LIVE Sketching

I'm popping on for a couple minutes. I'm outside. Um, yeah, beautiful day. I'm going to do some sketching. So kind of here's where I'm sitting, and I have my awesome Ugly Books yellow paper sketchbook there, and just a nice little scene here. So a few minutes while Pop is resting. There she is. And, um, yeah, so join me for a couple minutes. Hope you're having an amazing day today. Let me know, uh, let me know how it's going. So this summer I'm just working on something new and trying something new, and that's sketching outdoors— trees, landscapes, rocks. Um, something pretty new to me. You've seen me sketch buildings many, many times, and I love love sketching buildings. I actually almost was in New York City today sketching, but, uh, I just changed my plans at the last minute, so we're outdoors. And I love— look at this tree right here. I think these are Japanese maple trees here. I love like the forms and the shapes happening. So maybe I'll just pick up on that. We'll do a quick sketch. And again, when I sketch, I'm not going to capture this like a photocopy, right, or photograph. It's me just sketching what I'm feeling and the vibe. And honestly, I'm practicing. I'm just practicing nature and the lines in nature. I'm so used to architecture, straight lines. Even though I sketch loose and wonky, buildings are usually straight, so I have some kind of guideline here. It's like the ultimate expression of looseness. So I'm going to sketch pretty quick. Pup is out and about. I might have to stop and— Livia, come here, buddy. There's no one around here, fortunately, but I don't want her wandering. Come here, Liv. Anyway, hope you're having a great day. Um, Edie's in the house. Edie, good to see you. So guys, I don't know how much you're gonna see me sketching. I'll just put a little bit of ink on paper. I'm using a white gel pen. Let's do, um, vertical here. And it's hard for me to sketch and hold the camera. At the same time, but that's okay. Embrace imperfection, be in the moment. I'm gonna just literally keep this as like a single line sketch. I'm not even gonna pick the pen up and we're just gonna sketch and go with the flow. So I was almost, uh, going to New York City to MoMA today. I changed my plans last minute. Hopefully I'll be able to get there one day this week. But it's all good. I'm enjoying being outside in nature. It's pretty hot, it's like 80-something degrees here in the sun. Not a complaint, enjoying it. Livia, Livia, come here. But yeah, so literally I'm just trying to keep my pen on the page, dance it around a little bit. And I'll check in with comments in a minute. Oh, she laid down. That's good. Usually when I come here, she's very active and I don't get a chance to sketch, so this is kind of a rare treat for me. Um, single line drawings, or continuous line drawings rather, are really a great way to just to kind of be loose. Having a sketchbook that's moving around the table as I'm sketching is another great way to be loose. Again, I'm holding the camera here. It won't be perfectly one line, but that's cool. There's the rock over here I want to capture. Sun's pretty bright, so I can't really see the comments, but I'll check in a few minutes and just to say hello, see if there's any questions out there. I'm going to sketch this. I love this rock. This place is very meditative, very— has a very zen-like vibe to it. Livia, stay, buddy. Come here, come here, Liv. So got some kind of loose forms happening, got the rock in there. Creative editing. So when you're out sketching, don't feel like you need to nail everything. If I tried to sketch all these trees, it would just— it just makes my mind want to explode. So I'm not going to do that. I'm just editing, sketching what I'm seeing that's interesting me. Uh, hold on, I'm gonna hold this down here with my finger. There we go. Livia, let's give a little bit of contours, a little bit of shh to these rocks, and we're gonna wrap pretty soon because she's getting anxious. But I'm just doing these contour lines just to give a little bit of different— differentiation. If we look back, um, you can see here's another landscape I did in a different place, but just different contour lines, different hatching lines, just to give an idea of what's happening. So I'm trying to use basically my style and figure out how to sketch landscapes in my style. So it's a real fun creative exercise. Don't be afraid to step outside your comfort zone, right? That's what makes it fun. That's what makes it educational, right? That's what makes us grow. And whenever I know I say educational, people are like, I don't want sketching to be educational. But you know what? It's a journey. Education is about learning, right? Either we're learning a skill, a technical skill like sketching, or learning about ourselves. So Life is— it's life's education. It's one big studio and we're in it together. Cool. I don't know how much this is being picked up. There might be a mega glare from the sun. Here's what I want to do just to pull the tree out. I'm gonna do some hatch lines again. We're just gonna do these kind of angled lines. I want to pull the shape of the trunk out. By the way, let's give some thumbs up out there for my pup. Look at her, she's being so peaceful. She— this is the first time she's really ever kind of just sat down here. How cool is that? Just some more, 3 more hatch lines and we're gonna wrap up. But you can see those hatch lines help to pull the tree out a little bit. We'll do the same thing here on this tree. Boom, there you go. That's just a really quick kind of loosey-goosey sketch out here. Let me see if I can see any questions or comments. Supposed to be in the low to 90s Tuesday through Thursday and no rain predicted till Friday. You know what, I might— maybe I'll head into NYC Friday. I actually like going into the city on a rainy day, so maybe I will go if it's raining. Um, thanks for the weather tips, I appreciate that. All right, I'm going to stand up, you can kind of get an overview, and I'm going to wrap up, guys. But I just love the shape of those trees. I love the stand of trees right here as well. And I love that pup sitting right there. Liv, come get some water. Come on. All right, until we sketch together again, sketch boldly, live creatively, and embrace imperfection. I appreciate you watching live. Hit that thumbs up button, subscribe, all that fun social media stuff. And, uh, hopefully I'll be popping on again later tonight to do some sketching from my studio, and we'll do some, um, I want to do some NYC-inspired sketching. So I'm not sure what building, so if you have any suggestions in the chat, let me know. What New York City building or structure would you like me to see? Would you like me to see? Would you like to see me sketch next? All right, see you soon.