of— I can't sketch it because Yeah, I actually might need a new Sharpie. This, this one might be drying out. All right, so I'll come back and do that later. All right, I'm going to put this out there to the social media channels comments. Should I— option A— should I cut out the iris when it's done? Like I did with this one. Can make a bouquet, that'd be cool. Option B, leave it like it is. Or Option C, add a background behind it. And I don't know what I would do for the background. Maybe some— maybe we'll throw around some aqua or turquoise watercolor paint in the background. And, or maybe, I don't know, I'm thinking aquas in my brain, or maybe aqua color pencil. I'm not sure. Hey, D-Ray, welcome! Thank you so much, I appreciate that. Thank you so, so much. All right, guys, pretty cool, right? So I hope you're enjoying this. Let me zoom out a little bit. And we don't have to decide right now either. I might just leave it and come back to it, but in my brain, this is pretty much done other than coming back in and adding some more detail after it dries. We'll pull out some stuff with the Sharpie here, and I don't want to overdo it with color, so I think I have enough color on there. Go with your gut. Go with your gut. My gut says no more color. All right, I'm gonna zoom in and pan around so you guys can see the details of it as it's drying here. So I'll just kind of start at the top. You could see I have this underneath because I like to, to, uh, add watercolor or bleed ink at an angle. So my, my notebook was at an angle. Let's zoom— let me pan down so you can kind of see some of the details. I like the splatters. Splatter for me adds a sense of energy, so you'll see me splatter, um, on my New York City sketches a lot. It's just that, that in the moment, boom, that burst of kind of energy. So I like splattering, uh, paint on here, or ink in this case. Chip said option B so we can see the splatter. Option B was adding a background, right? Hmm. All right, Chip. All right, Chip. I'll take the Undercouncil. I'm going to move up so we can see more detail here. You can really see the, the pop of the yellow highlighter. Boom! Look at the texture that's happening in here where I added that yellow. It's picking up a really cool texture from the paper. Let me get even closer. I'm gonna bring this up. Hopefully the camera stays focused. There we go. Do you see that texture happening? Sorry, my hands are a little shaky, but there's a really cool texture happening there. I'm gonna let this kind of run up the page a little bit. All right, sorry, where were we? We were looking here, and then let's go up a little bit more. Instagram peeps, I know I'm cutting off a lot of image. D-Ray, maybe your gut will be able to decide once you have the Sharpie on it, you know, a clearer view. Yeah, D-Ray, that's really— that's actually really true also. So I think I'll do in that order. I think I'll wait, throw a Sharpie down, and then we'll, uh, hit the background. Awesome. And let me go pan up so you Is it pan up or down? I don't know. Let's move the sketch up the screen. I always get that confused when we're on computers. When you say scroll up or scroll down, I— does that mean when you say scroll up, does that mean that you're moving the mouse wheel up and the image goes down? Or you scroll it down and the image goes up? I, I don't even know. I have no idea. All right, and then here's— I actually really like the stem on here. I love the, the greens. And I love that streak of yellow on there, kind of cool. All right, let's zoom out, get an overview, and we're going to wind down for the day. So let me zoom out and then we'll kind of move this down a little bit. So here's an overview of it. I like you, like you. And then let's kind of put this one next to it. This is one I did last week, so I, I kind of use the same idea. Be kind of cool if I cut it out, made like a bouquet. My goal is to do at least one iris, um, mixed media sketch or painting or sketch painting a week. They're in full bloom. I usually get about— if I'm lucky, I'll get 3 to 4 weeks before they start leaving us. Um, but I'm inspired to paint them now. That looks kind of cool, right? Like, imagine, look, a little bouquet happening. Says thank you for zooming in. You're welcome, of course. Yeah, yeah, always feel free to in the comments say, hey, can you zoom in please? I don't always see them, but I could always— if I do, I can always, uh, try to, try to accommodate. Um, you know what I want to do actually, now that I'm looking at this from a distance? I kind of did it on this one. I like the effect I did. Bringing the neon pink down the stem. I want to do that on here too. For me, it's kind of— it's almost like putting a ribbon on a package and kind of tying up loose ends in a way. So we'll zoom in, I'll show you what I mean. All right, so literally I kind of started doing it here. So I just want to take that neon pink and we're going to trail it kind of down this edge a little bit. There's something about it when I like to do this on a lot of my sketches. You can definitely notice it on my skyline sketches. I just kind of like to wrap one color kind of wrap a line somewhere around either the whole sketch or part of a sketch just to tie it up, tie up those loose ends. So there you go. Boom, boom shakalaka. All right guys, one final look, and I think that's a wrap for today. Um, thank you so much for watching. Again, if you like this and want to see more live sketching or want to know more about my workshops and things like that, um, I'm planning on having a New York City in-person sketch get-together, or sketch workshop rather, in, uh, probably July this summer. So more information coming soon about that. It'd be fun to get like 10 people out there and we'll do a little workshop together. We'll hang out, sketch. I'll do some instruction. We'll eat some hot dogs from the hot dog cart. No, whatever. Um, have a coffee or something. I'm not sure. It'll be fun though. Um, anyway, be sure to like, subscribe wherever you are watching this. Comments help, liking helps, subscribing really helps. I want to spread this message of Creativity for positivity. I feel like we just got to get more positive vibes out there, and just by creating and sharing, we can definitely do that. All right, I'm Jason Nicholas Nicholas from the Inkspired Life, where I love sketching architecture, urban sketching, and sketching irises. Um, remember, you too can capture the world around you, whether it's a building or a flower. One line at a time. Peace out. Enjoy the rest of your day.