Monday Night Sketch and Chill

Hello, happy, um, Monday, January 19th. Camera's over there. 2026. Um, hope you're having a great day. Happy Martin Luther King, uh, Jr. Day. And yeah, it's fun to be on for a little bit tonight. It will be fun to be on for a little bit tonight. Uh, my brain's tired, as you can tell, but that— it's okay. It's been a good long weekend, got some stuff done, so So no complaints. I just wanted to wind my day down and do a little bit of sketching. So if you don't know who I am, my name is Jason Nicholas Nicholas, and I, uh, I'm an architect by trade, a school teacher, high school teacher. I teach architecture and CAD, and I love teaching, and I also love sketching. Sketching is something I'm passionate about, especially sketching architecture. Um, so tonight we're going to do a sketch, something I need to work on, and I'll show you. So let me just kind of come here. Um, feel free to say hello in the comments. I'll be checking in as we go on. Not going to be on too long. It's 9:30 and I need to be in bed like by 10:00 the latest. Um, yeah, so, um, whenever I go to New York City I bring this cool journal. Let me zoom out. And I do have a little cold, so I apologize any coughing for any coughing. Um, I bring my Lockbee Field, um, journal or my Lockbee Folio. I love this thing and I carry it with me. I use it for sketching. You can see I have some pens in here, paper. And one of the things I love to do when I go to New York City is in this pocket here, I usually have a piece of paper, some watercolor paper, um, or any kind of paper this size, usually with sketches on them. I keep them slipped in here and I give out the sketches. And what is on those sketches, you might ask? Um, I'm gonna tell you. Even if you're not gonna ask, I'm gonna tell you anyway. Um, Statue of Liberty torch sketches. I— this is one of my most favorite things to sketch. I've sketched a bunch of them now, and I just love giving them out to people. Um, it's really fun to do. I think the last time I gave one out was on my trip to Paris a few weeks ago, which was awesome. And then last time I was in New York City, I gave one out to, um, Dough, Dough Donuts, one of the employees there. So that was kind of fun. So I thought tonight I would just do a sketch of a— maybe start a torch sketch since I haven't done one in a while, and I need to stock up because, uh, hopefully I'll be getting back into the city soon. I was gonna go this weekend, but the snow said no to me. All right, so So here, here's kind of one of my sample torches. Let's just do some sketching. Also let me know if you can hear me okay, see me okay, all that fun jazz. All right, so I got— let me zoom in. There we go. And I'm going to just start off with a Sharpie here. I will usually start with a Sharpie, that way I can come back. If you look here at this one, I will typically come back and add either ink, watercolor, both, color pencil, all kinds of media on top of it. This is actually a ballpoint pen. This one is Sharpie and ballpoint pen. Pen. But if I come back and add like water or ink or watercolor, I mean, the water will bleed any of the ink, right? So the Sharpie— I use a Sharpie because it will not bleed. There you go. Sketching about me is not about perfection, it's about imperfection, just going for it and having fun. My torches are never the same twice. I think I need— I think the Sharpie's actually shot, so let me grab another Sharpie. Um, sketching for me is about imperfection. I'm never trying to replicate, duplicate any of the buildings I see exactly. Um, the torch sketches I do are never the same twice, and I love that. I love that. Sometimes I think we feel like we need to be perfect when it comes to creating artwork, and that, that Stress of having perfection on our brain, uh, can, can freeze us and pause us and stop us in our tracks from even creating anything. So by stepping up to the paper here and saying in my brain, I'm allowed to be imperfect, do what I want— for example, I have this way too high because the flame's not going to be as tall as I want it to be. And that's fine because you know what, like I just said, I'm not here for perfection. I'm here to get some ideas, some fun, uh, on paper, some color. And that's really what this journey, this sketching journey, is about for me. So don't feel like you need to step up, have crisp, sharp, clean, straight lines. If you give your permission to sketch loose It just, it just frees up a lot of constraints, a lot of pressure. Hopefully that makes sense. All right, so we kind of have the outline of a the torch there. And again, so I'm talking about, right, stepping up to the plate, stepping up to the paper with imperfection on your brain. So if we look at the sample, I did this, uh, December 2025. So I did this, this was done probably on the bus