Loose Style Architecture + Urban Sketching

Hey, hello, happy Wednesday night. Hope you're doing well. Join me for a few minutes of architectural sketching tonight. I think I'm gonna do a— I think I'm gonna sketch a bridge, maybe the Brooklyn Bridge, and just see where it goes. I'm gonna be sketching on this watercolor paper that I cut out and folded into an accordion-style journal, which I think will be really cool. So, you know, we'll sketch the bridge on here so that when you pull it out, you can see the entire length of the bridge. So, uh, let me know where you're watching from. I'm using a Sharpie to do the sketch, that way in case I want to come back and add any watercolor or do some kind of an ink wash on top of it, I won't have to worry about the black ink bleeding. Alright, let's zoom in and we'll kind of sketch. Maybe a close-up. We'll just see where it goes, guys. I'm going to keep the sketch pretty loose, holding the pen very lightly. Notice I'm holding it— I always say pen for Sharpies, but I guess they're really markers. I'm holding it kind of towards the end. I'm going to do some real loose sketchy lines. I don't want it to be a real tight, like, technical drawing. Actually, I'll zoom out because then you can maybe see me trying to plan this out a little bit. I think we're gonna have it kind of here, getting bigger out this way. I'm also going to turn on— I don't have comments on. Let's put the comments on. If you're watching, let me know. Here it is. Got it. Just had to click a button. And this may end up being more than one bridge, maybe Well, we'll see where the lines go. So you might notice that the lines are really kind of wavy, and that's okay. I don't mind. I don't mind that. It's kind of a look I'm going for, just really loose. Kind of quirky. All right, now I have a basic outline. I'm just going to come in and go through each of these panels and we'll add some more information. And we'll just— we'll see where it has— we'll see where it ends up going. So it is the Brooklyn Bridge. All right, so the idea is it's smaller back here, gets a little bigger over on this side. Just create the idea that it's, um, kind of a perspective happening there. I'm just adding in some, some hatch lines, or almost— it's almost like a scribble. Just to help indicate maybe some shadows, give a little bit of depth to what we're sketching here. Is this technical? Is it precise? Is it proportionally accurate 100%? No, definitely not. And that's kind of my intention. I don't— I'm not looking for perfection with these sketches. I'm just approaching it with a playful mindset and a wonky mindset. I want them to be really loose and wonky looking. As long as I'm just capturing the essence of what I'm sketching, that's the most important thing for me. Now since this is way in the background, maybe we'll actually I think I'm just going to kind of shade this all in just so it looks a little further away, maybe. And we'll also do the underside of the bridge here. So you can kind of see, right? So this is, um, let's kind of fold this up a little bit again. So I've been doing this series of drawings called My City Lines, and basically I'm just taking these accordion journals and just sketching line work in the city. You'll see more examples of that. I'm actually headed into the city tomorrow where I'll be able to do some sketching. Uh, the weather's looking kind of rainy, so we'll see what I come up with. But it's just kind of keeping a track of a journey, right? Bridges are about journeys, about connecting. So I thought it'd be really cool just to take this kind of Brooklyn Bridge-inspired sketch and just stretch it out, kind of connecting the left side to the right side of this accordion. Journal. I like it black and white. I'm— I might just— yeah, I think I'm going to throw in some color just for fun, but not overdo it. I just want to touch some color here and there just to bring a little bit of energy to this. Hey, I see Chip's in the house. Chip, great to see you. Hope all is well. I'm late but loving this already. Hey, no worries, Chip. You are not late. It's all good. Always great to see you, man. Yeah. Also, just notice how I kind of— the smaller piece in here, just get the idea of depth a little bit, a little bit of perspective. We talked about this smaller, this bigger, but I'm shading this in kind of darker back here. Just, I want it to recede a little bit more. All right, let's do, um, what kind of colors are we going to throw on this? All right, got my watercolors right here. Let me dip into some water. All right, so, uh, when it comes to color, I am not really pre-planning, but I do have colors I like to gravitate towards, especially when I'm doing New York City sketches or industrial sketches. So I'm sure I'll be using those colors, but I don't know where and how I'm going to throw them down. But let's just kind of play around, and I want to keep it really loose. Let me grab some ink also. Um, I might— maybe I'll try this color. It's called Clementine. Maybe we'll throw some of that on