Saturday Night Sketching

Hey, happy, um, Saturday, September 6th. Yeah, yes, 6th, 2025. Hope you're doing great on this Saturday evening. Um, Jason Nicholas Nicholas with The Inkspired Life, where I love sketching, architecture, urban sketching, um, just sketching anything, getting stuff out of my head and on to paper. Hope you're having a great day. Let me know where you're watching from. Uh, so here's what I want to do today. I've, um, I haven't been live in a week or two. I haven't— well, I've been alive, but I haven't live streamed in probably like 2 weeks. So I thought it'd be cool to pop on here for a little bit do some sketching, um, show you what I've been working on. Hey Rin over there on Instagram, great to see you! Hope you're doing well. So I, I'm continuing my sketching of the Statue of Liberty torches. It's probably my second favorite thing to sketch right next to the Brooklyn Bridge. Um, yeah, so here are a couple of the latest ones I've done. And I'm actually going to also show you one I'm working on digital sketching. Yeah, that's right, I said digital. Um, I love pens and Sharpies and markers, you guys know that, but there are other tools and other ways to get ideas out there and to sketch, and we're going to explore this digital option I've been working on. Awesome. Wren says, hope you're doing well. I am doing well. The Fam says, hi, we're all watching together. Shout out to the entire family, hope you're doing well. That's so cool. Um, shout out, shout out, shout out. I appreciate you guys so, so much. Very cool. And Cameron, I will see you next week. All right, so the sketches here you're looking at, this was done on watercolor paper. Um, the black is Sharpie. I have Sharpie Creative Markers on here as well. And let me just tell you, uh, if you're looking for a quick way to add color to sketches, Creative Markers are the way to go. I love these things. Sharpie is not a sponsor. They're not a sponsor. It would be cool if they were, but Creative Markers are great, especially when I'm out in the field urban sketching. They go down quick and they dry fast. So I'm going to hold it up here so you can see the kind of the, the richness of the colors. Pretty cool, right? Awesome. So, uh, cool thing I've been doing with these, I've been giving them out when I'm in New York City. So when I was there about 3 or 4 weeks ago, um, there's a donut shop I like going to near Rockefeller Center, and I happen to have some of these sketches on me, and I gave one to the guy working there, and he was so happy. We had a conversation, and Yeah, I got like a bonus coffee. Wasn't looking for it, um, but it was just really nice just to be able to share your artwork with other people. I'm not worried if this isn't perfect. I'm not worried what other people think. It's me, it's my creativity, it's getting my style onto paper. It's really about just having fun and spreading positivity. So I like to write on here and shout out to my friend Chip. Um, Chip came up with this for me to write on here on my Statue of Liberty sketches. It says, be the light, right? So it's all really about just spreading positivity. Cool. All right, so, uh, let's, let's take a look at this digital sketch I'm working on. I'm using an e-ink tablet. Um, this happens to be the Remarkable Paper Pro. Not a sponsor. Um, I use this thing. I've had it for over a year. I use it all the time— home, school, travel with it. I— it comes with me almost as much as my Lockabee Field Journal, which I love as well. It's just a fun way to capture things in a different way. I think I just said way like 3 times in the same sentence. So this is cool. So this is an e-ink tablet. Um, it's not meant for— you can't add any apps to it. It's really meant for focus, concentration time, taking notes. I have my planner in here. I take classroom notes in here. If I watch Zoom videos, I take notes in here as well. I can keep a folder system, upload things to the cloud. So it's a really useful tool, but it's also a really cool sketchbook. Let me, let me give you just a quick tour of some of the things I've done on here, and we'll come back to the Torch. This is, this is probably my favorite sketch I've done in here, done on the tablet. So this is the Brooklyn Bridge. I love this sketch, and one of the really cool things about it is you can add some layers. So anybody that maybe uses Procreate app or you're into Photoshop or Illustrator, you know you can add layers, right? So just for the heck of it, I'm gonna add a layer and let's throw some color on this. Let's see, I just wanna make sure you guys can see this. Instagram, hopefully you can see some of it. I don't know if you can catch all of it on screen. So you'll see in the upper right here, There are two different pens or marker settings. You can customize it. So one I have is a fine liner. I usually have calligraphy pen. And the other one I'm going to change to— let's do like a brush, paintbrush, and we'll add some color on here. Colors are pretty limited. It's not meant to be a vibrant color intense tablet. They're really kind of soft pastel colors. So don't— if you're looking for something with vibrancy, that's not— this isn't the tool for that. All right, let's just, uh, let's grab some— what's going to show up