on my way to New York City. No, I'm lying. Where was I? December 28th, '25. No, I was in— I was in the airport. I was on my way to Paris, so that's where I did this sketch. Cool. Feel free to say hi in the comments. I'll check in and say hello to you guys. So I probably have given out about maybe 12 of these torches. It was really cool last time I went to NYC and gave one of these out, was in Rockefeller Center. At the Dough Donut Shop, and the employee there, his name was, uh, I think it was Rocky. He took it, he took the sketch, he took this, the torch, and, um, he was so excited about it. It was so fun to give it out. Hey Gigi and Jeff, great to see you guys! Hope all is well. Jen, great to see you as well. Hope you guys are having an amazing, amazing day. It's great to see you again. It's so fun. It is so fun seeing this, you guys in multiple chat rooms. Um, I appreciate it. It's just cool to kind of hang out with, with you guys, some chat friends, right? Notice I, I go over lines a lot. Like, I kind of made this thumb here a little bit bigger. And for me, that just adds to my style, the quick, loose style I like to do. Let's throw, um, we're gonna throw some color down on this tonight too. You know what I'm gonna break out? I got, I got these new Sharpies here. Let's play around some of these colors and throw some down on here and have fun. Awesome to see you guys. Let me grab a drink here. Paula, great to see you. How are you? It's been a long time. The group is back. Yes, the group is back. We are back. What was that? I'll be— I'll be back. We'll be back. So fun. Feel free to ask questions, guys, or leave comments. And Jen, I think— Jen, I think I have to give you one of those blue wrench things. Um, so you can, so you can manage my, uh, my huge group chat here. All right, let's throw some color down, guys. I, I am eyeing up this color here. Let's throw some of this pinkish color. I don't even know what some of these are called. We got some cool greens. Let's just break out some fun Sharpies. So my playlist tonight, guys, I am boring with my playlist tonight. I am back with some Coldplay and some Shinedown. I just keep hitting the same old playlist over and over again. I'm going to zoom in closer. All right, let's go a little bit closer. These markers are kind of— it's kind of faint, actually. Let's try a different one. There we go. That kind of minty green one was not minty fresh. It looks like it needs a little more juice in it. I just open these bad boys up. So I'm always open up for suggestions if you guys have things and you'd like to see me sketch some buildings, um, they don't have to be in NYC. I just did, uh, here's this one. So this is the one I just wrapped up for Jen, Jen Thistle out in Arizona. She used to work at the, um, the Grand Canyon Lodge here that burned down last year, and I did a sketch for Jen, if you're watching. This is— I'm going to be mailing this out to you. Surprise! Um, but this is how it came out. This was really fun. So just, just an example of, you know, I love sketching NYC, but I can do other things as well. I need to break out some red. I don't have a red. Um, for red, I like to use Pilot Precise Pen or the red Sharpie Creative Marker. Another place I've given out this torch sketch, um, Shake Shack. So my favorite Shake Shack— that's hard to say fast— Shake Shack, Shake Shack, Shake Shack. Try saying that 10 times fast. Shake Shack, Shake Shack, Shake Shack, Shake Shack, Shake Shack, Shake Shack, Shake Shack, Shake Shack. I don't know if that was 10, but my favorite one is located, um, Chelsea— in Chelsea, right under the High Line. It's such a cool little Shake Shack, and I love going there. And I gave a sketch out there as well, took Torch sketch. I think I actually gave a Shake Shack sketch out there too. And what's really cool, guys, is sometimes when I give these out and I go back, people remember me. Like the people at Dough Donuts, two of the guys there, they remember me. So it's just, it's just a really fun way to connect with people. Um, yeah. There you go. Look at that red. That's awesome. Notice I'm being quick, fast, scribbly. I'm not striving for perfection by any means here. So pro tip, this is a great red color. It's my favorite color. Let's try this yellow. This yellow is calling my name right here. Uh, Jen says, have you been sketching for long? Hmm, Jen, that is— that's a great question. Uh, yeah, I have been sketching. I've been drawing since I was like 6, maybe 7 years old. I had— it's a pretty interesting story. Um, I had a pretty bad accident when I was— I think it was 7, I forget the exact year. When I was 7, um, I was shoveling snow and it's kind of a freak thing. I was— I had the handle of the snow shovel against my stomach. My hands were not touching the handle, just my stomach. And I was running along the sidewalk with the shovel against my stomach. I hit a crack in the sidewalk and the handle of the shovel, it didn't puncture, but it pushed so hard against my stomach that I ruptured my pancreas and my spleen. Not pretty. I was in the hospital for a while, gangrene set in, had to remove intestines. