Perplexing Plethora of Paper Possibilities

Hello, hope you're having an awesome day today. I thought I'd pop on just for a few minutes here to talk about the perplexing plethora of paper possibilities for sketching. There are so many, so many different papers out there, and I've barely scratched the surface, but I just want to talk a little bit about the papers I use and why I use them. So let's start with a couple of things. One, I guess a lot of it depends on what medium you're using, if it's watercolor or inks maybe, or pencil. That's going to kind of help— helps me decide where I'm going to head. So I'll talk about a little bit about the following things: the medium I'm using, why I'm using the paper I am with that medium. And I— you can see I have a bunch of things up here, so feel free to ask me questions, leave them in the chat. I'll check later in on the video. But yeah, this is going to be kind of a quick run-through of just some of the papers I like to use and why I use them. All right, so let's start. Um, a lot of papers here. You can see I have my Lockbie field journals and I have my pocket journals. Bunch of things. So let's get started. First, for me, the first thing I think of is where am I going to be sketching, right? And what am I going to use to sketch? Let me start with the basics of what I like to carry with me when I'm out and about sketching. So we'll focus right now on kind of urban sketching or just being out, out and about. Um, the first sketchbook I started using when I was out and about sketching and I still love using it to this day, is a Moleskine. It's like a pocket journal size paper, comes in different types of paper finishes or materials. Pardon me, I'm not using any technical terms. This is off the cuff, just speaking from what I, what I know. This has watercolor paper in it, but I love using it for sketching with ink. Sharpie is my go-to pen of choice. I'll always have a Sharpie with me. Love sketching with Sharpies. So if I was to go out and I could only take maybe 2 things with me, let's say 3, because it's a toss-up between a couple, I would definitely take this Moleskine watercolor I'll call it a sketchbook, um, a Sharpie with me, and it would be a toss-up between one of the Lockbees here, and we'll talk about those in a second. Um, if you want more information, there's a link you can go to on the bottom of the screen. It'll take you to my website page that has a listing of all this stuff. So I've been using these for a long time. What I love about these is they fit really nice in my pocket. Paper has good texture. It really takes Sharpies pretty well. This is a real quick sketch I did of the Brooklyn Bridge last time I was in New York City. But I figured while we're here, let me just show you— we'll do a quick, a quick kind of live thing, and I'll put some other materials on here to show you how the paper works in this small sketchbook. Again, feel free to leave me questions. I'm going to look at questions kind of when I'm done through this quick, quick session. I'm going to go back back probably and do a nice clean version of this. Clean meaning more organized, but I like just being off the cuff here. All right, so let's do a quick sketch on here. Um, nothing planned. Maybe we'll do— um, what am I thinking of? It doesn't matter. Maybe we'll do the copper building. I love the copper building in New York City. It's made of a few pieces. It has kind of this piece here It has another— I'm really simplifying it here— has another piece here, and they're connected by a sky bridge. So if I'm out in the field, I have my Sharpie, I'm going to do quick sketches. Um, let's say I want to add some colors. Let me show you how this watercolor works on here, and I'll let you know if it bleeds through or not. And we'll zoom in. There we go. Very cool. So I have my, uh, this is the watercolor palette I like to travel with, Winsor Newton, really small, pocket-sized. Now let me just dip into some water here, and we're just going to pick, uh, I don't know, doesn't matter, we'll pick some turquoise maybe. And I'm going to throw it on here, and I just want you to see like how this paper takes the paint and if it's going to bleed through or not. I don't know the weight of this paper off the top of my hands. The weight would be the thickness of it. It's cold press, so there's a little bit of texture on it. So I threw some paint on there. Let's kind of flip it over. I know it's not dry, let's flip it over. And you can see the paint did not bleed through, so it's really thick. It's great for adding watercolor. Something I've been using a lot lately are the Sharpie Creative Markers. So let's just grab one of these. Let's see how it works with the marker here. I'm going to kind of throw it on heavy. I just want to see if it bleeds through. So we got some marker and it's not bleeding through. So this paper, this little sketchbook, really holds up well to the mediums I use it