Monday Night Sketch and Chill

Hey, happy, um, happy Monday, September 29th. I'm Jason Nicholas Nicholas of the Inkspired Life, where I love sketching, sketching architecture, urban sketching, kind of sketching anything. Um, yeah, so I'm just popping on tonight, a little Monday night sketch and chill. Yeah, I know, that's original, right? Um, I'm popping on. Haven't been on, I think, I don't know, maybe a week or so. Uh, I really want to get back in the habit of being on more and more and just, uh, creating some fun sketches. So I don't have anything special planned tonight. Um, you know, I'm not doing a Brooklyn Bridge, not doing Empire State Building. I'm just gonna throw down colors, see what happens, have fun. I have some Sharpies. Bamboo brush with me, my watercolor here, some ink, creative markers. So we're just gonna, you know, just throw down colors and have fun. This isn't about sketching anything specific, it's really just about playtime, creative playtime, and just throwing some stuff down. If you're watching, let me know where you're watching from, and yeah, I'd love to, uh Chat, and if you have any questions, throw them in the comments. So I think I'm just gonna— uh, it looks like I'm sketching a barn, so let's do a barn sketch here tonight. Quick, loose, wonky style barn. I don't know, for some reason when the fall comes, I think of barns more than any other time of the year, and I'm not really sure why. Maybe it's, um, you know, pumpkin picking and apple picking and all that really cool fun fall festivity stuff. Let me know what your favorite season is. I definitely love the fall, it's my fave. I love the colors of the leaves, um, the overall vibe. Although it's, it's been kind of warm here in, uh, New Jersey this fall. It's been a really, really strange temperature. I kind of want it to be a little chillier. I'm just saying. If you're watching, let me know where you're watching from. I'm Jason Nicholas Nicholas with The Inspired Life. I love sketching architecture, urban sketching, quick, loose, fast, fun. I'm the Fast and Furious of sketching. No, I'm trying to sound dramatic. So I'm starting off with a Sharpie tonight. Um, I would say 98% of the time I use a Sharpie. That way I can come back. I do want to throw some color on. I have watercolor here, so I thought it'd be fun just throw some down tonight because why not, right? So I'm just kind of sketching from my imagination. Um, every barn needs a cupola structure, so let's draw a cupola on here. Wasn't that a— is that a famous director in Hollywood, Francis Ford Coppola? No, I'm kidding. Um, cupola, if you don't know, cupola is C-U-P-O-L-A. It's right here, cupola. Couple of— cupola is this structure here, um, used for ventilation in barns. You often see either vents here or sometimes you'll see windows. And we'll do some kind of a funky weather vane maybe up here as well. Cool. Hey, Noel's on! Noel, how are you? Long time no see. I, I miss you guys over there in, uh, over there in school. You guys in, in Multiplier, you guys are awesome. Hopefully I can get back, uh, in touch and join up and meet up with you guys and become part of it again. It's just been so cray-cray busy. I love what you guys do, and I need to be doing more of it. So it's great to see you. Nicole says fall is the best. We don't get seasons out here, so the only way I know it's fall is when pumpkin spice latte is coming out. Love that. Yeah, I guess you don't experience like the changing of the leaves, right? That's so funny. I do love that you have pumpkin spice latte. That's a cool thing. Awesome. All right, so we got kind of these wonky lines. I don't want to sketch any more anymore with the Sharpie. Let's just throw down color. I'm gonna be loose and quick. I have, um, Dirty Water. Pro tip: love Dirty Water. It just adds a grungy vibe. I love grungy industrial architecture, so we'll grunge it up a little bit. Um, also, I am going to be doing an online wonky barn sketching workshop coming up this month. I am currently working on the landing page or the sign-up page, so stay tuned for that. I'd love to have you guys join me for a Zoom workshop where we're going to sketch wonky barns. I think it'll be cool. I'm also going to put out a workshop for a live in-person meetup, uh, in Bryant Park, in that area, New York City. I'm thinking October 20 Oh man, 5th, it's a Saturday, I think. Um, kind of a meet and greet or a meet and sketch workshop. Um, I'll let you know, I'll put some details about the cost and all that. I think we'll meet for 3 or 4 hours, hang out, sketch some of the sites around that area. I think it'd be cool. So I haven't done my own in-person live workshop in the city, so Sometimes in life you just gotta go for it, just like I'm going for the