LIVE SKETCHING : Loose Lines & No Apologies

Hey, happy Wednesday, July 1st, 2026. How are you? I'm, I'm on at a really random time on a Wednesday afternoon, 2:52 PM. Um, it was either napping or sketching. I'm picking sketching today because I'm also working on a project, so this is a good break for me just to keep going but to change my gears a little bit. So I hope you're having a great Wednesday. It is a hot, hot, hot day here. It's just gonna get hotter over the next few days, but that's okay. Welcome to the summer. Um, I want to do some sketching, that's why I'm here. So we're going to sketch in, um, my new favorite sketchbooks, Uglybooks. Love these. Check out the description. There's a discount code for first-time buyers, and yeah, just check that out. Um, and I'm gonna sketch— I want to sketch a Statue of Liberty torch. I love sketching them, and Fourth of July is almost here, so I figured it'd be really a good time to do that. So let's sketch the torch. I have my reference sketches here, some I've done in the past. This seems to be a fan favorite, by the way. Um, so we'll look at that, but I want to do— I think I'm going to sketch, uh, I think I'm gonna do it maybe a 2-page spread. We'll try a vertical on here, so we'll do like 2 pages. That could be fun. Let me grab this clip and we'll zoom in a little bit. And yeah, just chill with me for a few, not too long, maybe 15 minutes and we'll, uh, do some, do some squatching. There, there's no K in the word— wait, there's no Q-U in sketch, so I don't know where squatching came from. But, um, that's me just doing what I do, talking, talking, stammering, stuttering, fumbling through my words. And, uh, that's kind of how I embrace life. I embrace imperfection. I just am here being me and unscripted, unrehearsed. Just want to bring my fun passion for sketching and creativity, um, to you. Awesome. Edie's in the house! Great to see you. I hope you're well. Always great seeing you. All right, let's zoom in a little bit and you do this. There we are. I think that's cool. Stop, my zoom's going cray cray on me. All right, I think we'll start right there. 91 here, NYC. Real— wow, it feels like 106. That is— that's insane. Um, wow. Um, I don't know, I think the temperature right now is 90. I can look. Um, I know we're going to be getting up to feels like I think tomorrow, the next day, like 100, 104, 106 over the next few days. So it's going to be really hot here as well. So keep cool, everybody, with this cray-cray weather. Yeah, so let's, let's do our torch here. All right, I'm just kind of I'm actually looking at a reference. Here's a reference picture I took, 2023. This is my reference picture back in 2023. So I have that out, um, because I want to just look at it for the flames. Not that I'm trying to ever be accurate, but I want to just make sure I have enough room for the flames here. All right, let's sketch. So I thought it'd be fun to pop on at a totally random time to see if, uh, if I get different viewers or the same people watching, or, you know, who, who's out there. So Edie, thank you for popping on, it's always awesome to see you. All right, cool. So we kind of got some flame-age happening there. Then we'll come down here with our— all right, I am not, I am not looking at the picture other than I just want to look at it for the flames. I hope, I hope you're having a good summer out there. Maybe you'll, uh, get out there and do something summery, whether it's just sitting outside, going to a park, getting fresh air, eating more ice cream. I don't know, is that a summery thing? I could eat ice cream 24/7. A lot of people associate ice cream with just summer and hot weather. I just associate it with life. Cool, there we go. Hey, Lori Jean, good to see you. Same hot weather in Ontario. That's— wow, the heat, the heat is on. It's definitely on the street. The heat is on. All right, I think you know, I think you know where I'm going with that. Heat is on. All right, so I did not fit the bottom of the torch like I usually do, but I DK, I really don't care. I kind of get— I like the idea of just showing the the two-page spread here. It's always fun using these white gel pens on a red background. So shout out to, um, my new favorite sketchbooks, the Uglybooks. Love them so much. I know I sound like a commercial, but I do love them and I wouldn't promote them otherwise. So definitely check out my, my link if you want to try their