for, which really is Sharpies. Um, sometimes I'll have a Pilot pen with me. I do have fountain pens, but I have to say I have really been leaning towards just keeping it simple. So really good paper, I highly recommend it if you're looking for something convenient, easy to carry, and you want to use different kind of mixed media on it. It holds up pretty well. The next thing is also if I'm out sketching and traveling is I will have a Lockbee with me, whether it's the bigger field journal or the smaller pocket, or they have the new mini journal. I did a pre— a video on this last week. You can definitely check that out. Just go to the live section on my YouTube channel. You can find out my first impression of this really cool little Lockbee Mini. Field journal. So the paper that's inside the mini— I'm sorry, the paper that I like to use with Lockbee, as actually you can buy through Lockbee, is the Lockbee Plain. It also comes in, I think, ruled, and you can get dot grid, and I use both of those. So I just wanted to kind of show you some examples I've done in here. Here's kind of a bridge, Golden Gate-inspired bridge. And you can see this paper is thinner than the Moleskine. It's hot press, so it's smooth. Think of this as almost being like computer paper, just, you know, normal printer paper you have. Um, it does hold up to light washes, but you might get some bleeding. And if you're okay with that— you can see I had some ink kind of bled through here— if you're okay with the bleeding then this is a great, great paper. I like the way, um, it takes the Sharpie and the pens on here. Let me see if there's anything— I love using mixed media on here. So here's a mixed media sketch where I kind of threw ink on here and colored pencil. So this for me is a really great grab-and-go paper for um, my Lockbie pocket journal. I also have the bigger size, so this— you can get the same paper in their bigger journal size. Uh, right now I'm still partial to using this. This is my favorite size. I just, I love this size paper. You can fit a lot of stuff on the page. And here's a great example. This has creative marker on it, Sharpie. And I think some colored pencil. And you can see it does bleed through just a little bit, but this paper is good enough for doing these washes. I mean, this is blue marker, and if you look, right, it didn't even really bleed through. So I highly recommend this Lockbie paper as well. And I really like, um, the plain one, and I'll also use the dot grid. We have an example here. Um, I like to use a dot grid for notes, so I have some notes here with red ink And if I flip through, the red ink really is not bleeding through. You can see through the page because it's thin, but at least the ink's not coming through it. So that's another kind of go-to paper for me. So we had the Moleskine. If you really want to do heavier washes, watercolor, um, heavy marker, heavy ink, this is a really great choice. Like I said before. So if I'm out and about, another paper I might take with me if I'm going to do— if I know I'm going to be focusing on, say, watercolor or focusing on mixed media, I'll take— and not as often, but I will sometimes take a 1264 Fabriano watercolor paper with me. If I take anything, it would probably— it's most likely this really cool 4x8 size. I like the format of this. It's great for, you know, landscape or portraits, especially if I'm doing buildings and skyscrapers. It really is awesome for that. So this watercolor paper has a nice texture to it. This is really thick, so you don't have to worry about any bleeding through this. It's 140-pound. And then if you guys watch me live in the studio, this right here, this is my grab-and-go in the studio kind of paper for mixed media. So here, you know, here's some examples. Pull some stuff out. Here's kind of a building I did watercolor. There's ink on here as well, Sharpie. Doesn't bleed through. Here's another example as well. And I like the texture. It's not too rough. But it just has enough bite on it for me to give it a little bit of variety. And I use the texture on the paper to help with lines, and I like to call them broken lines. It really helps to capture the character, um, and the story based on the type of lines we sketch with. So this is the Fabriano 1264 watercolor paper. Here's a door, um, a door mixed media sketch. Um, do I use this for everyday travel? No, I don't take this one every day out with me. Um, it's just the format is too big for me, so that's why I tend to go with— I know this is also big, but this is really easy to carry with the handle, and that's a whole separate video, and I've done some Lockbie videos before. So that's just a real quick run-through of the papers I'm using these days. My goal this year is to keep sketching simple, especially when I'm out and about urban sketching. I'm going to keep things as simple and as compact as possible, so that'll be a lot of fun. So I'm going to open the chat up, see