color. Boom! Let me know at home, can you guys see the screen okay, or do I need to zoom in? Let me zoom in a little bit. That's probably a little better. If you're watching on Instagram, hello Instagram peeps! Um, Instagram, I know you guys can't see everything on screen. So I'm also streaming live on YouTube. If you want to head over to the YouTube channel, you can see everything. All right, let's do that. Uh, that should be good positioning there. Cool. Just gonna turn up some music here. I need some energy. So falls in my brain, I'm just going with some fall colors. We've got some yellows and oranges happening. Gotta throw on some, some aqua here, or turquoise rather. So I'm picturing maybe an old— an old barn, kind of weathered. I often get this question: how do I, how do I pick the colors I use? I love that question. Um, I have to say the answer is I just kind of go with, with my gut. I'm just kind of in the moment, grabbing and going. You know, this isn't— is not based on a real barn anywhere. It's just kind of what's in my brain, what's in my heart, what's in my soul right now. It's what I'm feeling. And I have my favorite go-to colors that I just love the combos. And one of those things I love using is this ink right here, this Apple Snail color. So we're going to throw some of this on. Uh, pro tip: you might want to have paper towels around when you're watercoloring. I don't have any, so I am using— I have a sheet of paper here, you can probably see it, and I'm just kind of blotting off the paintbrush on this Scrap piece of paper. Pro tip number 2 for tonight: always recap your ink. Um, no, I was going to grab some more ink, but it's back there. So I don't actually like red watercolor. Um, for red, I like to bleed these Pilot Precise Pens. So let's throw some red on here, and I'll show you what I mean by bleeding. So I threw down some ink, just going to take some water and just go on top of that ink. Hey Angel Runner, how are you? Oh my gosh, long time no see. Hope all's well. It's great to see you. It's fun being live, guys, here. Uh, I know I don't do it enough and I'm not consistent with my timing. But I just love hopping on and sketching and seeing you guys and checking in. If any questions, let me know in the chat. I'm more than happy to answer questions, take any comments, all that fun live streaming stuff. I also feel like playing with some colored pencils tonight, so I have a bunch here. They don't play really nice, um, with the wet areas of the page. These aren't watercolor pencils, they're just straight up Color pencils. All's well. Love those Pilot Precise Pens. Oh, awesome. Black pen and water brush goes a long way to capturing a great line and wash. I love the fall color palette tonight. Oh, thank you so much. I love your comments. Yeah, I'm glad you're picking up on the fall, um, fall vibes here. That's 100% what I'm, what I'm going for. We're gonna stick with some watercolor. I'm gonna intense— let's intense— intensify, I think that's a word. Let's intensify some of the orange. I'm just gonna— a little bit of water, I'm gonna throw a lot of orange on here. Uh, let me show you. This is how I like to put water— um, sorry, watercolor on my brush. I kind of spin it to really lay it on there. I don't know if the camera's picking it up, might be a little blurry, but some more paint, less water equals intense more intense color. So you can kind of see— boom, look how— I'll throw some here. Look how dramatic that is. You can really see that orange, orange pop out, right? I just threw some water on the brush. Um, you might notice kind of some colors puddling up down here towards the bottom. That's because I have, I have this, um, sketch at an angle, so I'm letting the water just pull everything down. Um, it's just a vibe that I like when I'm, when I'm— I call it sketch painting— when I'm sketch painting, just letting the colors kind of run down the page. Kind of pool up at the bottom. I just love that aesthetic. Pro tip: don't— oh, for— don't overwork it. I like a lot of the, um, white space on here. I'll add me up some pops of color in places, but I am— I'm not gonna— I'm not gonna color this entire thing solid. I'm gonna leave a lot of breathing room. I like that look. I like that unfinished style. For me, I think it allows the viewer, like you guys, to kind of use your imagination to fill in the blanks. And that's a really fun way just to create a sketch or a painting that's more engaging for people to look at. So, um, I love kind of the vibe that's happening. I see a question. I'm just gonna grab my water and I'll answer the question. I'm back. Uh, what brands of watercolors do you use? I've been trying Daniel Smith lately. Awesome question, love it. Sorry, I just needed some water. All