Saturday Sketch + Chill : 6.7.2025

Hey everybody, happy Saturday! It's, uh, June 7th. I can't believe it's June. That is crazy, crazy, crazy, but it's June already. I have 2 more weeks of school. The countdown is on. Hope you're having a great Saturday. I'm Jason Nicholas Nicholas here with the Inkspired Life. It's always fun to be here live sketching, um, architecture, and I've been doing some flowers lately. So yeah, I'm expanding my horizons a little bit. But, um, I love sketching architecture. I love urban sketching. So let's spend some time together tonight just for a little bit. Um, I'm gonna do a little show and tell of where I was last weekend sketching. So I have my sketchbook here. I'll show you some stuff, and we'll maybe do a little sketch as well. So I am live here on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube all at the same time. So hello there, Instagram people. Hey, TikTok people, how are you? I have the dual view on so you can kind of see my face a little bit here as I'm talking. I might pop it in and out of frame as I'm sketching. So it's great to see here and see everybody. Let me know if any questions or comments, throw them in the chat. So last week Last Saturday I was at Domino Park down in Brooklyn. Domino Park is a really, really, really cool public space. The Domino Sugar Refinery building is there. It was once a functioning refinery. Now it is— has been converted to offices, and I think a little bit— I think some retail as well on the ground floor. So, um, this is what I brought with me to sketch. I brought my Lockbie folio, and I also brought this Soho craft paper sketchbook, which is pretty cool. So I'm just going to move things down a little bit here so they're on camera for everybody. So, uh, got a lot happening on the desk here. Pretty cool, right? So let's do a little quick show and tell. I'll show you some of the sketches I did. Um, I have a confession to make, so here it goes. Mr. I Always Have a Sharpie with Me, um, last Saturday I did have a Sharpie with me. I only had one and it didn't work, so I was Sharpie-less. That is so unusual for me. I always have a Sharpie going. I usually have tons of backups. So it was cool because it made me think outside the box. I had to scramble, do something creative. So I did have, um, this gel pen with me, and it also brought Creative Markers with me. But there was a cool little store near where the park was. Um, I think the name of the store was, I think, Rand, uh, Rand McNally. I think I'll put it in the chat. But anyway, in this bookstore they had a little stationery section and I, I picked up some pens. So it was really interesting. So I ran down there while we were sketching at Domino Park. I picked up these these pens here. I never used them before. This brand is called— I don't know, Zebra, I guess. Zebra is the brand. It's called Sarasa Clip 0.5. Um, the color is what you see on the barrel. It's like this beige color. Picked up another pen as well, same brand. And I picked up a Pilot V-Ball. I don't know if this is the new style of the Pilot Precise V. 7 pen or not, um, but I picked one of these up. So I used these sketches on the fly while I was there last Saturday. So let's take a look at some of the sketches I did. Hey, Sketches and Some and Renee Art, great to see you on Instagram. D-Ray's on Facebook. Hello, TikTokers, great to see you guys as well. Feel free, everybody, I'd love for you to like some comments. Um, here's some sketches that weren't done last Saturday. These are sketches from the Museum of Natural History. It's really kind of fun sketches. I love this kraft paper. The brown paper makes colors pop, especially color pencils, and the Sharpie creative markers really, really pop. So these are from the Museum of Natural History. I went there sketching with the New York City Urban Sketchers. Funny thing is, I never went inside the museum. The line was so long when I got there, I didn't even try to get inside. So I stayed outside and sketched the whole day, and it was, it was a lot of fun. All right, so let's look at Domino Park here. Uh, here's, here's a sketch of the Domino Sugar Refinery. I love this building. I've sketched it many, many times, different styles, different views of it. Here's kind of a view looking straight at it. Part of the Domino Sugar sign, this iconic yellow, really cool sign up here. I captured that as well. Very loose style, very sketchy and scribbly. So this was a fun sketch. The, the blue, or you see on here, the aqua you see on here is a Sharpie Creative Marker. So it's