Live Sketch & Chill : Friday 6.27.25

Hey everybody, happy, um, Friday, June 27th, 2025. Hope you're having a great, great day. It is 9:34 here in, uh, the Garden State, aka New Jersey. Yeah, it's where I'm from, and, um, I like it here. I like New Jersey, and I love where I live. I am so lucky to be close to New York City, about an hour and 15-minute bus ride away. Uh, I'm close to the beaches, the Jersey Shore, about maybe an hour and a half, 2 hours away. Um, Man, we got Pennsylvania here. We have so many cool things, so it's just an awesome location, uh, to be in. But I'm Jason Nicholas Nicholas with The Inkspired Life, where I love sketching architecture and urban sketching. Um, sketching the world around me, capturing buildings and architecture, is a way I process the world. Sometimes, uh, I feel things like— I feel like things are chaotic and crazy, and just by simplifying everything down into lines, I can process the world easier, process it in different ways, embrace and enjoy the moments in different ways also. So if you're having a great day, here's what I want to do tonight. So welcome to the Friday night, uh, what am I calling this, sketch livestream, sketch and chill, something like that. Um, so yeah, let's— let me do a quick show and tell. I want to show you a couple things here that I've sketched recently, and then we'll do a quick sketch. I think I'm going to practice a Statue of Liberty torch. Um, I want to start loading myself up with a bunch of these torches to bring to Central Park this summer and see if I could, um, sell some. That would be so fun. And I figured with Fourth of July coming, this would be really cool. So maybe we'll do a practice, some torch sketches. If you're watching live and know where you're watching from, I would love to say hello to you. All right, a couple things on the desk. Let me do, uh, let me zoom out wider. Well, can't really see too much more. I did zoom out wide. I just have a bunch of pens here. Um, I have a Moleskine journal here. I'll show you. I have my Lockbie folio, which I love, love, love. I also have some Sharpie creative markers here, and I broke, broke out this box. I don't usually have this out too much when I'm sketching, but I wanted to take it out. And I'm not really sure what I'm going to use to sketch tonight, so I just want to put a bunch of things out here so I can just grab and go. If I sometimes have to stop to think about what I want to use to sketch with, what material it slows down my brain, and my brain when I'm sketching and creating is usually pretty rapid-fire. So I just want to be able to grab and go. So I like to call it grab-and-go creativity. I know, genius, right? No, I'm just kidding. Um, I have this ArtBin, so I had this— I've had this thing since college. This bin is amazing. It still looks pretty new, but we'll— you might pull out some things in here. We'll see. All right, so thank you for joining me. Let's, uh, let's do a quick show and tell of some recent things I sketched in New York City, and then we'll do a Statue of Liberty practice sketch. And I see Chip is in the house. Chip, it is awesome to see you, man. Hope all is well with you. Always great to see you. So let's start with this Moleskine. If you can see the name there, Moleskine. I love Moleskine journals, love their products. Yeah, 100%. I— the first sketchbooks I ever, ever used carrying around with me were Moleskins. They were these size pocket sketchbooks. I could pull some out on another show, some of my old ones. But I always— I shouldn't say always— 90% of time, 95% of time, I'll take one of these to the city with me. And it fits really nice in my pocket. But this one is cool. This one actually folds out like an accordion. It's like an accordion journal. Um, accordion to me, I really love these things. Yeah, I know, silence. I'm out of practice with dad jokes. School ended last Friday, so I gotta keep, keep working on them over the summer. Um, let's show you what's in this, this accordion journal. So this, um, this is not from last weekend, this is from last year. Grand Central Terminal. And what I like to sometimes do with these accordion journals is I like to have a continuous line. I don't know if I did it in this one. Sometimes I'll just take a line and it continues through all of the pages to connect all the sketches together. But this was kind of a cool one, just captured some sights around Grand Central. Some exterior stuff. Get the Chrysler kind of in the background, some details inside as well. Boom. What else do we have in here? Um, got the Queensborough Bridge. That was a whole separate sketching adventure one day with a the tram kind of up there. And then this is back in Central— in Grand Central Terminal. One of the, uh, there's the iconic clock right there. I'm really cool. And this, I don't remember the address of this. This was a really cool indoor