A short YouTube livestream by Jason Nicholas (The INKspired Life) recorded in Spokane, Washington. Jason describes a close-up view of a bridge and nearby built/natural features, offers practical urban-sketching advice (focus on a detail, overcome blank-paper anxiety, don’t try to capture everything), encourages viewers to sketch and to subscribe to his website/newsletter, and signs off.
Hello, everybody. Jason here with the inspired life. I'm back here in Spokane, Washington. I just wanted to show you this bridge close up. Check out the structure underneath. It's really fascinating to see. You know, what, what we can make, what we can build. I love the arches here. Reminds me of a room in Aqueduct. This would be really cool view to sketch. Has a really interesting perspective. And I just love the underside of the bridge. You can see the. The metal there, the concrete. I love the way the land slopes up on the side of the bridges as well. We pan up, you can kind of see a little projection up top, which you can actually walk along that edge of the bridge. You can walk all the way, Which is really cool. It's a nice walk. Pretty short walk. This location has so much inspiration to sketch from. So many different things to choose. It's really cool to see the man made against nature here in the water. Up there's a Washington water at the power building. We have the skyliner right here. So curious. If you're watching this, what would you want to sketch in this view? Would you choose the bridge? Maybe you focus on the ride here, the water, the building in the background. Sometimes when you go to see overwhelming, because we think we need to sketch everything that's within our view. Here's a pro tip. Focus in on something you like that captures your interest. Even if it's a lamp post, it doesn't matter. Don't feel like you need to sketch everything that you see, because that could be really overwhelming and kind of paralyzing. Right. When we start sketching architecture, we want to conquer blank paper syndrome. It's always that first step of putting your pen on the paper that sometimes could be the hardest. Sometimes you don't know where to start, how to start, when to start. You know, what do I draw? How do I draw it? How do I. A lot of questions. So my simple tip is pick something that interests you. Don't worry about the end result. Don't worry about it needing to look perfect because you're capturing the scene in your own special language, your own style. Right? That's what urban sketching is about for me. It's not about documenting everything we see exactly how it is, but just our interpretation of the world around us. We all process things differently, so you can't make any mistakes. Just pick up a pen, pencil, pick something out. Even if it's just a simple one of these arches here, right? It doesn't matter. Just start somewhere and begin. I hope this quick tip gets you motivated to get out there or even look at some photographs and just start sketching. The world around it can really transform you in ways that you're not even sure about. If this interests you, be sure to go to my website, the Inkspired Life.com and I have a free newsletter that you can sign up for. We just started it and it has tips, tricks, tools, techniques and mindset about sketching, architecture and the built world around you. I'd love to see you guys subscribe. See you there and I'll keep putting out some good information. Thank you for tuning in and I am actually going to be doing some sketching. Have a great, great rest of your day.