here, see what it does. Again, I don't really want to overdo the color on here, so we'll just kind of give it some light washes in places. I feel like this also might need a little bit of splatter energy, so let's just throw some splatters on here. Cool. All right, so we have some turquoise. I'm going to— I'm going to dig into this. It's called Clementine. I think I've used this color once before. It's ink. I'm assuming it's orange like a clementine, right? I love clementine oranges, by the way. They're so good. I'm dipping into this Clementine. Let's clementine it up here. Oh yeah, I'm liking it. Kind of let it just bleed together here a little bit. It's interesting painting on the accordion folding, right? Because you have the edges like here where the folds are, so, um For example, the paint, or we'll try to gather in the kind of creases here. So it's just kind of another fun layer to these. All right, let's do this. I want to make it really so intense here. Normally I'll have this at an angle because I like the water and the ink and paint to run down. So I'll just kind of hold it up and let it drip. See what happens. So on these sketches, I'm trying to do something that has a continuous line. Uh, let me show you the Statue of Liberty one here quick. Let me just grab it. So I like to do these continuous lines just to connect everything together. If you look at this Statue of Liberty torch, if you see there's a blue turquoise line here, if you kind of follow that, it kind of outlines Here it continues down and then all the way down and off the page. I love doing that because it's like a common element that just ties everything together. So sometimes it will be either a pink line or in this case we have the turquoise line. So I think it came out really cool. By the way, this original is still available if anybody's interested in this awesome Statue of Liberty torch inspired sketch, let me know. It's about 20 inches long when you fold that part. Here it is sideways. I love this piece. This is probably one of my favorite sketches to date. The colors in here are intense. Really cool. Awesome. Hey, Karen's in the house. Karen says, hey Jason and Chip, that'll— that's nice. Love the colors. Thank you so much. I'm so glad you do. Sorry, I was putting white on back there. All right, let's look for a paper towel. Got one right here. All right, let's grab some more colors. I'm actually going for blue right now, just a blue color. I want to maybe throw some blue back in here. Again, I want to be careful because I really just want to wash this with colors. And let's see, I want to— let's see, I want to bring some of that blue maybe up in here as well. But these colors just kind of run together. There we go. So yeah, this is looking kind of cool, right? So let me— I'm going to move this. It's okay if the paint runs down. We'll let gravity be our friend and gravity can do some of the artwork on here and pull the paint around. That's cool. It's kind of how it's looking. It's kind of a long, uh, piece here, so it's hard to fit it all on screen. All right, I'm going to go for what I call a pop of freshness, a little bit of a zest, and that's using some Lemon Yellow, right? So think about cooking, throwing in some lemon zest in your cooking. It adds that kind of brightness and freshness. Yellow, for me, the yellow paint does the same thing. So we're just throwing down some of that lemony yellow here, and we'll let them kind of bleed. It's actually cool. I think I'm going to take that yellow and So I just took the yellow and kind of outlined this continuous line around the bridge and off the paper. This Clementine Orange is really cool. Oops, let's see. I'm grabbing some of this, um, I call it Taxi Cab Yellow. All right, let's, let's add a little bit of splatter energy and that we're going to actually use some of this Clementine again. I'm loving this color. So since we have it here pretty intense, I thought it'd be cool to splatter it, kind of just bring it across the page a little bit. So let's do it. I don't want to overdo it, so I'm going to close the cap. All right, cool. I'm going to zoom in so you can see how some of this is drying, um, and I'll see if there's any questions or comments in the chat. Let's kind of zoom in down here and we'll just kind of pan around a little bit. So I'll leave it here. For a sec. I'm just going to grab a drink. All right. Chip says, going to New York City tomorrow. You could sell the torch to a— to an abundance of tourists. They would love it. Close, pin it together, and boom, your work is amazing. Hey Chip, love that idea. That is awesome. Yeah, so I'm definitely, um, bringing that with me. Tomorrow. I'm also going to be bringing this with me here. So yep, so definitely going to do that. And I'm going to bring the Brooklyn Bridge, this sketch I'm doing right now. And I'm actually going to be sketching— I'll do some live sketching tomorrow in— let me zoom out. Um, this is the— an accordion journal I started last time I went to the city, which was a week, maybe 2 weeks