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be graphic, but Um, after that accident, when I went back to school, I was not allowed to have recess with my friends. I couldn't do anything in the gym. I couldn't go to the playground. So every day— and this was for a while, I'm gonna say it was probably for like 4 months— every day I had to go into the nurse's office while the kids were out having recess. So that's where I just first started drawing. Because I was bored. I needed something to do, and I found out by drawing and sketching I could show my friends what I was working on, what I was doing while they were out playing. So I connected with them on a different level. Uh, years go by, I didn't really draw too much. Then I went to architecture school, so I studied architecture in college. And in college, you know, architecture school, sketching is essential. If I wanted to get my ideas across, if I wanted to show my buildings, my thoughts, my concepts, you know, I'd have to put stuff on paper. And I had to put stuff on paper quick to get my professor's attention, um, because I was competing against other students. The professors were busy, so we had to be really, really fast and quick with our sketches. And that's kind of where I came up with my loose style sketching. Um, and then my love of architecture just naturally evolved to me carrying a sketchbook with me pretty much everywhere, kind of like the Lockbie. There's a plug for Lockbie, my Lockbie folio. Um, and just sketching. So if you ever run into me in New York City, I'll probably have a sketchbook and I'll be drawing something. So hopefully that helps. So I didn't give you about years, but let's just say since I was 6, and I am much older than that now. Good question. I love the questions, guys. So check this out, the colors are kind of just throwing them on here, playing around with these markers. I don't know what— what do you call this color? Is this like salmon? Not like the fish. Is this like— this is pink and this salmon. I don't even know. See better there. I'm going to call that salmon, which I, I don't really eat enough fish. Jennifer's in. Hey Jennifer, great to see you. Yeah, um, Jennifer, uh, yeah, so this is the finished Grand Canyon Lodge. Great to see you, and I am, I'm going to be sending this your way. So, um, yeah, thank you for inspiring this sketch. Appreciate it. I'm sorry, Jason Nicholas Nicholas. That's terrible. So I'm sorry that happened to you. It's okay, it's all good. I'm good now. I'm healthy now. I'm really good health. It hasn't— didn't really affect anything in my life other than slowing me down when I was 7, um, and it got me out of shoveling snow for a year. That was awesome. Um, but yeah, it was, it wasn't just— it was an experience for sure. It's kind of interesting. I was saying to one of my students the other day, um, I forget how the conversation started, but I ended up, I ended up saying something like, uh, I think we're talking about people, and every person I meet, whether I like the person or not, right? We don't always like everybody we know or run into. I always try to take away some kind of lesson from that person, um, which is better than kind of hating on a person or situation. So that's kind of what I I did with this situation with the snow shovel accident. I— it was just a lesson that I learned at a very young age that, well, one, not to be stupid and put a snow shovel against your stomach. Um, but I, I kind of learned the importance of, um, being able to express yourself and connect with people in other ways. So for me, it was through drawing. I grew up pretty socially awkward in high school and throughout school and just very shy kind of person, but drawing was a way for me to communicate. You know, I would make, I would make birthday cards, give them out, Christmas cards, give them out to people because I really couldn't express how I was feeling through words. So maybe we're getting a little deep tonight, guys, but it's really cool. It's cool stuff, and I just love sharing my thoughts with you and kind of how I see the world a little bit. All right, this is awesome. I love the way this is looking. We're going to dig in, we're going to grab some markers here. Looks dusty rose. Me, you know, I love the name. We'll call it, we'll call it Dusty Rose. I'll hold it up closer. You guys can see how this is looking. I love your positive attitude. Well, thank you. I, uh, I am not perfect. Not perfect, but thank you. I do try to be positive. Check this out, it looks pretty cool close up, right? All right, we're going to dig into, um, I love— you guys know I love Sharpie Creative Markers. I want to throw some orange, I think, on the flame here. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger and a better person. 100%. That's 100%. Isn't that, um, gosh, there's a song, maybe you guys know it. There's a lyric in there about what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Does anybody know that song? I can't think of what it is. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I gotta Google it. That's so true. So I'm throwing down some orange on here. How are these colors looking for you guys? Can you see them okay, or is there too much light shining on here? I don't know if the colors are being washed out. Yeah, this is cool. I love these Creative Markers. They are more fun than a bag of chips. Markers are more fun than a bag of chips. They're healthier too. Let's pull out some of this yellow. Oh, oh, hold on, hold the— hold your horses. I gotta grab I gotta go over to my shelf. One of these days I'm gonna do a little studio tour for you guys. You can see kind of where I'm sitting, what I got around me, see my messy world here. But I need to grab a Creative Marker out of the bin. Oh wait, all right, never mind. All right guys, for no extra charge, no extra charge tonight, you're going to witness something really special. Are you ready? I'm going to build up suspense. For no extra charge to tonight's live stream I'm going to open a brand new pack of Creative Markers because there is one color in here I need to take out right now. All right, we'll do a little ASMR. Oh, the marker just flew across the room. All right, all right, we need some angelic sound here, like, oh, something like that. That was not angelic. The Unveiling, my favorite, favorite creative marker color, if not favorite color in any of my medium. I use watercolor, markers, color pencils. I love like turquoise. Oh yeah, you gotta watch and I throw this color down how this is gonna transform like I don't know, like something. Drum roll, yes! All right, let's throw this down. I'm gonna whisper. Bob Ross mode. Right. Oh, I'm supposed to whisper. Do you see how that transformed the whole torch? Notice that I didn't throw this color everywhere. If I threw this down everywhere it would take away from the power. There'd be too much. So just kind of subtle some places, um, and it pops like, like microwave popcorn. Um, yes, I got a drum roll. Thank you for the drum roll, I appreciate that so much. Kelly— oh, Kelly Clarkson. I'm going back in the chat here. Um, thank you. It was Kelly Clarkson. You guys sing it for me. Now I gotta play that song. All right, I'm not even kidding, I'm gonna— I gotta go on my phone, I'm gonna find it and listen to it. What is the name of the song? I'll just put— what, what is it? What? What doesn't kill you. Oh, look at it right there. Is that it right there? Like, is that it, guys? Find out. I can see the color is awesome. Colors look washed out. Throw some watercolor on. Hey Jennifer, yeah, thanks. The colors— I'm going to move this light over and then maybe it'll be a little bit better. That should be, that should be better. I'm not singing, you're singing. Are you guys having karaoke night in the chat? Sea foam. Yeah, it's like a sea foam color. Turquoise is the ticket. All right, here's something else I like to do with these torch sketches. I'm going to bring out a red marker. This is the song. Oops, that is the Sharpie that's not working. I'm going to throw some details. This one's almost done, guys. This one might be done, might be done. I have one question to ask you guys. I need your votes. Should I add— you might know what color I'm going to ask, but should I add Some neon pink, some neon pink. All right, that was my, uh, Kelly Clarkson fill for the day. Yeah, I just listened to Kelly Clarkson. What? I must be really tired. Um, no, it's a good song. I like Sia. How do you say Sia? S-I-A. I like her. Unstoppable. It's a good song. All right, I heard that Bob Ross made 3 paintings per day. Uh, day 1 testing, second for TV, and third for sale. Yeah, I heard that too. I think— isn't that incredible? You know what's really cool about Bob Ross? He was, um, Navy? Air Force? I think he was in the Air Force. I think Bob Ross was in the Air Force and Apparently in the Air Force, he was not a very nice guy. Um, pretty interesting, right? And another thing, cool thing about Bob Ross is he, uh, he had that signature afro because he was trying to save money so he wouldn't get haircuts. So he would save money, let his hair grow out. Pretty, uh, fascinating individual. Great, colorful. Yes, yes, great song. Yes. All right, let's throw some Pink on and we'll wrap it up with that. I listened to this song, Unstoppable. It was