NYC Architecture Sketch Fearless: Loose Lines & No Apologies

Hey, it's, um, Thursday, May 28th, 2026. Hope you're having a great day today. I am. I'm back, I'm back. I have not been on, uh, quite as frequently as I have been, but I'm back here. Good to see you guys. If you don't know me, my name is— what is my name? Oh yeah, it's Jason Nicholas Nicholas here with The Inspired Life, where I love sketching architecture. Um, it is just something fun for me to do. It's— it changes my state of mind. It's a great way to capture a place, a moment in time. I just love throwing wonky lines down on paper, and it's— it's just fun. So join me for a little bit as we do Maybe we're gonna throw down some color on this sketch here, and then we might do another New York City inspired sketch. We'll see what time it is. Um, it's 9:34. I don't think I'm gonna be on that long, so, uh, let's just throw some color down to get started. I hope you are having an awesome day today. Let's zoom in. All right, so last time I was live, I sketched this really quick NYC-inspired scene. This is the MetLife Building, and then we have part of GCT, Grand Central Terminal, happening here. Just a kind of— just a real small snippet of this area. So I thought it'd be fun tonight just to throw down some color and pop some things out and we'll let's just see where this goes. I have no idea. Uh, we're just gonna grab and go with some Sharpie creative markers and yeah, let's just do it. Again, I hope you're having a great, great day today. I have not been on, um, I was live streaming every day for maybe 3 weeks, a month or so, and then I've cut back a little bit only because I've been so, just so tired. Like, yeah, my I'm just tired, guys. Not complaining, but I just haven't been coming on as frequently. And, um, it's great to be here tonight, and I appreciate— I always appreciate whoever's watching live or the replays. You guys are awesome, so thank you. So I'm just grabbing and going, throwing down random colors here. Oops. We're in the home stretch with school. We end on June 19th, which is not that far away really. Um, the school year has flown by. It's been crazy, crazy how time just passes by sometimes. But I am definitely ready for summer. I love Grand Central Terminal. It is an architectural marvel. It's such a beautiful, beautiful facility. So much energy in there. People, you know, going to catch trains, going, you know, getting home from work. There's shops in there, food courts. It's really an amazing place for, uh, for people watching, for sketching architecture, which obviously I do. It is a place I can never— will never get bored going to. I can literally spend the whole day in Grand Central Terminal, not get bored. And I've done that. Not the whole day, but I've spent hours in there. And then this building I'm throwing the blue on here, this is the MetLife Building. I think it used to be called the Pan Am building, if I remember. Feel free to pop any questions in the chat. Uh, I'm just grabbing it going. I'm just going to use whatever colors I have in here. Minus one thing I do want to break out, probably a gel pen. So we're just going to stick with, um, whatever I have in my Lockbee Quattro right now. Love the Lockbee Quattro. As you can see, I can fit a lot of markers in here, different pens. It's just great for grab-and-go creativity, which is what I'm definitely all about. Just grab and go. I don't really think about what I'm going to pick up and take with me. So if I want to just go sketching on the spur of a moment, um, I'm ready to go. Most— mostly. And I'll be heading into NYC this weekend for, um, on Saturday to do some sketching, so that'll be fun. Looking forward to that. Let's start out here. Let's use pink. I don't really use I haven't used this color too much, uh, with the Creative Markers. I usually use fluorescent or neon pink color pencils. Let's see, I want to pull out the sky, um, throw a sky in here so the building edges kind of stand out. What color? Uh, I'm gonna go with the orange. I think we'll do orange. Yeah, I love the way this is coming out with the color on it. I think it looks— it's really popping. Um, yeah, so it'd be interesting if you're just joining, definitely go back and look at the beginning of the video. You can see where it started, or even the last livestream I did where we created the sketch together. Um, I really like the transformation this has taken. It has a lot— a different energy, a different vibe to it, which I really love. Hey, Edie is in the house! Edie, good to see you. I hope you're doing awesome. Always, always a pleasure to see you. Hope you're having a great day. Yeah, this is, this is really cool. Let me zoom out a little bit. Uh, let's throw a frame on it too and take a look at it. Here we go. So that's the whole kit and caboodle. Uh, this scene is inspired by a view of Grand— a view of Grand Central Terminal, GCT. So we got Grand Central Terminal, small real small portion of it here. MetLife Building in the background. So, uh, just a little kind of vignette, a little postcard view of this area. Oh my gosh, I am clumsy tonight. All right, it's because my brain's sleepy. Let's throw a frame on here and take a look at it. Thank you. Yeah, today has been a very Today's been a good day. I'm just exhausted. To be honest with you, I am really, really tired. But I haven't been on much lately, live streaming. I've missed it. I missed engaging with you guys here in the chat. So thank you so much. It's always awesome to be on here and doing what I love doing and just sharing a little bit of time with you. So thank you. Check this out. I kind of, I kind of like the whole view. Um, let's slide this up. Maybe I kind of wish the matte opening was different proportions, but get the idea of what it could look like. Well, actually, this isn't— this is not a bad vignette. I really like the orange. I think if I cropped it here maybe— yeah, I kind of like that view. Hey D-Ray's in the house! Great to see you over on Facebook. I hope you're doing well. Always a pleasure to see you. Thank you, Jason Nicholas Nicholas. You're welcome. No need to thank me. Thank you, guys. All right, this is so cool. I love this sketch. The more I look at it, the more I like it. Yeah, I have a bigger frame, but this is way too big. And I know we've had suggestions of making like L2L shapes and adjusting them. I just have not got— gotten to that point yet, but it's a great suggestion. Yeah, this is too big, but let's see, maybe get an idea. Yeah, the mat's too small, 100%. Wait, it