ago, right? So it's same idea. We're gonna— this is different vignettes and pieces, like Grand Central's terminal. I have Central Park in here. I have the Queensborough Bridge. So I'm going to be continuing in this accordion journal tomorrow. So hopefully while I'm doing some live sketching, I'll get people coming up to me and, you know, talking or asking what I'm doing. Like last time, and that's when I could pull out the, the torch and also the Brooklyn Bridge. I don't like— I don't like this here. I'm just going to blot that out. There we go. So, yeah, so great, great idea. Great reminder. Thank you so much. I'd love to sell it. So here's, here's, here's a commitment I kind of made to myself. I didn't go public with it yet. Not 100% sure I'm gonna do it, but I don't think I'm gonna be posting any new sketches until I start selling old ones. I have so many here. Um, I love looking at them a lot, but I would love for them to be in homes where people can really appreciate them. So I think I'm just going to be posting sketches I've done already out there for bids or for sale. And I'm— yeah, I don't think I'm gonna post any, at least for the summer. I don't think I'm gonna be posting any new sketches I do for the rest of the summer. The only way you'll be able to see them is on a livestream, or if you watch the replay. So it's kind of a— kind of a personal goal I set for myself to motivate me to get these out there so people can really appreciate them. I mean, here I have— I have— I have— this is— this is barely— I have so many sketches here and some really cool stuff. Yeah, so I kind of set myself up for an art— an artist challenge, and I think I'm pretty excited about it, and we'll see where it goes. Now I'm going to keep sketching, of course. Because I love it. It's my passion, it's my therapy, it's my, it's my, uh, it's my world. It's— sketching for me is one of the ways I process the world around me through lines. This is looking cool. I'm liking it, liking it. Time is at 10:09. I'm gonna— I'll go for another 10 minutes or so, we'll wrap. So I'm just, I'm just putting in some more turquoise, kind of intensifying it up a little bit here. I kind of want to bring that— do I want to bring it across? Maybe. Maybe not, maybe not. We'll leave it. So thank you guys for always watching the streams, either live or replays. It's— I really appreciate it. And I hope you guys are getting, you know, we get some good information out of the sketch process or creative process, or at least some enjoyment out of this time. So thank you so much. It means a lot to me. I don't know, I think I'm thinking that's enough. Colors, watercolor and ink. When it dries, I'm going to come back in and of course I'll add some of my signature neon pink, right? So we'll throw some of that down, and then usually I'll go back on with some turquoise as well. And I have some other pencils I packed for tomorrow, like my neon yellow and chartreuse, that may make their way on here as well. So let's see, what about St. Patrick's Cathedral? 59th and 5th. 57th and 5th. St. Patrick's Cathedral. Yeah, I love St. Patrick's Cathedral. Um, St. Patrick's Cathedral might be on my agenda tomorrow, so stay tuned. I've sketched inside St. Patrick's. I've sketched outside. Here's one. Oh man, I've definitely sketched outside. I must, I must have put the photo in here. Oh, here's one right here. So I love St. Patrick's. It's a beautiful structure. Here's a quick sketch I did of the outside of it. Inside is spectacular. I had a really great experience sketching inside there, maybe about a year or so ago. I just went in, it was really quiet in there. Not a lot of tourists, sat down with my sketchbook. I wish I could pull the sketch out right now. And just listened to the choir music that was playing over the speakers and just sketched. It was an— what's the word— ethereal. An ethereal experience sketching in St. Patrick's, the sun coming through the windows. With this amazing music playing. It was, uh, I'm thinking about that moment. Sketching ingrains moments in my mind more so than taking a photo. It's something about the hand-eye coordination and just being immersed in an environment. So I'm really remembering that day. I'm also remembering they had these big screens. Architecturally, they could have done something better, like these big TV screens. Um, that stick— as an architect, I notice details like that, but it didn't take— doesn't take away from the incredible moment. So yeah, guys, so one of the reasons I love sketching architecture is capturing the feeling and moment. A feeling, moment in time. Chip, I'm so glad you mentioned, uh, St. Patrick's, because you just really made, made me smile inside. I'm liking this. I, I'm going to leave it. I was— no, you know what, I usually go with my gut. My gut is saying we got to get some purple here. A little bit of deep purple. Typically I would use my Varsity pen. Let's do it to make purple, but I kind of want it back here. I kind of want it back in this area, and I'm going to bleed it. Here we go.