one of these bad boys. It's actually this color right here. Pretty cool, right? These markers are amazing. I love the way the color pops. I'm going to bring a little closer to camera so you can see some of the detail on it. My goal when I'm urban sketching is to capture a vibe and energy, especially in New York City. There's so much energy. Um, I'm a very fast sketcher, and you kind of can sense a nervous energy in my sketches, and that's intentional. It's my style. Um, there were people— shout out to New York City Urban Sketchers— I was with, um, amazing talents. People can do some amazing detail and sit in one spot for, you know, 2, 3 hours and capture all the detail. I love that, and I'm kind of jealous I'm a nervous person, man. I, I'm, I gotta— I'm in a spot for maybe half hour at the most. I gotta move on to something else. So it's just something I learned in architecture school to learn, learn to sketch quick and capture ideas. All right, so this was one sketch I did. Let's flip to another page. Um, here's another view of Domino Park. They have these really cool crane structures. That were once functional, you know, for taking cargo off of ships or loading ships. Now they're kind of— they kept them. I love it. They're painted this really cool blue color, so I thought it'd be fun to try to capture those a little bit. Here's an example. So this was sketched with these pens right here, the ones I had to run out and buy. So the brown pen here, it's almost like a sepia color, which I, I love sepia. Sepia is such a great, great color. And then here is the Pilot pen. So I use that on the red here. Um, there's nothing wrong with sketching with these, these, you know, these ballpoint pens. I love them, and I might keep using them more and more, to be honest with you. Uh, amazing qualities, colors, brands out there. So stay tuned. I think I'm going to start zeroing in on doing some research and testing and playing around with different pens. So that's probably going to be a focus for me this summer right here on this channel. All right, cool. Let's go on to the next one. Hey, TikTok people, I see Queen out there. Kanish user 26, a lot of numbers after it, uh Hope you guys are enjoying watching this. Give me some likes out there, some hearts, some thumbs ups wherever you are. If you're on YouTube, like the video. I would— if you haven't subscribed, guys, wherever you're watching, follow me, subscribe, blah blah blah. I want to grow what I'm doing. I just want to spread positivity through creativity. That's my mission. All right, cool. So this is a— we got a cool, um, this is the Manhattan Bridge. Correct me if I'm wrong, right? It's Manhattan Bridge. Um, this was with that red pen. Hey Sarah, good to see you. Hope you're doing well. Hey Karen, I see you on Facebook. Good to see you, Karen. Chip, great to see you as well. Yeah, Chip, I'm on a little bit later than I said I was going to be. I had update software updates, and then I was— I'm working on a kind of like 5 projects at the same time, all really, really fun stuff. And I got lost in AI world. More about that soon. Uh, this is a cityscape, so from Domino Park, this is one of the views. Really, really great, great views across the East River. You can see the, you know, Midtown skyline here. Empire State Building. My skyline sketches are— I like to think of them as like an EKG. Has anybody gone to get their heart tested, their EKGs, and you could see the little, the thing that goes across the screen, goes, goes blip, blip, blip, blip, blip, up and down? Hopefully it's going up and down. That means your heart's beating. Um, I like to think of the skyline sketches as heartbeats of the city. Um, so you'll notice I actually took a red— the red Pilot pen I just was talking about, and I outlined the top so you get that kind of EKG cardio. Any, uh, any medical people out there? Echocardiogram, I think that's what it is. I should know, I've had it done many times. Um, echocardiogram. So I'll kind of pan across here so you can see it as well. Hey, Karen's over on YouTube. Great, I love that. I always love seeing you guys on the YouTube. I was on TikTok. Hopefully I'm still on the TikTok. I may have lost my TikTok connection, who knows. All right, cool, right? Next sketch. Uh, this is just a detail or close-up of the top of the Domino Sugar Refinery building. It has this really cool barrel vault, or this, this domed top that's all glass. And I was really lucky and blessed to be there when it was under construction, so I got to see the space, the the steelwork. It