is way too small. I wish it was like a, uh, what is it, 9:16 ratio, right? Like a movie format ratio where it was just A little bit longer would crush it, I think. Well, not literally crush it. We don't want to crush the drawing, but like, you know what I mean by crush it. Huh. Yeah. Yeah, this is really cool. This is, um, what's been really interesting is just watching this year. I've been trying different things and different techniques, and I'm kind of liking where it's heading. Um, if we go back to— I have to say, this, this sketch here has gotten more reaction than I think most of my other sketches lately. Um, I don't know why, but this style and this style are very similar, right? I actually like this one better. This has more of a vibe to it. Cool, let's write. Let's write what it is. GCT. GCT, Grand Central Terminal. I'm super excited to be going into the city Saturday to do some sketching. Fingers crossed, fingers crossed that the weather holds out. I'm due to go into the city. It's been, it's been about a month, I guess. It's beautiful with the colorization. Hey, thank you so much. Let's put that— Edie, you just made the chat. You made the stream. Watch, watch. Boom. There we go. Thank you so much. It's beautiful with the colorization. I appreciate that. Why do I appreciate it? Because I am a person who is extremely, extremely embarrassed to add color on my sketches and even more fearful to show, um, show sketches with color, uh, you know, to people, especially live streams. So I appreciate the comment. Um, I just had to suck it up one day, and I realized the fear for me with color was I felt, I felt like the buildings, the colors I used had to match exactly the existing building. So I was paranoid. I was paranoid to make a mistake, and that paranoia shut me down. From adding color. Uh, but then I just— something happened where I just said, you know what, forget it. This is my artwork, right? This is our voice. Whatever you throw on paper, on canvas, whatever you do is your own voice. So I throw down color based on how I'm feeling, what I have with me, grab-and-go creativity. I'm not replicating, obviously, I mean, these are not the colors you'll see there, but these are the colors I feel in my heart, in my soul, in the moment I am working on this, creating this. So don't let the fear of having to be too perfect shut you down from creating, because I like it— like I like saying, Imperfect, imperfect equals I am perfect. Remember that. Um, the Madame Tussauds looks like an Art Deco poster. Oh, let's go back. Oh, I, you know, I could see it with the shapes and the colors. Maybe that's interesting. Edie, that's a, that's a real, uh, I love that take on this. Let's put the frame on this one actually. What the heck's going on on my screen? There's like a window that opened. I can't— there we go. This actually, the frame for this one works. I think it's the right size. Yeah, it's a cool— it's a cool little sketch for sure, you know. And these are vibing off of what we've been working on here. And when I say we, it's because, uh, you know, I've been talking to you guys and doing this process with you. So it's kind of vibing off this without the kind of abstract backgrounds, but I do— I'm loving these as well. So it's just really fun to try different things. It looks food. Yes, food. I know, now I'm hungry. Looks good. Um, I can't— I have to go to bed. I can't eat anything. Um, so anyway, these are fun. I need suggestions for what should be the next sketch in this book. I do have Little Island and South Street Seaport written on this. We just did the NYSE, that's here, New York Stock Exchange. So we'll see, it'll either be Little Island, South Street Seaport, or perhaps another suggestion by you. Awesome. All right guys, we're going to wrap up in a minute. Because I have school tomorrow. I'm a tired bunny here. So hang with me as I clean up, and if you have any final questions, comments, please, please put them in the chat. A couple of quick announcements. Number 1, um, I have an upcoming workshop, uh, August 1st. At Stationery Fest in Brooklyn, Industry City. Spots are still available to sign up for that workshop. I really want to sell out badly, and so badly that they decide we can do 2 workshops. Um, I've never done anything like this before. It's a learning experience, and I would love for you guys to share it out there. Or if you're interested, come sketch with me August 1st. There's a link on the notes here in the description. Um, also go to my website. Second announcement: I just revamped my website. It's new. Spent the past weekend working on it. Go check it out. Uh, there are links on there for the workshop. Also, you can find links to my favorite sketching tools I'm using, including Lockbie, where you can get a discount. Um, yeah, go to the Inkspired Life JasonNicholas.com. Check out the website. Let me know what you think of it. It's not 100% done. It's a work in progress, just like all of us are every single day of our lives, right? We're always adjusting, always evolving, always changing. If I waited for my website to be perfect, it would never be out there. So I hit— push the button. It's now out there. All right, so please check out my website, check out the workshops. You guys are awesome. Let me see if there's any final questions and we'll wrap up the show. D-Ray says, wrapping up in a minute. That's right, D-Ray, always love your commentary. Have you sketched the U-B? Oh, the UN. No, that is actually really— that is— let me write it on here. That's a cool suggestion. I have I've never sketched the UN. I've been to it, went on a field trip there way back in high school. I've been past the outside of it a bunch of times. Edie, I think that is the winner for the next sketch, the UN. That would be fun to sketch, kind of the thingy here, and look at all the flags out front. Great suggestion, love it. All right guys, and again, all everything we used to sketch tonight, I am fitting right here in my Lockbee Quattro. I know it sounds like a commercial, I am kind of plugging it only because I do love their stuff and This is pretty awesome, and I could even zip it up. All right, I think that's gonna be a wrap for today. Tomorrow's Friday, right? I'll try to be on tomorrow night, livestream sketching, where I will work on this page, and I think we'll do the UN building. Until we meet again, sketch boldly, live creatively, and embrace Imperfection. Check out my website and my new podcast. Episode 1 is out. Everything's on the website. See you soon.