right, so I, I am a Winsor Newton fan. Um, I love Winsor Newton, uh, Cotman watercolors. Um, that's mostly what's in here, although I do have some American Journey that I think the turquoise is American Journey. I think this No, that's, uh, that's Winsor Newton. I think the only color in here is turquoise is not Winsor Newton. So I have to say, the first watercolor palette I ever got was— it may have actually— this may actually be the first watercolor palette I've ever gotten. It's either the first or the second one, and I've just— I bought it. I love the convenience of it. The size of it. I didn't care about the name or anything. I didn't really know much about watercolors back then, um, and I've just been using, um, Winsor Newton since then. So that's a really, really good question. Daniel Smith, I know, makes amazing, amazing colors. I have tried some of their stuff. Um, yeah, their colors are outstanding. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think, I think they're more— I think they're more of a professional type of grade, whereas the ones I'm using are, you know, less than professional, but they're great for what I need them for. So that's a, that's an awesome question. All right, we're going to go back and we're going to intensify the turquoise on here. So I'm going to load up the brush like I did before with the orange. Kind of see it on there nice and thick. And we're just going to dab it in some places, you know, like dab like the— no, I'm not going to do the actual dab because, yeah, you don't want to see me try to dab. Um, but let's just pop some down. Maybe on the— this roof we'll throw down. Maybe this is an old rusty— I drew it as shingles, but I don't know, maybe they're metal shingles on here. So we're just gonna kind of, kind of throw these down in places. I'm being too— I'm thinking too much where I want to place it, so it's just kind of just go with it, keep it looser. The more I think, the lesser my sketches— the more I think, the less loose my sketches are. If I start really thinking, I'm going to tighten up, and I don't want to do that. That's, that's my architecture architect side. That's technical drawing. That's CAD drawing. This is playground time. Playground time for me equals loose style, often fast, just kind of get things down without thinking too much. All right, let's intensify some of this. I call it taxi cab yellow. I don't really know what color it is. I should, but I'm not really good at remembering names. So in my brain, this is taxi, taxi cab yellow. I'm sure someone out there will know the exact color name. And I could look it up, but I just like calling it taxi cab yellow. It's kind of like school bus yellow. It's probably more school bus than taxi cab yellow, but you know what, it doesn't really matter what you call your colors. At least for me, it doesn't matter. I just go with what I feel. I'm like, dang, that color looks cool. I think, uh, I think this is Sap Green, so I'm throwing in some Sap Green. My favorite green watercolor is this one. This is looking cool. Um, Angel says they're considered pro with their vibrant colors. I love the softness of Winsor Newton. Awesome. I found fountain pen ink and watercolors are opening a new world for me. Love that, love that. Wait, wait, wait, I gotta put this on screen. That's awesome. I love to hear that. Yeah, fountain pens are a whole— fountain pen ink is a whole different world. Fountain pens are an entire different universe. Um, not well versed in that area. I'm— Lamy Safari is probably my knowledge as fountain pens. Um, I never really found myself going down that path too deep yet. I'm open for it, but yeah, inks, totally. I know I love I love this, this ink here. I have a bunch of inks over there. So I love that you're experimenting with different, um, different mediums. How fun is that? So cool. Good stuff. I honestly, I have been going back to— I haven't gone old school in a new way. I've been using— I'll pull some out here. Um, I am, I am back to using ballpoint pens or gel pens. Yeah, I found this brand I'm really loving. Um, so how do you say it? Sarasa. Zebra makes it. Sarasa. I love, love, love, love these pens. I keep them with me. I keep them in my Lockbee folio here. So these have been my go-to, um, lately. I also have this really cool pen. I'm loving this pen. Hold on, let me show you guys. I'm loving this. This is a multicolor pen. It even has a lead holder in it. How cool is that? Um, So let's see if you— the clip here, if you push the clip down, it actually has a lead point that comes out. Sorry if it's hard to see, but so it has red, green, blue, black, and lead in it. Uh, built-in eraser. Yeah, well, not a built— I guess it's built-in self-contained eraser. Love this so