atrium, garden atrium. I wish I could remember the name of the building. I'm sorry, I don't remember off top of my head. Really cool space. I took videos, um, I'll, I'll show that in more detail another day as well. Um, here's what I sketched this past Saturday when I was in the city. Um, this is called the Vessel. It's in Hudson Yards. I love Hudson Yards. Oh my God, it is such a cool area, such like futuristic architecture. It has the High Line in that area. The High Line is an old converted railway, that elevated railway, that is now probably the most spectacular urban adaptive reuse park I have ever been in. Wow. But the Vessel is one of the iconic architectural elements in Hudson Yards, and I tried to capture just a piece of it here, but I like the accordion format because it allows me to do like these really long tall drawings. Maybe actually, maybe I'll do a Statue of Liberty torch on this tonight as practice. And then another view for— in Hudson Yards, I captured, um, some architecture here. See if I can fit it all on screen. I think I can get most of it. So this is just an example of capturing just part of a building. Just, I really wanted the shapes of the buildings. Look at the windows, there aren't any, there's really no details. I'm just hinting at a window grid, some hatch lines there where the shadows are. So it's very, very simple, not a lot of detail, but I want to just capture the verticality and kind of the angles that I saw of the buildings. So that's kind of cool. Awesome. So that's what I have in this bad boy, and then I'll show you another sketch I did. Um, yep, so I have my Lockbie folio with me. I took a really cool workshop. Um, check out Dana Vision on Instagram. Shout out to Dana Vision. Dana— Dana is a really cool, um artist, urban sketcher, and she did a really fun workshop on how to include graphics and lettering into your, into your artwork, into your urban sketching scenes. I loved it. Uh, it was, it was really, really fun, something I've never done before. So we did a kind of a practice sheet and we put letters in there and just had fun. But here's the sketch. We were located um, at Little Island in New York City. Little Island is really cool, another great use, adaptive reuse project, taking old piers, kind of redoing the area into an elevated park right over, right on the water. And here's kind of, here's the sketch I did in that workshop, really just bold graphics. These kind of tulip shapes, that's the actual shapes of the structure supporting the park. The park is built on this, around this, these structures. And then I got the graphic, it says Little Island. So that was really fun as well. So it's always cool to step out of your comfort zone, try new things, take workshops if you can, watch YouTube, find different inspiration ideas out there. Cool stuff, right? Awesome. All All right, so, um, let's do a sketch. I think I'm going to practice a Statue of Liberty torch. I have just a couple of examples of ones I've done here. We'll get a little zoom in here. Boom. I'll get closer so you can really see it. These are just two different ones. Um, every time I do the torch, it's different, and that's cool. I would be really, really bored of sketching the same thing exactly the same every time. I am not a Xerox machine. I am not a copier machine. I'm a human, right? So we're all humans out there. Well, hopefully you're all humans watching this. Um, I don't know, maybe a few dolphins are out there watching. Shout out to the dolphins, hope you're doing well. Um, but right, we all have individuality. Uniqueness. And that's why I love sketching the same subject, but it comes out differently because I want each one to be different. So that's fun for me. All right, so let's do another one. I don't know if I want to do it on this size paper. Do I want to try a— I did a really cool one of these that I gave to, to my friend Michael, AKA Roo. A really cool accordion version of the Statue of Liberty torch. Probably the best Statue of Liberty torch I've ever done, and it was an honor to, to, uh, be able to give it away to an amazing, amazing human being. You know, let's try it. We're gonna try in the accordion. We're going for it, guys. This is where we gotta let go of the fear factor. So let's just spread out this a little bit. Um, actually, pro tip: if you're using accordion journals, either have binder clips or paper clips to clip your pages together. It's really helpful. I remember when I was in Grand Central sketching, and I'm sitting there in Grand Central with this thing, and the whole thing just kind of spilled out onto the floor while I was sketching. And people are walking all over the place. I'm sitting there trying to reel this thing up quickly before people stepped on it. Yeah, it wasn't, wasn't pretty. Grand Central is a— could be a really busy, busy place. So if you're going to use one of these, carry a binder clip or a paper clip with you. As I gather up the pages, this could be some good, good ASMR video here. Let's listen. Alright, there we go. Alright, cool. Paperclip it. All right, so I'm gonna do a torch. I, so I was talking to some people at the workshop last week, and I was, uh, telling them— some people were saying they start their sketches with pencil, and I, I was telling them I usually, I go right to Sharpie. 