stuff. Go for it. First-time buyers can get a 10% discount. Regular buyers still use my link and I get— your price is the same, but I get a little bit of a commission from them. And I only promote products I love and use. Cool, this looks pretty cool. I'm liking this, guys. I would love to go to NYC this coming weekend, but I think it's going to be crazy hot, so I think I'm going to skip it. And rumors, rumors are there's going to be some kind of huge wedding in Madison Square Garden. Who knows? That's what social media says, and I don't— nobody I really care about getting married. This celebrity doesn't really do anything for me personally, but, um, I'm just seeing it posted on, on social media. I don't know if it's true or not, but would it mess up— let's say if I went to the High Line, would it mess things up? Would it be congested and crazy? Possibly. All right, cool. I'm— all right, so we have, um, I gotta bring some blue on this, right? Red, white, and blue. So let's do that. Let's keep it to these 3 colors. Can you guys see this okay? Should I zoom a little bit more? My zoom is really weird on this. It's better if I click it and zoom. There we go, that's better. Oh yeah, if I recall, this, this blue is, uh on its way out. We'll see how far we can take it. There we go. All right, cool. He says, I love ice cream, but the glycemic hit is too much and you have to pace yourself. Understood. That is something I need to be watching much more better than I do. I used to eat a lot, I mean a lot a lot of ice cream. Not, not so much anymore. I've cut way, way, way back. I mean, a lot. What do you guys think? Is this looking cool? Can you tell it is the Statue of Liberty? The— well, the torch part. And I think I'm just going to stick to red, white, and blue. Just trying to find, uh, something here. So it's nice school is officially out for the summer, although I am still a pretty busy bee working architecture stuff pretty much every day. But I do want to take some time off this week, a day or two, definitely some time over the summer. But I'm not complaining by any means. I'm grateful to have any to have the work to do, especially when it's, uh, something fun. By the way, are you guys missing— is anybody missing, um, Nightbot? Let me know if you're missing Nightbot in the chat. I'm kind of liking this, but I think I want to pull out— I think I'm going to pull out— I'm going to pull out— yeah, I want to do a blue outline around the Do I have another— let me see if I have another blue, uh, Creative Marker. That one is on its way out. I'm looking for one that has more marker, more marker juice in it. Don't know if I have any readily available. Nope, we'll go with this one for now. I can pull another marker out later. I'm just too lazy to go up and get one. It's literally like 5 feet away from me. Actually, you know what, I'm gonna grab it. I'm gonna grab one. All right, let's see. All right, here's my Creative Marker stash. I believe or not, I need to get stock up on colors I use more frequently. There's a blue one. Oops, we lost some, we lost some. All right, cool. I need to clean my desktop in here. All right, let's try this fresh blue one. There we go. There we go. Cool. I like that blue outline on the outside edge. I think it looks kind of cool. Hey, Gigi, quick hello. Quick hello. Back at you. Hope you're having an amazing day and keeping cool. For sure. Yeah, it is hot as hell out there. Keep cool, everybody, please. Safety first. Cool. Yeah, I'm liking, uh, I like that blue outline on the edge, and I'm not going to go all the way around. I think we're going to stick on that one side. But this blue marker definitely has more marker juice than the other one. But I'm not gonna throw this one out yet. I'm gonna— we're gonna milk it. We're gonna keep using this bad boy. And this crazy, crazy heat wave. I think tomorrow's gonna feel like 100. And I think the next day— was that Friday? I think we'll be supposed to feel like 106. But NYC, I know you're getting slammed. This looks cool. All right, let's, let's write Be The Light on here. Where should we put Be The Light? Hmm. This, this is a fun work break for me, so thanks for tuning in, guys. Where should we put Be the Light? Should we do it here? Some people get confused. Here's an interesting thing I've, I've found out, um, sometimes I'll write like Be the Light, I'll write sideways, Be the Light, and then people are like, oh, does the