much. Actually, let's break out some ballpoint pens while I have it out. Let's use it. You'll throw some blue on here. So when I go urban sketching in the city, I'm just finding these pens so convenient to take with me. Um, I'm still bringing my Sharpie Creative Markers. Love these also just because they dry so quick. I'm dropping stuff here. I tried— they dry so quick, great for urban sketching. I'm not really bringing watercolors so much urban sketching in the field anymore because for me they just take too long to dry and I'm a quick sketcher. When I go sketching with the NYC Urban Sketchers, um, some people can sit in one place for a couple hours, a few hours, which is awesome. They can sketch and they're amazing, amazing, amazing artists. I gotta move. I'm like 20 minutes in a spot, 30 minutes at the most, and I'm like on to the next place. So for me, watercolors don't make sense just because of the drying time. Pens and the Creative Markers work really, really well. I'm gonna bring some more red on this side, I think. I just want to ink— ink-tensify some of this red here. I'm going to zoom in in a second. You guys can see these all close up, and I'm going to wrap up at 9:15. Angel says those are great pens. I'm using a glass dip pen and inks, so mysterious and washy. Oh, that sounds really cool, Angel. Um, I have never used a glass dip pen. I'll have to give that a try. I don't even own one, so I appreciate that, uh, that pro tip. That's so cool. Hey, Renee Art Project, if you're on Instagram, hello! I saw you pop up over there. All right, let me zoom in so you guys can see how this is drying, see what the colors are looking like. Let's do it. Just gonna zoom the camera in, bring it pretty close up, and I'll just start the top and work my way down. So you can see how it's drying. I, I always love colors on, you know, when they layer over other colors. Let me point this— let's get a little pointer here. So I'm loving kind of— I'm loving this area right in here. This is, this is my favorite color palette you're seeing. Rusty colors, fall colors, grungy colors. I have the orange, um, the turquoise. I have some of the, the taxi cab yellow on there. Um, this is the palette, this is the color palette that I totally vibe with. I love it. Oh, Apple Snail Ink as well. D-Ray is zooming in. Hey D-Ray, how are you? Awesome to see you. Hope all is well. It's great, great to see you. There you go. And we'll move it up a little bit more. You can see some more of what's happening. I have my phone in front of me. I'm just changing the play the song a little bit. So are you totally getting the fall kind of vibes here still? I— here's what I was talking about, kind of leaving some white space. Um, I left it in the roof on purpose, and also over on this side you can see kind of where I have that vertical siding happening, those red lines. I'm gonna leave that nice and just leave that white there. Again, unfinished. It's a style, it's a look, um, it's something that I just love capturing. I think— I'm thinking I might want to pop that, that door out somehow. I'm not sure what color yet. Um, actually, I do know what color. I didn't use any lemony zests. Lemony zest color. Lemon zest. That's just what I call this yellow here. I call this lemon zest. I always like to say it's kind of like cooking with lemon. It just adds a pop of fresh freshness. I love lemon. I made chicken. I made me chicken piccata tonight. That lemon juice, oh my God, it was so good. So, so good. I want to start a cooking channel. I'm actually not bragging or anything, but I am actually a pretty good cook. Um, so I don't actually like what I just did and I can't blot it out, so I'm going to try to just pull some of that paint off. Use my finger to pull it off. That's better. I didn't want it to be solid, I just wanted to put a little bit of that yellow and it kind of got away from me. Hello, Paula, great to see you. Hope all's well. Paul is on Instagram and says, loving the colors and theme. Thank you so much. Hey, Paul, if you stay tuned, I'm going to zoom out so you can see the whole thing. I'm also live on, uh, on YouTube if you want to switch to the YouTube channel. You can see the entire screen much better. Love seeing, love seeing you guys over there on the TikTok, on the Instagram, on the YouTube, on the Facebook. Um, let me zoom up. Let me move a little bit more. I'm just doing a zoom-in session here so you can kind of see things, how they're drying, how they're looking. Angel says thanks for sharing your passion and love your art. May you have a blessed night. Thank you, Angel. You too. Awesome, uh, catching up. Hope you're doing well and would love to see some of your artwork sometime. Thanks for the positive vibes in the chat tonight. So cool. I'm