99% of the time I'm with a Sharpie. Once it's down, I'm committed to keep moving forward. If I keep— if I start using pencils and sketching I will want to erase and fix and redraw and erase, fix and redraw. That's— that could be cool for doing like a real technical, precise drawing, but this world here, this is my free flow, get it out of your head, get it on the paper, um, grab-and-go sketching. So I don't want to use a pencil because I will that if I don't use a pencil, eliminates the need of me wanting to fix things. All right, let's do some sketching. There's a little bug flying around here. Alright, cool. So, um, I'm having fun doing this journal, uh, this sketch on this accordion journal, just kind of stretching it out. I'll hold it sideways, you can kind of see how long it is right now. Pretty cool. Hey, hello everybody! I saw Danavision and Yandi over there watching me live. That's cool. Hopefully you're still out there. If so, yeah, I love watching you guys, uh, seeing you guys watching live. So fun. So there we go. So I kind of like it. It's loose and scribbly, not quite as scribbly as I wanted it to be. I was thinking a little too much. I'm gonna go out— let me see, I'm gonna zoom out a little bit so you can see more of it as I'm working on it. All right, let's throw down some color. Um, going to grab and go with what I got here. I do, I do know definitely want to use this kind of aqua color. This is my favorite color, whether it's watercolor, color pencil, or Sharpie creative markers. Check that out. So definitely want to use that on there. I'm gonna break out some oranges and yellows. Um, what else? Boom, boom, boom. What do I have in here? Pastels. Wow. Um, what? Maybe, maybe, I don't know. Graphite would be fun. I haven't used graphite in a while. All right, let's kind of put this over here and let's just throw down some color, have some fun. That's what it's about for me. It's about fun. It's, it's about the process. I just love, I love what happens between A and Z. A, starting point. Sometimes it's hard, you know, how do we get started? Where do we start? What do we do? Z, you know, sometimes, sometimes we have a precise image in our brain of what we're trying to create. I try not to do that when I'm sketching. I know, I know where I'm— let's see, I kind of know, like, for example, I know I want to make the torch here, but I don't have a picture in my brain of exactly what I need it to look like, the colors, the shadows. I just have an intention. My intention is to create the torch. Um, so, you know, A is blank piece of paper, Z is ending up with a torch, and And in between is what we're doing now. This is the part I love. All right, see, now I'm finding myself thinking too much, and, um, for me that's not good. When I start thinking, I, I get stuck. I'm stuck, right? Because I'm like, oh, what do I do? What do I do? I'm looking for the perfect thing to pick up. I don't want— I don't want that mindset. So I just step back, just take a breath. Um, yeah, and we'll pick it up in a sec and just go with it. I think part of my problem is I pulled out too many tools here. And this is— this is going to sound weird, but the less tools I see around me, the more creative flow I have. I like to have things within reach, but now I'm actually seeing this stuff all laid out, it's distracting me. Because I'm like, oh, I don't want that one. Oh wait, I don't want that one. Do I want that one? Maybe. I don't know. Um, so I kind of said— I kind of sabotaged myself a little bit by, by having all these things out at one time. Normally I would have a Sharpie out, maybe one pen or two pens, and other stuff would just be, you know, put away in bags around me here. And I'm just grabbing and grab it out and go with it. So lesson learned, right? Note to myself, um, less stuff out that's visible to me at one time. Hopefully that makes sense. It's kind of an interesting observation. So for example, I just picked this up without thinking about it and That's what I like doing, just randomly picking this stuff up and just working with it. Like, how can I use it? Uh-oh, the Sharpies are not liking me right now. Maybe because I'm trying to use them on top of, um, oil pastel. Not, not a good thing. So what I can do is, um, there we go. Hey, Cardin, great to see you. Hope you're doing well. All right, this is looking cool. I, I kind of like how it's turning out. So here's what it's looking like. I'll kind of bring it closer