All right.

I like that. I just like that touch of purple kind of happening. Back there. You know what, I am going to take— let's remove this. Let's just take this off for a sec. You guys can see it better. You don't need to see me. Um, let's take this off here. QR code, we'll just shut that down so you guys can just see that better. So that's what it's looking like. Cool, right?

Yeah.

So I think the only thing I think this really needs after it dries is some colored pencil. And I want to come in probably with my Sharpie and I want to add some of the cables on the bridge. I could maybe— I could do some here. So these are just little details that'll just give a little more interest to it, right? So we just got some cables coming on there. We'll add some here as well, right? Those cables just add— they help to connect the left and right together, right? So I think that's a really— not only is it a really important structural detail in real life, but I think it's a fun detail to show on here. And then we'll show— we'll just show some of those cables on this side as well. It's a little too wet here, so I'm going to stay away from that section, but, uh, we can add some here. All right, cool. There you go. So I think adding those cables, right, just kind of connected this. He's putting the cap on the Sharpie before I sketch any more on there. I really wish I need a hair dryer here so I can just add this because I'm itching to throw down some pink on here. Chip says, love it. She says, I'll buy that one. Hey, Chip, that's cool. We can, we can chat about that. Thank you. Awesome. Yes, it's cool. Yeah, you guys, I'm glad you— hope you're liking this one. Chip, I think you were talking about St. Patrick's, right? St. Patrick's Cathedral. Actually, let me pull this out. This is interesting. So here's another very similar view of the Brooklyn Bridge I did, right? Smaller scale. And we have this one here. Can we see these both on screen at the same time? Let's see if I do this. All right, there we go. You can kind of see them together there. Brings a bridge together. Hey, yeah, right. I, I agree, Karen. I think so also. I think so also. I don't know if that was grammatically correct. I think so also. I also think so. Um, that doesn't matter. This is not the language arts hour. This is the Inkspired Life where we sketch architecture one line at a time. I like it. I like them both. Um, here's another view of the Brooklyn Bridge. I have a bunch of Brooklyn Bridges, but you can see here's same subject but just a different, uh, perspective, different viewpoint of it, right? So don't be afraid to sketch the same subject, the same building, the same structure from different points of view. Um, It's a really fun experiment. Like in this one here, I just like it because you see a lot of the bottom structure of the bridge, which is kind of interesting, right? Because you're kind of looking up at it. Excuse me. All right, let's throw down some colored pencil. We're going to wrap in a minute or so. And I just want to throw down some pink. It's, it's become a signature color on my sketches. I just like it. It's whimsy— whimsy? It's whimsical, it's vibrant, it's fun. It's unexpected. So that's why I just love throwing the pink on here. Do I want to throw it back here? You know what, I am. This is kind of like divine guidance. I know that sounds strange. My hand is just kind of telling me where something or some— I don't know. I'm not just consciously saying to put the pink here. I'm just moving my hand around and it's saying to throw it there. I can't, I can't explain it. It's very strange, but I'm going with it. I don't— I've learned not to fight it, just go with it. So now it's telling me over here. Usually I'll do in 3 to 5 places. On a bigger sketch, I'll do 5 locations. So we have 1, 2, 3. All right, it's telling me— it's saying somewhere in here. All right, cool. All right, so we got— we have our, uh, pink on there.