headed out at 9:15, so like 6 minutes, guys. Let me know if you have any, uh, final questions or comments. So this is looking pretty cool. I'm going to zoom back out so you see the whole shenanigans. Does it, does it even apply to the sketching world? Shenanigans. Let me see. Yeah, Instagram is weird. If you're watching on Instagram, it, it cuts. I guess because of the format, it cuts. So you guys on YouTube, if you see where my hands are, in between my hands, that's what YouTube is I'm sorry, that's what Instagram's seeing. They just see a small sliver. I kind of wish they saw the whole thing. Hey, Paul Loves Art, is you switched to YouTube? Awesome, now you can see it better. It drives me bizarre— bizarre drives me crazy that Instagram, I get the format of it, it really cuts so much out, um, so it's hard to livestream on Instagram. So thanks for switching over to YouTube. Um, I love the way this is drying, guys. I'm hoping it dries a little bit more because I want to come back in and throw some Sharpie details. Um, D-Ray can probably guess what I'm going to be adding with my Sharpie. I'm going to see if you can guess if you're still out there on the, on the, uh, the FB, the Facebook. I'm just trying to sound cool with, you know, the Insta, the FB, the YT, the TikTok. I guess that would be TT. I don't know, I don't know. Um, it wasn't seeming to do it at first, then it did. Very cropped on Insta. Yeah, Instagram, it totally crops it out. I am gonna— I want to show you guys, I think, my favorite part of the entire I have two favorite parts here I want to show you. So let me just bring this up. Let me get really, really close. Is that light going to pick up on here? Let's see. I am loving what's happening right there. This is— yeah, I know I'm going to nerd out, I'm going to geek out on drying paint colors. But that's what we do, right? These colors are paradise for me right here. A little bit of turquoise, turquoise in this would be perfect. I'm loving that palette. I'm gonna get even closer. Love, love, love what is happening in that corner. That is— that's my favorite part of this entire sketch painting tonight. Let's go over here. Uh, very similar. I love what's happening over in this corner. Sorry, hands are shaking a little bit. So for me, tonight was worth it just for those two areas. I mean, I like— I think the barn's fun. It's wonky, it's, it's playful. But I, I, all right, this is so weird, but I actually have goosebumps talking about these colors. Um, yeah, cray cray, I know. Paula says, I love that color combo too. It is amazing. I want to do two things before I wrap up. I'm going to add some details with a Sharpie. I want to add some growies along the base of the barn. And, uh, I'm so excited. I'm like pointing with two fingers. Does that indicate excitement when you do this? I don't know. In my world, I guess it does. Um, I also want to come back in and just layer some color pencil on top, especially my absolute favorite, favorite water— not watercolor, color pencil color— Light Aqua. And I think we're going to throw some chartreuse down as well and a pop of neon pink. So if you want to stick around for 3 to 5 more minutes, I will add that stuff. It's still too wet for me to use a Sharpie down here, so I'm gonna— let's go with some colored pencils. T-Ray's like, come on, growies! You know me and my growies. I did a few, I did a few over here. Um, let's see, let me zoom in a little bit more. There we go, I think that's better. All right, so if you're just joining me over on the Instagram, the TikTok, the Facebook, the YouTube, any of those, those, please feel free to like, subscribe, share this. I would love to get more subscribers, just get things get this out there more. I'm starting to do— oh, it's not art unless you— what? It's not art unless you wear it. There we go, it's officially art now. Um, what was I saying? I'm actually starting to do some more and more videos about, uh, really not so much sketching but more of mindset or personal growth, personal development. Um, and I've been sharing those on TikTok and Instagram. And yeah, just kind of talking through things and things that, you know, for example, I did a video and I posted one today about, about listening and how what we're saying, putting out in the world, is getting lost because there's just so much noise out there, and sometimes we feel bad that we're not being heard. So I just put some encouraging words out there about that today on a video. Um, the other day was about the comparison trap, so trying to be a little more motivational, a little more inspirational with some of my posts. All right, cool. All right, let's throw down some Chartreuse. So this is still wet. It's really not layering on like I wanted it to. I might