in my top 3 of 2025. Like, it was one of my pump me up songs of 2025. Unstoppable. Um, yeah, love that, love this song. All right, we got some neon pink, and the key with neon pink is don't throw it down in too many places. Um, or it'll start looking like the Barbie Dream Torch. So I don't want this to be the Barbie Dream Torch. I just want to throw pink down in like 3 places just to give a little zesty pop to it. And you'll— when I hold this up at the end, you'll see it better. Where do I want the last one? Maybe here, just a little pop. This neon pink is a pretty powerful color, so I'll hold it up, you can see it. I believe yes. Yeah, I think, uh, Air Force. Do you have a metallic gold or silver? That's a great question. I— Sharpie, I guess you mean, right? I think I do. Would that look cool on here, a metallic gold or silver? Oh, I, uh, I just touched my phone and switched it to Metallica from Sia. Okay, we'll take it. From Metallica to Kelly Clarkson to Sia, welcome to WINK, the Inspired Life radio station, where we listen to all kinds of music 24/7. It's all random at the accidental touch of my phone. Um, I'm— Jen, I'm— let me double check over here. So let me double check in this bin. These are, uh, these are all black Sharpies here in this one. Yeah, I am a Sharpieholic, guys. Check out this Sharpie. Have you, have you seen a Sharpie this big? I think I've even bigger one at school. Check out this King size Sharpie. I haven't— there's even— I have an even bigger one at school, bigger Sharpie. All right, uh, if I had one, and maybe it's in here. I have like— I do have like paint, like copper ink. I mean, I have metallic ink. I don't know if I have a Sharpie. These are cool. I like the purple. Nope, I don't have any. Sorry about that. Um, Talica. GG's like, Talica? Yes, I'm listening to Fuel by Metallica. Um, great voice. Yes, Bob Ross had a great voice. Or bronze. You know what I do? All right, you know, I'm gonna throw on— guys, this will be the last thing tonight. I have this, it's called Copper Ink. Let's throw some Copper Ink on here and we'll wrap it. I misplaced my bamboo brush, the love of my life. Well, no, I think it's— I think it's just brushing me off, but I don't know where it is. So sad, so sad. I don't know where it went. Thank you guys so much for watching. I'm just gonna throw this copper ink and I'm definitely wrapping for the night. I have school tomorrow. Yay. Yay-ish. We have midterms at school, so we have kind of a wonky schedule this week. No complaints. Other than having to wake up at 5:30. It's not a complaint, it's just the way. It is the way. I'm just looking for a brush here. We'll use this one. All right, someone just randomly throw in a song or an artist so I can wrap up with a different song here. You're in my randomizer. Give me the name of a song or an artist and we'll listen to something. All right, I'm gonna throw some of this copper ink on here. Oh boy, I am reading the comments and I hope I'm not misreading the comments or my brain might be just going down a path it shouldn't be. Um, you guys are funny, funny, funny. All right, I'm just literally dipping this in here. Back to school for the kids? Yeah, we actually started school, um, we were back last week and we had a long weekend, which was awesome. All right, Jen, we're throwing down some copper. Some copper ink. I'm not a huge fan of this brush, but sometimes you just got to go with what we have and just use it, right? And then I'll hold this up so you can see it better. Yeah, that's enough for that. I miss my bamboo brush, the round brush. Where the heck could I have put it? Dang nabbit. Mm-hmm, I got you. I hear you loud and clear. Take care, Gigi, uh, Jen, whoever's saying goodbye to me. I'm gonna wrap up as well. I appreciate you guys for watching. I'll probably finish this tomorrow. All right, so here's how this— here's how this kind of looks. So after this dries, I'll come back over it. I'm going to throw some color on top of that copper. Uh, it'll look really cool after I do that. Thank you guys so much for watching on this January 19th, 2026, Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I appreciate you all so, so much. Until we meet again, sketch boldly, live creatively, and inspire endlessly. And by the way, I, Jen, I'll give you that blue wrench if you put in the chat blue wrench. I'll make sure you get one. Take care, Paula. It's great seeing you. Jen, Gigi, Jeff, always great seeing you guys as well. Jennifer, it was wonderful seeing you as well. Jennifer, um, if you could just— if you could DM me your address on Facebook, just send me a message. Your mailing address. I know you sent it or you posted it another time, but I didn't write it down. If you can send me a message with your address, I'd love to mail that Grand Canyon Lodge off to you. Peace out.