if there's any questions or comments, say hello again. I'll probably be redoing this video at some point in time, just a little more organized fashion. I'm just excited and speaking off the cuff, and when I get excited, I talk fast. Um, let's see if there's any questions or comments, and I'll do a quick sketch. And well, uh, let's do a sketch in the Lockbie journal here. Um, I love this. I took this to New York City with me, um, I forget, last year, late last year, to the 9/11 memorial site, and I just had a blast. Sketching there. This is actually an interesting view of the Copper Building, a perspective view. Cool. Let's find a blank page and then, um, let's see if you guys have any questions. Thank you for watching. This is so fun. I really want to make a hard push this year and focus and do more videos, share more information. Really just serve, serve you guys with my creative mindset and techniques and tools and all that fun stuff. All right, let's see, you got a Sharpie here. Let me open the comment box. Also, I do, uh, I'm going to share my screen for a second here. Let me see how I— I know I can do it. I'm just going to open this up. I'm going to share my screen and you can kind of see my what the web page where I have all my— a listing of my favorite tools and stuff on there. So let's go to share screen, permissions to allow to share my screen. So this here is— this is my web page. If you go to the link on the bottom left of the screen, it'll bring you here. And it's just really a good convenient spot. You can see kind of my fave tools I'm using these days. Um, and you could also link to the products. So for example, if you were interested in the Lockbee Field Journal, you can click on there, um, and there's a link and it'll bring you to that part, that page, product page. So that's just a quick share of my tool page here. You can see here's a link to the watercolor journal, etc. Uh, by the way, if you're looking for a really cool little pencil sharpener, I love this PowerMe pencil sharpener. I have mine right here. It works really well with my Prismacolor color pencils. Cool Pencil, uh, Cool Pencil Sharpener. But there you go. So that's a quick share, just to look at what is on my web page. Feel free to visit it and get more information. Let's stop sharing the screen. I love tech. All right, so I was open to comment box a while ago. Let's do that now. Hopefully you guys have some questions or comments. I got it. All right. Hey, Jody Russell says hello, my friend. Jody, good to see you. Hope all's well. Thanks for being out there on the YouTube side of things. That is awesome. Hope you're having a great day. Deborah, hey, great to see you too. This is so fun. Um, happy new year to you guys. Uh, QQQ, if the buildings are actually crooked, and how do they get them approved to pass inspection? Just curious. They That is a great question. Let me pull out a sketch I did of the Copper Building. We'll talk about it. Here we go. I've done a lot of sketches of this building. This is probably one of my favorite buildings in New York City. Copper Building is literally bent— whew— here. Looks like the letter H. Um, they get approved. Like, there is rigorous structural design on these buildings. Um, as far as like the look of it, if it looks kind of weird, if that's what you mean about getting approved, that's a really great question. I don't know if there's a landmark approval process in New York City or an aesthetic review committee. Um, I know there are strict zoning regulations, so I'm assuming if the building footprint including the bent is within the air rights and the zoning regulation requirements, it's acceptable. And structurally, like I said, these things are engineered like nothing you've ever seen, these buildings. Um, really, really cool. And that's a great question. I hope to actually visit I have visited this site. I have never been inside. I'd love to get inside. Um, I think it's mixed use. I think it might have some shops or a coffee shop in the bottom floor, and it's all residential, the building. So it's kind of hard to, to get in there, but I'd love to get a tour and maybe ask some of those questions. Love that. Um, there it says, I usually skip a sheet. Hey, you know what, let's see. I do too. See if I did it in this one. Nope. This is a rare, rare thing. I usually will skip that front page. So here in this, this one I did. So it's funny, I usually will skip a sheet too. I think a lot of people do that. I'm not sure why. Maybe there's something mental, like a mental block about using that first the first page and making a mistake and ruining the whole sketchbook. So if you skip that first page, start in the second one, it alleviates that kind of stress or that pressure of, uh, sketching in your sketchbook. Love that. Great questions, guys. If any more, feel free to put them in the chat. I'm only going to be on for another couple minutes. Um, do I want to sketch in here? I