up. Definitely needs a little bit more work up in here. I like the direction it's heading in. Let's see, can it go wide? I'll— there we go, a little bit wider so you can see it all out at one time. Cool. I'm hearing like an echo of my voice. It's kind of creepy. Awesome. So I think this one is going to be, um, done for now. I'll come back probably tomorrow and just add a little bit more to it, but my guts tell me it's time to stop on this. I definitely can see some things I want to work on. I want to pull out these fingers a little bit more clearly down here, so I definitely want to do that. I want to, um, I'm going to angle the torch a little more. It's kind of too vertical. I kind of want it more splayed. So I'm gonna— I'll mess around with that as well. And I kind of love— I love going like back over things. So I like throwing lines on top of lines and scribbles over scribbles, colors over colors. It's kind of like, um, reverse archaeology, right? Archaeology, you're uncovering layers. Right? We're digging through layers to get to the main artifact here. I'm building these layers up because for me, each layer, each line, each color is a story, is, is kind of a blueprint of how I created my sketch. So I'm not trying to hide anything. It's all out there for people to see— mistakes, no mistakes. It, it's all good. And that's, that's my style. It's just how I love to do it. I am not going for precise, for precision and, and perfection. I'm going for loose, wonky, fun, and energy. I like to, I like to capture energy in when I'm sketching. And the energy could be from the location I'm in. The energy could be from how I'm personally feeling at the time. The energy can be from what I'm hearing, the music, the people around me. So, uh, it's like— it's almost like I'm filtering through my creative brain, through all my senses. I'm filtering things, right? The chaos, the stuff around me up here and surrounding me in the world, filtering it, and it's coming out onto paper as my interpretation of the moment. Man, that was deep. That was deep. That was pretty, pretty deep. Um, sometimes we get deep on the Inkspired Life. I hope you guys are enjoying this. Uh, I do— I would want to kind of talk about something really quickly here. You might, you might notice on the screen it says check out my new Sketch Survival, um, should say Sketch Survival Success guide. I have a link there. Um, I created a PDF, downloadable PDF. It's really cool. I think it's a really cool guide that walks you through my sketch framework. Um, it has some creative exercises in it, some motivational lines in there, and it's basically a map of these different letters: S-K-E-T-C-H. CH. Each letter is a different kingdom or land, um, and each one stands for something unique. Um, so I'd love for you to check it out. Um, I'll— I will be doing an upcoming live stream where I'll just kind of break, break it out and show you guys more about it. It's been a labor of love for me. It's been an idea I've had for a long time, finally sat down to work on it. It took— it was— took a good amount of time to work on it, um, but it was fun to create. It was really cool just to see kind of my thoughts and my process out on, on paper. So if you're interested, check out the link. I'd love for you to download it. Um, it is $9.97 to download. Um, if you want to— it's a great way if you like what I'm doing, if I'm inspiring you or encouraging you, or you're having fun just chilling with me It's a cool way just to be able to support what I'm doing here, uh, on YouTube and Instagram and Facebook and all the socials, because I love sharing this stuff with you guys. It's my passion. It's what I would do every single day of my life if I could. And who says I can't? That just entered my brain. Um, yeah, I, I don't know. I just love this stuff and I love sharing creativity and I love, um you guys for being out there. This has been so, so much fun tonight, and I think it's gonna be a wrap. It's 10:12 PM. I'll be on sketching sometime tomorrow. I am not going to New York City. I'm gonna stay home, and I gotta catch up on a bunch of stuff. And that's it, it's a wrap. Thank you guys so much for watching this, uh, live sketch and chill session. It's been a lot of fun for me. Thanks for watching me just kind of practice and just go through my thoughts a little bit about how I would create this torch. I'm liking it. Definitely got to fix this up here. So it's always good to step away and come back and revisit your work. Alright guys, I'm Jason Nicholas Nicholas with the Inkspired Life, where I love sketching architecture, love urban sketching, and just capturing the world around me one line at a time. Alright, until we meet again, guys, I would love, love for you to go out there and Sketch boldly, um, ignite the world around you, and keep a positive vibe. Use your creativity for positivity. See you soon.