have to do this later. Yeah, colored pencils don't play well with wet ink, wet paint. But I think to wrap this up, let me see if I can throw some growies in, and then we'll throw some pink on. Yeah, it's still too wet. All right, all right, no growies on that, it's still too wet. Um, if I had a Sharpie gel pen, I could— that would work on the wet area. Let's just throw down some pink and then we'll do— I'll see if there's any final questions or comments and we'll wrap it up, guys. So when I use neon pink, I just pop it down in a few places here and there. I don't want to overdo it with the pink. Hey, Sketches and Some, awesome to see you on Instagram. Hope all is well with you. Um, if you're interested, I am streaming over on YouTube where you can see the entire image because I know Instagram likes to crop it. All right, so we got some pink there, and then we will throw up some on the roof. Cool. Hey, thank you, Mel. I appreciate you so much. Thumbs up. I hope, uh, I hope if you're sketching out on Saturday, I'm hoping to join you guys. I would love to be out there sketching. I love that location. Mel, thank you for your, um, your inspiration. You're a class act. All right, cool. All right, so added some pink, guys. I think this one's a wrap. Let me zoom out so you can see it. If you're on Instagram, hang tight with me just for a second. Let me zoom out so you can see more of what I'm sketching, um, and then I'll kind of wrap up with everybody. All right, so I'm zooming out so you can see, um, there's— now that I'm looking at it from a zoomed distance, I kind of want to outline And I'm going to be brave and bold. Um, this is where you got to just lean into your courage. Don't be afraid, throw ink down. I am going to grab— do I have black in here? I am going to grab— all right, I'm going for it, guys. I'm going to grab a big Sharpie here. Not the biggest I have, but we'll grab this one. I'm just going to use a Sharpie. I want to outline this so the edges pop a little bit more. Okay, and just kind of look how this transforms. This is commitment. Once you throw these Sharpies down, you, you're 100% committed. And I think that's a really cool strategy, um, if we're worried about being fussy and technical and precise. A lot of people will use pen, pencil so they can erase lines and redraw it. Um, I like to just grab the Sharpie, go with it. It's a story. If my lines are wrong, they're wrong. But you know what? There is no wrong in this. They're my lines, right? Be brave, be bold, and just throw down some ink. So you can see, just by doing that outline, it just kind of popped the edge of that barn out a little bit more. That was just a Sharpie. Pretty cool, right? All right, so tonight, uh, we'll do a quick wrap-up here. We did a loose, wonky style barn just from my imagination, uh, inspired by some colors of the fall, plus my favorite color palette, which is that industrial kind of rusty metal vibe with the oranges, the turquoise. Um, the Apple Snail ink. So I'm loving that color combo, right? We talked about this being my favorite color of the night, especially if we had some turquoise there, it would be perfect. So we have a loose style sketch. We also talked a little bit about architecture. We talked about the word cupola, not Francis Ford Koopala. Well, that's Coppola, the director. Cupola. Cupola, or cupola, as far as I hear people say, is this piece at the top that allows for ventilation. Um, traditional classic with a barn. So we've got the cupola up there. We talked a little bit about mindset, right? Grabbing and going with colors, select colors from your guts. Um, don't be afraid to be loose and wonky, you know, and just have fun. This is really about having fun and being playful. Cool, you guys are awesome. Let me see if there's any final question or comments from any of the, uh, the YouTubes, Instagrams, the Facebooks, or— I'm not on TikTok tonight. Sometimes I live stream it on TikTok at the same time. So D-Ray says yes, come on, growies. Yep, I did sketch a few here. Um, again, I have to— this has to dry more, then I'll come back with my Sharpie and I'll throw some on. Sometimes I'll put ink or watercolor, I'll just kind of blow it like that and it'll make these cool. Let's try it here actually. I don't know if you can see that, so I kind of just blew the wet ink or watercolor paint up and we got some growies in front of the building. Awesome. Dere says thank you, Jason Nicholas. Enjoy your visit. Thank you, I enjoyed you guys as well. I appreciate you all watching. Um, I'm Jason with the Inkspired Life, where I just love sketching— sketching architecture, urban sketching, sketching anything. Remember, until we meet again, sketch boldly, live creatively, and inspire endlessly. Have a good night.