on camera for you guys? Let's go with some red. Did I change layers? Let's see, did I add a layer? Nope. Oh, I have a bunch of layers on here. I didn't realize that. Interesting. I'm gonna add a brand new layer for this color today. Okay, boom, there we go. There might be a limit to the layers you can add, the number, I'm not sure. Hopefully you guys can see that kind of red going down on here. There's also a— it's called a shader tool. Let's use a shader, and shader is a little more transparent. Then that paintbrush tool— and some kind of bug just flew down on my screen. Welcome to live streaming, where anything goes, anything can happen. Bugs, insects, they can make an appearance whenever they want. So I'm using an orange color right now for this shader, overlapping on the red. I'm gonna grab some— let's grab some yellow. I'm gonna grab some cyan. Um, a lot of times I get this question, hey, how do you decide what colors to use? Excellent question. I rarely will use colors of the actual buildings or structures. So yeah, the Brooklyn Bridge does not have these colors, and that's cool. When I'm in sketch world, this is kind of my, my place. This is where my creativity just goes. I kind of pick colors based on the feeling or maybe the mood I'm in. Sometimes the music I'm listening to will influence the colors. And really, it's the key word, I guess, tonight is playful. I'm just being playful as I'm sketching. Let's see, I'm going to switch to, uh, let's go with the calligraphy pen and let's just throw down some Green. Let's do some green. And I just want you guys to kind of just see how the color goes down on this tablet. There's a flag up top. Let me— let's pop that flag out. Um, let's see, let's use a highlighter. There's a highlighter pen on here. Actually use a marker. Marker. I'm just gonna go with magenta. I feel like I'm watching Blue's Clues. We got blue on here, we got magenta going on. Any Blue's Clues fans out there? Speaking of which, the, uh, I think Steve, the original host— was that Steve? He has a new podcast coming out real soon, I think this month. I'm excited to watch it. There we go, just throwing down some magenta on here. It looks cool. All right, I'll zoom in, then you can kind of see a close-up of what this is looking like. Hey Laura, good to see you, hope all's well. DB's in the house, good to see you also, hope you're doing well. Thanks for joining, guys. So you can see this is a close-up of the tablet sketch with the colors on it. So if I had to pick one, would I— do I prefer hand sketching or digital? I have to go old school, hand-draft, hand-sketching, hand-drawing is always gonna— I'm not gonna say always, but it is number one, um, for me right now. But, but I am having fun just exploring, um, the digital sketching world also. Pretty cool. And what's really fun about this is, hey, if I don't like these colors, I can either— I can delete the layer, I can just turn it off. Watch. Click of a button, we're done. The color is gone. Oh, I turned it back on. Let's try that again. Take 2. Take 2. Turn it off. Boom. There we go. All right, so I turned off the, the different colors on there. So it's a cool, um, it's kind of a fun way to play, be playful, to and not worry so much. I know lots of times we're worried about picking the exact colors, the right colors to throw down, or adding any color at all, right? Digitally is fun. You can just be playful because, like I just showed you, if you have layers, you can just turn the layer off, delete the layer, the color's gone. Um, it's— I think it's a really cool tool for building creative confidence. All right, let's see what else I have on here, then we'll go back to the Statue of Liberty torch. And we'll wrap up with that. I'm going to wrap up about 9:15. Uh, here's another cool sketch. This is, this is the Domino Sugar Factory in New York City. This I've— if I remember, I think I actually sketched this one on location. So this was an urban sketch, um, in the, the tablet. And we'll show, uh, we can show— this is kind of a cute, cute sketch. This is a logo that I had two students design. They wanted to design a logo for our t-shirts, um, when we went on a field trip to New York City. So this is kind of their design that they came up with. So this tablet's also— it's a great collaboration tool. I can write ideas on there. I can have my students write ideas. We can go back and forth on it. Pretty fun. All right, one last sketch here, then I'll show you the Liberty Torch. Here's, uh, here's a sketch inspired by the, the castle at Disney. Pretty cool. Real loose, real fast. And I love this style so much. It's awesome. Hey, hello everybody that is on Instagram, great to see you. Feel free to say hi, leave some comments. DB says, I agree, I think you have more control with hand sketching. Yes, there is definitely more control hand sketching versus using the tablet. Um, one thing about this tablet, it does lag a little bit. So my brain, my hands are a lot faster than the tablet. So it doesn't— it can't keep up with me that well. We have, uh, oh boy, I'm gonna get your name wrong, but I'll try my best. We'll, we'll shorten it up. We'll go with Secrets Treasures. Great to see you, Secrets Treasures. Hey, Nonexistent, uh, Kip, good to see you. If I