don't know if I want to sketch I don't know if I want to sketch here because I actually bring this in the field with me and it's kind of a document of where the timeline of when I see things. So maybe we'll just do a sketch in the small one here. St. Patrick's Cathedral. All right, let's sketch. Let's do a— let's do a copper building. I'm going cray cray. Where the heck did I just put those sketches? There they are. Silly me. So I am using a Sharpie. A lot of people ask me why do I like to sketch with a Sharpie. A couple of reasons. One is, um, if I want to come back and add some watercolor on top, or some, um, maybe some inks on top, anything that could possibly make the black ink bleed. I use a Sharpie because I know, I know the ink's not going to bleed. So that's one reason I like to use a Sharpie. The other reason is, um, it forces me to commit to what I'm putting on paper. Mistakes and all. So I've learned to embrace, and I don't call them mistakes, I call it kind of a blueprint, or it's kind of documenting the process of sketching. So every line tells a story, even the ones that may not be in the right place, and that's cool. It's just part of kind of my creative mindset about the artwork I'm creating. So there's a quick sketch of the exaggerated— here's kind of the copper building, looks like the letter H here. Um, just show you how this paper works as far as bleeding. Let's throw some colors on it. So I'm just going to grab some watercolors here, put it here maybe so you can see it better. Turquoise is probably my favorite color as far as watercolor goes, and also color pencils. So I'm going to throw this on. I want to show you how it looks on the other side on this paper. All right, so we have some, uh, blue on there. So the copper building is not blue, it's actually copper colored. It's made out of copper panels. I'm going to grab some orange. I have not— these paints are really dry. I did not pre-wet them or anything. Here we go, just gonna drop it in there. I'll zoom in closer. I want to see what's happening. So the paper is thin, you can see it's actually buckling up right in here. It's pooling up in here. I'm gonna, I'm gonna blot it so we can see the other side. I just Again, we're just kind of testing this paper. I want to— we'll see what came through here. So the paint didn't really come through, but paper is kind of all buckled on here. So again, this, this Lokpi paper, for me, I would just use it for light washes of watercolor or ink. I got a color pencil here. Let's throw some pink color pencil on. I do like the way the color pencil goes onto this paper. It's very smooth. My go-to color pencils are the Prismacolor Premier. You can see that Prismacolor Premier, uh, pencils. I just love the way they transfer onto paper, is very smooth. This is something I really don't usually do, is I don't usually use the color pencil in a wet area. Cool to try it out. So I'll flip it over again just so you can see what it's looking like. So you can see some of that Sharpie did kind of bleed through a little bit. But again, if you don't mind the bleed through, it's— and I don't, I don't mind it. Let's throw some maybe, uh, windows on here. It's actually kind of a grid, so we'll do some vertical lines. This sky bridge— I love sky bridges on buildings. I would love to, you know, spend a year maybe just exploring all the sky bridges I can, I can find in New York City and just sketching sky bridges for a year. That would be really a real cool project. Um, so there you go. I just wanted to kind of do just a quick throwdown. Let me actually add one more thing on here. I'll grab some of this yellow. I just want to brighten some of this up a little bit. It's kind of bold— I should say bolded up. I'm bolding it. And I'm going to put a creative marker as well. I'm going to grab blue. I love the way— if you look up here, I love the way these colors are drying. I gotta zoom in really close. I don't know how well this is going to show up on camera. This area right here is drying— it's drying so incredibly awesome. I think I would just put two adjectives together. Or ad— wait, it's incredibly an adverb. I don't know, that's why I teach architecture and CAD. I'm not a language arts teacher, fortunately. Um, I want to throw some of this here. I mean, we'll just kind of darken this up like there's shadows here, and maybe we'll kind of throw some under this bridge as well. And I was off camera, silly me. Right there, you can see it there. So that was the Sharpie Creative Marker, and then we'll see what it's looking like on the other side. So even the Creative Marker didn't really bleed through. Cool. So there you go. Just a quick demo just on this, uh, this paper here. And we look back in the comments, see if there's any other questions or thoughts before I head off for tonight. This was just a really spur of the moment— I just wanted to come on and talk really briefly and quickly about paper, the paper I