torch go this way? Does it go sideways? And I understand if I write— how do I do this? Let's just show you an example. Where's my Post-it note? Amigo, where's my Post-it notes? Oh my gosh, the man who has everything doesn't have a Post-it note. I think you know what I'm saying. Um, so if I write Be the Light sideways, people will want to turn it sideways, but I kind of like the look of the text on the side. Compared, you know, if I just write it like this, which I could fit this here. I'll sign this one here. This is what I'm talking about. So here I said, be the light, vertically. And people ask me, does it go this way? Um, no, but I'm just trying to be artistic. So let me know in the chat, should I do it vertically? Or straight, uh, horizontally. I couldn't think of the opposite. Vertical, up and down. Horizontal, vertical. Horizontal. This was my Knicks— this is my Knicks-inspired torch. Got some Knicks colors and got the basketball at the bottom. I thought that was a fun one. Write it from top to bottom. From top to bottom. Um, hey, wait, GG. All right, GG, I know you're on really quickly. I'm not sure what do you mean top to bottom, like this? Top to bottom. So if I put it like here Oh, like, be the— I got you. Never mind. Let's do top to bottom. I think I'm in your brain now. I am in your brain. We'll put it over here. Maybe we'll do some cool graphic type lettering, which I rarely do. Let's try it again. This is about embracing imperfection, right? Not trying to be technical, not trying to be precise. We'll do some like block lettering, maybe. B. Lettering is something I always wanted to kind of master. Be the— oh, going crooked, I'm going crooked. Be the— can I fit it? Here's the challenge, can we fit it? Uh-oh, I don't know if I'm going to fit it. Guys, are you ready for the epic ending? Oh my gosh, holy chihuahua! Wow. All right, we had this— we had to kind of crush that tea. Crush the tea clock. I didn't say clock the tea. I didn't say clock the tea. We had to crush the tea. Yes, I learned what clock the team meant this school year, and I still have not mastered it. All right, GG, I hope that's what you meant. Um, I think I'm gonna do some— we'll do this for the lettering. One thing I did learn— I am learning about these gel pens is they do need a minute or two to dry because they could smudge pretty easily. So that's a good pro tip. I gotta do a little dot there. I like dots on— even, even though the others are capital, I still like my I's to have a little dot on top. My H is kind of wonky. All right, there we are. Be the Light. Oh, thanks. I love the way you're putting it in the chat. Thank you for doing that. Thanks for mocking that up. What do you guys think? Like this? Let me do one last thing. Um, let's pull this out. Oh, I could have used— what was I thinking, man? I could still do it. Got my favorite, the dot tip. I love the dot tip. Without this dot tip, my life would be boring. It would be boring. Um, very nice. Thank you so much. Thank you. By the way, thank you for sharing your, um those photos and putting them out there is so cool. I definitely would love to, to use some to sketch from, with your blessing, of course. There we go. I just want to pull out the hand so the hand pops a little bit. So we're just gonna kind of do this. I always love the wonky fingers I do on the hand. They're just fun. There we go. Sorry, I think that pulled the hand out a little bit. The hand's pretty massive there. There we go. Be the light. Dot tip. Yeah, Edie, this is the dot tip right here. Not that one, right there. See that shape? It's called the dot tip, and it actually says it right on here. All right, that's where I— it's the first time I've ever heard of one and never used one, and I'm like, oh, it's called a dot tip. This is magic. Here, let's, let's play around with it for a sec. We'll add some stippling maybe in here, a little texture. So yeah, this is so great for just stippling dots. If you push harder, you can get bigger circles. Light, you can get smaller ones. It's pretty interesting. It is very therapeutic to throw these dots down. So if you're looking for a good way to chill out, just do some stippling. Stippling is this dot technique here. It's just fun. So that is our dot tip. Yes, it could make a— yeah, it could definitely make a pretty big dot. Would you like to do a dot? Let's do a dot demo here, right here. We'll do our— this is our dot demo page. Ready? We're