got your names wrong, I'm sorry. Thanks guys on Instagram, stick around, keep watching. Be great to have you along for the next 5 minutes while I wrap up. Pretty cool, right? All right, so let's go back to the Statue of Liberty torch on here that I was working on, and I'm going to add some color to it. All right, cool. Hopefully you can see the Liberty torch there. There's a small one in the corner. And here's, here's the hand sketch. There's a couple of them. I really— actually, I really like this one. I think this one came out cool. It's very loose. I love the white space on here and just the kind of the pops of color. I think really cool. Hey, I got some Haze on Instagram. That's always fun. Awesome. All right, I'm going to add some color. So I'm going to go to the layer tool. I'm going to add a layer. Boom. Layer 4. And let's just have some fun for a few minutes. Let me go to my playlist. I'm going to go back a couple songs. I know you guys can't hear the music I'm listening to, unfortunately. Unfortunately, I wish I could play it, but it's all copyrighted stuff. Love the sketches, the colors are so cool. Thanks, I appreciate that. Thank you, thank you. I always love positive feedback. All right, let's do— let's add some color. Hope you— I hope you guys can see this okay. There might be a little bit of glare. DB and Laura, I hope you're still watching on Facebook. It's always great seeing you guys. I appreciate you, you're tuning in. Laura, I always love when you post your sketches. Your hearts, your heart sketches are so cool. DB, I love seeing your artwork. I mean, your detailed work is just mind-blowing. So thank you guys for always just putting your artwork out there. So I'm adding cyan, but it's, it's a shader tool. Let me use the paintbrush and let's see the comparison. It's kind of hard to see the shader tool I threw down. There we go. Again, this is just— it's very, uh, the color is not so intense on the tablet. It's very pastel-ish. Actually, let's go with the Calligraphy Point. Let's see, I'm just playing with different, um, brushes or pen— or pens. Hey, Eagle Scout Kiko-san, great to see you. You're welcome, DB. So my first week of school was started on Thursday. I, I'm loving that I'm back to teaching this year. Um, I miss teaching a lot during the summer, and I feel like I'm— we're gonna have some, uh, it's gonna be a good school year. Have good vibes about it. I mean, how, how could it not be cool, right? I'm so blessed I get to teach architecture, design, things I love. I just love being a teacher, a role model, and a mentor, and putting good vibes out there. Shout out to— had a few, few students tuning in on Instagram earlier. If you're still there, I really, really appreciate you guys so much. Thanks for just being amazing human beings. Hey DB, just for you, there's, there's a pencil tool. I'm going to use the pencil tool on this and we'll just do, um We'll also use— in your honor, DB, we'll use gray. It's not Payne's Gray, but we'll put some gray pencil on here, see what it looks like. Laura says, still here, thank you. I believe sharing is just part of it all. Yeah, was that expression— expression sharing is caring? It's kind of cheesy, but it's true. So that is some gray pencil. Let me know at home if you guys need me to zoom in on this a little bit more, if you can see it okay or not. Let's try, um, let's see, it's gonna do something over here, the pencil, just so you can see. So that's, that's the pencil tool there. So another cool thing about using a tablet is I can do this if I want. Boom, it's gone. Um, I'm not a big fan of erasing, so when I do these sketches here by hand, there's no erase— no erasing here at all. I'm just using my guts, going for it. So grab-and-go creativity with your gut, throwing ink down. There's no looking back, it's all moving forward, right? Another way to help build creative confidence, um, use ink or Sharpie, something you can't erase because you're committed. Once it's down, you're— you have to embrace it and go with it. I'm gonna go for some highlighter. Let's use— that's marker. Where's the highlighter one? One of these is highlighter. That one. Yeah, let's put on some yellow highlighter and just kind of compare the yellow highlighter with the yellow color pencil I just threw down. See if there's a difference. The highlighter is definitely a little more intense. I like it. And this is just some orange highlighter now putting on here. Maybe in the torch, the flame area, we'll put some orange on top of the yellow. DB says, I like the pencil. Yeah, the pencil tool is pretty cool for sure. I'm gonna go back. Let's, let's just throw some, uh, black ink on here. Black. Boom. And we're going to wind up— wrap this up soon. So I'm going to add some black sketchy lines. I could have made a new layer if I wanted, but I'm feeling confident enough just to go right on top of the colors I threw down. I want to pull the torch shape out a little bit more. All right, I'm gonna wrap this up by just— I'm gonna throw some text on here. Why not? Let's just throw some text. We're going to put B. Just playing with the text tool here. The light. Boom. It's all the way down there. Let's see if I can move it. I should be able to move it if I do this, I think. Maybe not. That's