like to use. Hopefully you guys got some good information out of it. And always feel free to leave comments on the video post here, and if you have other questions I can come back and answer. But yeah, by the way, I just— I love, I love the colors on this version of the copper building, especially I was trying to kind of make a copper color here, so that was a lot of fun. Awesome. All right, let's see who's in the chat before we head out. Deborah, great seeing you. Thank you so much. Dorothy, hey, how are you? Dorothy, great to see you. Um, I always like the way you use colors. What type of, what type of paints do you use? They're so vivid. Uh, great question. So the watercolor paints that I'm using in here are mostly Winsor Newton, um, Winsor Newton Cotman watercolors here, with the except— an exception of the turquoise, which is, um, from Cheap Joe's Turquoise here. And I also believe that is a yellow from Cheap Joe's. I don't know the name of the color. So, but my watercolors are mostly Winsor Newton Cotman watercolors. Um, hopefully answers your question. I also use ink, so I have inks in here. These are from Pilot. Um, well, I can show you right here. So when I use inks and bleed inks, I like to use these types of pens. I have the Preppy pens, and I also have Pilot Varsity pens as well. So these are the two kind of colored inks I like to bleed, the two brands. Um, this should also be on that website page as well. Hopefully that helped out you out. I've started using Sharpies also. Don't want the bleed in my small drawings. Awesome. Hey Dorothy, I'm great. It's great to hear that. Yeah, I've, I've been using Sharpies for a long time and it's my, it's my go-to, and I'm so glad to hear that you're using it. Yeah, definitely don't have to worry about bleeding. Um, Sharpie also makes, and I love using these too, Sharpie makes gel pens, um, as well. Jody says, please remind us how to purchase any original creations. Oh, Jody, thank you! Wow, that— I love that. Um, I'm flattered that you put that out there. If you guys are ever interested in any of my original creations, there are a couple of things you could do. I tend to post things on Facebook and Instagram. Um, if you see something you like that I showed on a video, you could always email me. I'll put the email here in the chat. You can either leave a comment on Facebook or Instagram for me, or send me a message on Facebook or Instagram. Uh, on YouTube you can leave a comment for me like, hey Jason, I saw you paint the Brooklyn Bridge the other day. I'm interested in purchasing it. How much would it be? Just send me a message, or you can go to email me at jason@jasonjannicholas.com. I'm going to put that in the chat. Thank you for asking. So in the chat you'll see my email address. You could email me there as well. Um, and I do— I have been doing some auctions on Facebook. Um, You can always check out Facebook page, and when I put stuff up for bids, feel free to bid on items. Thank you for asking. Awesome. Dorothy says yes, thank you. Of course, thank you so much as well. All right guys, I think that might be a wrap for tonight. Um, trying to come back on more frequently this year, so I might pop on at night for a few minutes here and there just to share maybe stuff that's going on in my brain, some creative mindset tips, some tools, tricks, techniques, maybe something I sketched I'll show you, or we'll sketch together. Um, I would love your feedback. I would like to put together some virtual Zoom type of workshops this year. So in the comments, if you're watching this live or a replay, Let me know, what are some architecture-related things you might want to sketch or learn how to sketch? Um, some of the things I've done in the past are lighthouses. I've done wonky, wonky cottages. We've done, uh, wonky boathouses. We've done some New York City type building sketches. I'm really interested in your feedback so I can put together some workshops for this year. All right guys, this has been amazing. Thank you, Jody. Thank you, Dorothy. Thank you, Deborah. Appreciate you guys being here, um, live and commenting. Dorothy says have a wonderful week, do art. Yes, you also have a wonderful week, do art. Guys, remember to keep using your creativity for positivity. Um, just put good things out there. We need good vibes in the world. Put good vibes out there however you can, whether it's a smile to someone, a silent blessing, sharing your artwork, or just having manners. Sometimes I feel like we need more manners. Being a teacher, I see it. I see the manners We're not going to go there, but let's just say we need more manners out there. Take care, guys. Have a great, great rest of your night. Again, this has been Jason Nicholas Nicholas with The Inspired Life. I will see you guys real soon. Remember, if you can scribble, you can sketch architecture. Take care. I'm looking for the finish button. There it is. Bye, guys. I appreciate y'all so, so, so much.