Uh, St.

Patrick's. All right, awesome, very, very cool. Um, by the way, Chip, check your mail. Tell you what, went probably Friday. Check your mail Friday or Saturday. I put something out in the mail to you yesterday. Yeah, it was yesterday. Um, I love this comment here. I'd like to— let's, let's explore this comment. Let me put it on screen. On your bridges or urban streets and buildings, purple and Payne's Gray is a very Blade Runner look. You're talking my language. I love Blade Runner. The aesthetics— let's just talk about the aesthetics of the movie. Insane. Yeah, we could spend a whole show, we could spend a few shows just talking about Blade Runner and how that is, uh, inspirational on many different levels. I have a book about Syd Mead. Syd Mead, incredibly gifted and talented— what would you call him— commercial illustrator. He did a lot of the concept art for many of the movies we know. One of them was Blade Runner. He helped design the aesthetics and feel of Blade Runner. I'll pull the book out maybe when we're on one day. It's incredible. His artwork is mind-blowing. But yeah, I love that comment, guys. I think this one's done. I kind of like it. I still have to add— I'm— I got to work on the covers of these, um, My City Lines series. So I'm kind of figuring this panel out. My first prototype is— I got to work on it. Let's just say I want to work on it. So, so that's why the first panel is blank, because when you fold it, right, this, this will be the COVID Love it. Alright guys, let me know if you have any final questions or comments before I head out. This has been a really fun night. I wasn't planning on being on so long, but when I sketch, time escapes me. It just puts me into a, like, a phantom zone where time does not exist. Whereas about an hour ago I was saying, this day has flown by. Yeah, so I love doing this stuff. I have an idea for a series on it for you. Hey Chip, I would love to talk to you about that. Let's— maybe we can chat later this week. That would be awesome. So cool. All right, let me just change— I'm listening to music, I just want to change it. All right, cool. All right guys, so, um, thank you for watching tonight's sketch. Hopefully I was able to take you along with me to New York City and visit the Brooklyn Bridge together. I'm aiming to cross it again this fall, take another walk on it. Um, it was an amazing experience. I did it for the first time last year and I need to re-re-walk it again. It's There is nothing like walking across the Brooklyn Bridge and looking at the skyline of New York City, the, um, One World Trade Center building. I mean, yeah, it's breathtaking. So I highly recommend it if you ever get a chance to do that. Thank you guys so much for watching. Remember, you too can sketch architecture and the world around you. One line at a time. I'm Jason Nicholas Nicholas with the Inkspired Life, and keep using your creativity for positivity out there. We definitely need more positive vibes in the world. So however you can do that, do it. Even a small nod hello to someone, it doesn't matter. Put positivity out there, guys. I appreciate you all so much from my heart. Um, so I keep coming back and sketching. Chip, Karen, thank you guys for commenting in the chat live. That means the world to me. You have no idea. Um, otherwise it'd look weird for me to talk to myself, which I do anyway. I think it's a sign of genius if you talk to yourself. We'll go with that. All right guys, take care. Have a great, great night. Um, peace and live creatively. I will catch you on the flip. The flip. Hey, the flip, the flip book. It's not really a flip book, the accordion book. Good night, guys. Um, if you're on YouTube and you didn't comment, that's okay, you're awesome. Facebook, you're awesome too. Let's keep growing the YouTube subscribers up there. Make sure you hit the like and/or subscribe button if you haven't already. Also, one last announcement, bottom left of my screen over here somewhere. How do I point to it? Here. Um, if you're interested in a free sketch checklist of kind of what goes through my mind a little bit as I'm working on sketches, um, visit that link there and you can get a free download of just a checklist I put together that I'm working on developing. Gives you a little inside peek into my mindset, some of the things I try to avoid and some of the things I focus on when I'm sketching. All right, guys, take care. Have a great, great day.