interesting. It's got to be a way to move text. It's on its own layer. Okay, that's why. Cool. So text is— it's interesting to put text on its own layer. That's why if I have switched layers, I should be able to move it. Boom. Oh, is it not letting me select the text layer? Hmm. As you can tell, I haven't really added text to sketches before. All right. All right. Maybe the text layer just stays on or stays, uh, visible. I don't know, we'll figure it out. Nothing urgent. I was just trying to move this. Here's a good— here's a good example. So when I'm collaborating with a student, say this is a designer sketch they showed me, maybe I'll have a note like— or we'll be talking, I'll say, all right, this text here, maybe we want to move it up closer. Maybe we'll put it, you know, over in this area. We should put the text. Boom. Right, blah blah blah blah. Or, you know, instead of that, maybe we'll put the text horizontally here along the side. So that's just a cool example of how you could just annotate on your sketches. Hey Alex, great to see you! Alex started following me. Hey, great, thanks for following me, I appreciate that, that's so cool. Hey, Janice is on! Janice, how are you? Great to see you. This is fun. All right, cool. All right, so let me show you the sketch. Let's go zoom out. And actually, I'm going to show you— let's just zoom in on here again. Boom. And just for fun, I actually— I'm gonna turn off— let's see, let's turn off the layer I did tonight with color. And I added some color I was playing around this morning, this morning. So that's kind of what I had this morning. I really like this. I like the intensity of the red and yellow on this torch. I think it looks really good. But just for fun, let's come over here to the layers. Oh, what did I do, silly man? There we go. Um, Let's turn on the one we just did also. So this is kind of— actually looks kind of cool. So that is the layer of color put on this morning, and then I add another layer tonight, and you can see how it all looks. But if I want to go back to this black and white, we'll do this. Off. Doom off. Archi off. Off. And then this is actually the original sketch I did before I had any color. Pretty cool, right? All right, I'm curious, let me know in the chat, do you guys prefer— do you like the digital sketch tonight I did? Let's see, we'll throw all the colors on. Or do you like the hand-drawn one? I think I'm going to try tonight or tomorrow. I'm going to— you can export the digital stuff, so I'm going to export this sketch, open it on my Mac. I'm not sure which app, and I'm going to see what the colors look like. They might be a little more intense when I export it. That'd be interesting to see. Pretty cool, right? Then you can see up in the corner here, I did a little practice sketch. Here's something— actually, here's another fun thing I can do with the tablet. It's turning out to be the tablet show, um, which is cool because I rarely talk about digital sketching. I'm gonna, I'm gonna copy these, so I'm just gonna take that tool. Let's copy the little one here. I'm just going to draw a circle around it. You know what's weird? My copy The copy tool is not working. That's interesting. Yeah, something's up with that. So I guess I'm not going to copy it. I did have a— it had a recent update. It had a recent update, but it's— I wonder if it messed up the copy and pasting command. Um, Weird. All right, so I'm not going to copy and paste it. But that's another thing about tech, right? You— tech is so wonky, it's glitchy, the batteries can run out. Um, you know, yeah, we could run out of ink or pencil when we're doing hand sketching, hand drafting, hand drawing, but you're gonna have— there's no electronic or tech glitches, right? So there's something also to be said about that when you're, um, hand sketching versus digital sketching. Janice says a hand-drawn a bit better. Yeah, Laura says hand-drawn. I'm with you guys. I, I do like the hand-drawn better. Yeah, no, 100%. I'll let you guys know what this looks like after I export it. Uh, is there any more show and tell? Let's see, I might have another show and tell quick. I'm going to wrap up. By the way, I, I have sketches left on my store, some original sketches if you're interested in buying any. I have a $5 off until next Sunday. There's a link here in the chat or the comments. Check out my store and, um, see what's left in there. I don't have this. Or if, or if you are interested in any of these Liberty Torch sketches you saw here tonight, let me know. Send me a message, a DM, Facebook message, Instagram message, whatever you want, and let me know if you're interested in any purchasing any of these sketches here. These are not on the store yet. All right, this was a— this was a Brooklyn Bridge sketch I was playing around with, practicing around with a while ago. All right guys, I think that might be a wrap. Let me just show you this. So when I go into New York City, I usually have my Lockbee— well, Yeah, I would say 99% of times I have my Lockbee here. This is how I— this is how I transport my sketches. Put them in here, boom, keep them here. You can see I have blank sheets as well. Uh, these are— I think one of these I did on the bus ride to the city, or started. What else