was so cool. Hi Kim on TikTok! Hey Kathy on TikTok, great to see you. Fluff on, on TikTok as well. Instagram people, let me know if you're still watching, if you can see me. I may have lost the Instagram connection. Um, here's a cool example of not having to sketch everything. When you see buildings and architecture, don't feel like you have to sketch the entire building. Pick a door, pick some windows, pick a, uh, a roof, an overhang, a detail somewhere. So I just was interested in capturing the stack of windows over on the Domino Sugar Factory building. And here's— this is a really cool sketch. They have these old— I think these were syrup tanks, maybe. These are now relics from the former building. They kept these, they're scattered, they're kind of located in the park area just as a, a reminder of the past, a decoration. Um, so there are these steel rusted drums or tanks. That's why I called this one Tanks a Lot. Tanks a lot, trying to be punny there. Um, so I, I love, I love sketching old industrial architecture, weathered architecture. It's a lot of fun for me. Here I just kind of use some oranges, some aquas. All the colors you see here are, are the Creative Markers, and the brown you're seeing is, again, it's this pen because Yes, I was without a Sharpie, um, which is fine. But you can kind of see some details. I'll kind of pan up here and then TikTok, you can probably see as well. Pretty cool, right? Awesome. I think that's— well, this was a quick thing. I didn't finish this one. This was a quick start. You know what, let's throw some color on this. This was a quick start to the bridge, kind of a close-up of it. Um, yeah, let's throw some color on it right now. Let me move this out of the way. I did use my Lockbee folio. Oh, I do have a sketch in here. I think I did. Let's see. Um, I love this folio, as you guys know. I always talk about Lockbee and brag about it. Uh, here's a really cool Statue of Liberty torch. So I'm continuing my torch sketches. The series continues going on, and, uh, I need to do a lot more so I can bring them into Central Park over the summer and sell some. So I'm working on that. I probably will— let's see, I'll probably be doing that in July, going out to the park and selling some torch sketches. Uh, here's a quick sketch I did In, in the folio, just capturing the top of the building. This is the chimney of the sugar refinery building, and that's that glass dome area I was talking about before. Kathy, I see Kathy. Hey Kathy, how are you? Jay Castle, good to see you as well. You guys are awesome. All right, so let's do a little sketch here. I'm gonna move you— I'm gonna move the TikTok peeps. I'm gonna actually turn the camera. I don't think you need to see me. Can I change it? I don't know if I could change it while it's streaming. All right, sorry TikTok folks, you're going to be looking at part of a ceiling because I gotta move this a little bit, and then I'm gonna move this here. All right, cool. And there, move it down so you can see it better. All right, awesome. Now let's just throw some color, color on this. When I use color, I'm not trying to replicate what is actually in the field or in real life. I'm just throwing down colors I think are fun. And I definitely want to use the aqua, that's my favorite color, whether it's a marker, watercolor, color pencil. Let's throw that down. Let's grab a some orange here, maybe some green. I don't even know, we'll just kind of mess around with it. All right, hey guys, I'm gonna— I'm just playing this here. I do have on the description, if you want to know what I'm listening to, I have my Spotify playlist I'm currently listening to. I think there's a link to that in the description. Um, also, before I do a sketch here, I'm going to do— I'm going to do a quick show and tell. I'm going to share my screen. So TikTok folks, just bear with me because I'm going to share my screen, and I don't think you're gonna be able to see it, but, uh, so hang with me, hang tight. Let me do this. I'm just gonna play this. I just want to hear my music. All right, cool. So I finally— I've launched my new sketch shop. Not 100% done, but it's, it's out there. Um, I want to do some refinements and tweaks to it, add more sketches to it. But let me see if I can kind of share my screen and show you guys.

Treated you bad, you bruised my face. Couldn't love you more, you've got a beautiful taste. Don't let the days go by. Could I've been easier on you? I couldn't change though I wanted to. Should I've been easier about 3 of our friends' families?