just gonna dot some stuff on here. So if I push really hard, boom, you get kind of that size. And the lighter I push down, the smaller the dots are. You could also kind of do it to the side a little bit. Get more of an oval shape if you kind of turn it sideways a little bit. Ooh, looks like I'm making a fish. I mean, we're making a— right now I'm making a fish— well, fish-like shape. Let's pretend that's a fish. Pretty cool, right? So here you go, you can kind of see the, the dots there. And I use the— actually, here for the trees, like powdered sugar. You guys are making me hungry. Big dots. Powdered sugar. Am I missing— is there, is there like a code? You guys talking code language? I feel like I'm missing out on something. You guys are in code, code mode, code mode. All right, it'd be fun to do. All right, here's the last thing I want to do with this, guys. Am I pushing my luck? Yes, I am. I wanted to outline the letters like I did the blue here. Do blue around the letters. Should I just go for it? Yes. This will be the last thing. Put yes or no. Yes, yes, I'll do like an outline around the letters like I did here. It'll be very loose. Not every single letter, but it's kind of the edge, or just leave it as is. I will let you decide. Is it— don't go. I wasn't gonna drink a water, but I don't— oh, I do have it. Grab some water here. I got one yes blue. Sorry, I don't have my lights on here. I guess my face is kind of dark, but that's okay. All right, I see one for yes. Let's do it. But if you guys are watching this live or re— the replay, feel free to hit that thumbs up button. I would love that. If you're new and you— or you're a viewer and you haven't subscribed yet, hit subscribe on the YouTube side. Follow me on Facebook and Instagram, wherever sketches are, wherever cool sketches are. I don't know, I'm trying to sound like an ad, but I'm not doing a good job. I'd love for you guys to follow me and share, just spread the creative love out there. Share the creative love. All right, which is the new one? This has less blue on it. It's probably the new one. Let's do The Edge. The Edge, isn't that one of the observation decks? New York City. I still have not done the edge. I'd love to do the edge. Did you guys see that footage of the two people that climbed the, the antenna on top of the Empire State Building and they put like a flag up there? I forget what it said. And then it was a— apparently, I guess it was a guy and a girl, and not that that matters, but, uh, I guess they proposed. I guess he proposed to her up there and looked like she said yes. There were, I guess, newscopters filming it. I don't know if this was a spontaneous thing or it was— I have no idea, but it was kind of a cool thing to see. There you go, just a kind of a loose outline. I like it. Edie says yes. Well, I'm glad you said yes because I did it. Um, I hate to disappoint. All right guys, I think with that I do have to go back to do some more work in here. This is a good break. It was either napping— here are my Post-its— it was either napping or sketching, and I opted for sketching today. Um, yeah, it's Wednesday, so I might be on later. I'm not 100% sure. Depends how much work I get done this afternoon. Otherwise I'll have to work tonight. It'd be cool to livestream. Would anybody watch if I actually livestreamed while I was doing architecture work? Let me know. Would you watch me do architecture work? I could share my screen, you could see what I'm working on. Or do some sketches. Just a possibility. I don't know if that would happen. All right, cool. All right guys, be the light. July 4th is coming up Saturday. Um, yeah, GG, thank you for joining us. I appreciate your time today, um, and thanks for popping in. Edie, also thank you so much for popping on. It's always great to see you as well. And anybody else that was watching or ninja watching, thank you. I had a few people on Instagram pop on and leave. Um, have a productive Wednesday. Yes, you too. Thank you. A productive Wednesday. Of course, you're welcome. I appreciate you all. You guys are awesome. She better say yes for that. Yeah, they, they look at— watch the video. They— I believe she said yes. I mean, they both climbed up there. It was cool. They were crazy. I, I don't know. I can't imagine they just snuck up there. I— it had to have been planned. All right, until we meet again, sketch boldly, live creatively, and embrace imperfection.