do I have in here? Oh, I have an Empire State Building. So these are sketches I'll hand out when I go into the city. Something really funny happened, um, I think it was last fall. I was in the city sketching at the High Line, which is an amazing park. Used to be an old railway system, and now it's an incredible, incredible public urban park. Anyway, I'm sitting there sketching a building. Um, I hear these people saying, oh, I love that building. The guy was talking to his kids. So I finished my sketch and I wanted to give them the sketch because I heard them talking about the building. So I go over to the guy and, um, he was very suspicious. He thought I was trying to scam him by giving him a piece of artwork. So it was— I obviously kept it, and he was kind of rude to me, um, but it's just a different mentality, right? So yeah, I find that— I found that a few times in New York City, just trying to give some sketches away, people are, you know, they think they're being scammed. So, um, give your artwork out even if people think they're being scammed. To be, be positive, don't force it on them, that's okay. Don't take it personal. It's just a mentality and mindset, and I get it. All right guys, I think that's a wrap for tonight. Janice loves the High Line. Oh Janice, yes, the High Line is one of my faves. Love it, love it. Be so cool, Janice. We should, we should, uh, walk the High Line sometime. That'd be so cool. Um, be cool to get a New York— New Yorker's point of view on it. Uh, look, I zoomed up. Look, I zoomed in on the sketch. It looks so cool. That looks awesome zoomed in. I like it. Good night, Laura. Great to see you. Hang in there. Keep being creative. Keep being positive. Um, keep on posting. Thank you for joining. I appreciate you. Chip's on. Hey Chip, great to see you. Hope all's well. Yes, no glitches in the hand-drawn. Exactly. Chip, I gave you a shout out earlier. You're, you're the person that inspired me to write, um, to write 'Be the Light' on the torch sketches. So thank you again. I— that was a really cool suggestion, and I still do it. So shout out to you, and, uh, Appreciate you and all your creativity that you share as well. I have not been to the Cloisters. No, I— it looks amazing. Um, is it something easy to get to? So here's my thing, when I go into the city, I take a bus into Port Authority. Um, I pretty much walk everywhere I need to go, and I don't mind walking to the ferry either on the Hudson or East River and taking the ferry as well. Haven't done bus transportation, haven't done subway transportation. So if the Cloisters is somewhere I could easily get to or walk to, I'm down for— I have to go check it out. I know it sounds a little weird, but yeah. All right guys, hey, if you're still on Instagram, give me one last shout out, say hi in the chat so I know you're still there, um, so I can give you a shout out back. And I think that's gonna be a wrap, guys. I love live streaming. I've been so preoccupied with, uh, getting ready for school. I worked all summer, um, and just life in general, so Sketching for me is a great way for me to— it's a tool for me to get focused. Um, it's a tool for me to get ideas and things out of my head on the paper. It's a tool for me to change state of mind, state of being. Um, I love sketching, whether it's Statue of Liberty or a building. Brooklyn Bridge, or anything, to be honest with you. I just don't share. I haven't really shared like my everyday life sketching stuff. I do like lights and clocks and all that. Maybe I'll start sharing more of that kind of stuff too. All right, awesome. Hey, uh, Secrets Treasures, I know I'm abbreviating you, I'm sorry, but hey, thanks for saying hi. You're still there, so cool. Janice says A train to 190th Street. Oh yeah, I don't think I'm walking to 190th. Um, not from, uh, not from Port Authority. Uh, what is— oh man, I'm trying to think which street does Central Park end at. I guess it's the north, the north end of Central Park. Yeah, I think I've walked that far from Port Authority. That may have been the furthest distance. Maybe a bus, I would have to check. All right, cool. Yeah, thanks. I can look into it also. That would be, um, awesome. Thank you guys so much. I'm Jason with The Inkspired Life, where I love sketching, architecture, design. I love design. I love product design. Um, and actually, you guys are going to get a sneak peek. Hold on, right here. Sneak peek time. I wasn't planning this, but I'm going to show you guys something. I was working today on my prototypes. I am prototyping a desk organizer system with removable modules. Uh-huh. Based on what? The New York City skyline, New York City buildings. So this is a prototype. It's printing wonky. It's part of the design process. If you're interested, I would like more than happy to do some shows about just design and the design process. I might actually just start a separate channel. That'd be cool. But anyway, so, um, that's just a quick peek of what I've been working on behind the scenes a little bit. Awesome. 110th. Okay, yeah, that sounds right. 110th. So I have walked— I've walked that far. No, I said goodnight like 3 times. 4th time. All right guys, I'm out. Till we meet again, sketch boldly, live creatively, and inspire endlessly.