we'll figure it out. Um, go to my new link, it's the InspiredLife.store. It's, uh, in the comments. Check it out. You can buy original sketches there. I have a lot more I can add— I need to add on there, but you'll see I've started showing stuff. And yeah, I'd love for you guys to pick up some of my original sketches. You know, um, some of them are iconic things like the Statue of Liberty or some— the Brooklyn Bridge, you'll see a bunch of those. Some iconic New York City Christmas scenes at Rockefeller Center with the Christmas tree. Really, really cool small sketches, easy to locate, hang somewhere, great gifts if you know someone that loves New York City or the Biltmore or Statue of Liberty. So definitely check out the store. I'd love for you guys to check it out. So I just want to throw down some color on here just for fun. Hey Abby, great to see you over on Instagram. Hope all's well. Wow. So that's— here's the red Pilot pen I was talking about. Let's just throw some of that on here. Abby over on Instagram. Abby is a very creative, artistic human being and one of my most favorite people in the world. It's great, good to see you, Abby. Hope all is well. I'd love to catch up with, uh, you and your peeps sometime soon. Yeah, I just said peeps. That's me trying to be cool. Does it— probably didn't work. All right, so again, I'm just throwing down colors for fun on this kind of bridge structure sketch. I want to show you guys how, how these Sharpie Creative Markers work, how they look on this brown kraft paper. Let's see, let's— I need one. I want a pop of yellow, so let's grab some yellow. Here we go. So some colors really pop, pop more than others on this paper. Yellow is not really popping too much. See, I got like a darker blue, or not a darker, but like a sky blue, I guess. Let's try the sky blue. Hey Laura, great to see you! Hope all's well. Hope you're doing well. That's so great to catch you. I was gonna catch you live. I'm so glad you caught me live. I guess you're live too because you're watching me live. How many times I just say the word live? Um, so this is that sky kind of blue color. Here we are. I'm going to try red. Let's throw some red marker on here as well. Yeah, here we go. So hopefully you can just get a sense of how these markers are kind of, uh, really fun to play around with and how they pop. You know what color I love on this, this, uh, paper is— I love, I love white. I mean, check out how that white is really kind of popping. So there you go. That's kind of just a, an example of how I've thrown down some color with the Creative Markers. Kind of see a little bit better here, a little closer. Hey, I see Angela B on TikTok. Great to see you, Kathy, Teresa on TikTok. Hope you guys are doing well over there. That's me, um, and then you guys can Facebook and YouTube. Here's a closer view for you as well. So I really like this. I think it, I think it throwing down the color transformed it from what it was before. Um, pretty, pretty cool. Ta-da! What else do we have in here? So I think that's all I have in this, this sketchbook with that I've done. You know what, we're gonna throw some white on here too. I want to, I want to pop these. Watch how the white is going to kind of pop the tanks out a little bit more. Hey, I see Kathy over there on TikTok. If you're watching on TikTok, feel free to like it. I know I sound like a broken record, but yeah, let's, let's get those likes up on whatever platform you're watching. So you see how just throwing this one kind of— this one line of white It's just really just popping out the edge of the— these tanks on here. Oh yeah. It was a windy day here at the park, super, super duper windy. One of the things I love about sketching and urban sketching is I just love the fact that, uh, it ingrains the day in my brain, like the event, whatever I was sketching at that point in time. I could remember the weather, um, how I was feeling at the time, you know, the sounds that were around me. Sketching really is a way of ingraining the experience of a place into your brain and into your soul, into your heart. And I always talk about my sketch I did of the New York City skyline where That was many years ago, and back in 1993, I still can remember standing there on the bank of the Hudson River at Stevens Institute, looking across the Hudson River and sketching the skyline that had the beautiful Twin Towers still there. Rainy day, young guy, young intern architect, excited about my future. Yeah, so that is just one of the reasons I love doing this. I'm just weathering these tanks a little bit here, throwing some, some random dots of goodness. I mean, if you guys have any questions, comments, or thoughts, feel free to add them. I'll take a look in the comments before I head out. I'm only gonna be on for another couple of minutes. Um, let's see, I'm gonna, I'm gonna add some more color on this. Let's break out some colored pencils. What do I got here with me? So color pencil-wise, I have— let's throw some Sunburst Orange Or yellow. Sunburst yellow. Yeah, I love this color. This is sunburst yellow. It's a pretty cool color. Prismacolor pencil, um, just, just a regular color pencil, not a watercolor pencil. I'm gonna zoom in, I'm gonna zoom in a little bit. Hope you guys can see that better. Gotta do it, gotta break out the chartreuse. Let's break out some neon yellow. Hey, Laura says I like the random dots of goodness. Yay! I'll bring it closer so you guys can see that, so you can see those random dots of goodness, the white kind of dots I put on there. Pretty fun. Hey Anna, great to see you on TikTok. Hope all's well. Let's throw on some more random dots of goodness. Um, what color? Let's do some— let's break out some of the Aqua so you can see this. You'll see it really pop. Ready? Let's pop some of that Aqua on here. You know what this needs? This needs some splatter, but Hmm, how could I do that? This is pretty thin paper, it bleeds through, so I can't really do watercolor on it. All right, instead of random dots of goodness, we're going to do random splotches of happiness. Just going to do some splotches here just to kind of age these a little bit. There you are, random splotches of happiness. See, I just— I love— I, I just so love this color. But the trouble is— not the trouble, but the thing to watch out for is overdoing it. It's so easy to overdo a color that you love a lot. There you go. I like— I'm liking this. See those patches of colors kind of happening there? Pretty cool. Hey, Not Nicole, great to see you. Hope all's well. Good to see you, Not Nicole. Hope you're doing awesome. So you can see the random splotches of happiness, um, here with the blue. And these were, you know, these were the old syrup tanks. At the sugar— Domino Sugar Refinery. I'm so glad that— one of the cool things I love seeing in the world of architecture is repurposing, um, old structures into new uses and keeping elements of those structures. So these syrup tanks— and correct me if I'm wrong, I believe they're syrup tanks— But these tanks, original to the sugar refinery building, are now just— they're sculptures outside in the park. They're weathered, they're rusted, they have layers of paint on them. They're spectacular. I know that sounds kind of weird, but I love aged weather things. And then the building itself is an adaptive reuse building. It's now, you know, offices and some retail. Um, that's the kind of architecture that really excites me, something I'd love to get more into. Here's just some close-up. Jason Nicholas Nicholas, good to see you. Hope all's well. So you guys at home can see this a little bit closer. And, you know, I think this one's done. I don't really want to add too much more to it, so I think we'll leave it at that. I think that's going to close our sketchbook for tonight, guys. On that note, if you're wondering what What I'm sketching in right now, it's the Soho Brickcraft, um, sketchbook here. Lightweight paper, 65 pounds, so can't really do any washing on it. 5.5 inches by 8.5 inches. I like it. It's got a kind of a cardboard hard press board cover on it. Um, yeah, nice little sketchbook. Or not so little. Um, all right guys, I hope you really enjoyed tonight's, um, live stream. I had fun over here on Instagram. You can see the TikTok thing over here as well, and YouTube. I appreciate you guys all watching live, and Facebook as well, of course. Laura, it was great seeing you, and Chip. And Karen. I hope you guys are all doing well. Um, I love doing this stuff. I love sharing my, uh, enthusiasm for it. So sometimes I'm over the top and hyper and talk really fast, and that's because I love this stuff. And more importantly, I just love— I love sharing creativity with people and encouraging creativity. And as well, I mean, guys, if you can scribble, if you can sketch anything, I mean, if you could put pen to paper, pencil to paper, you can sketch architecture. Seriously. Um, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day, rest of your weekend. It's been great seeing everybody here, and I'll be back real soon. Keep using your creativity for positivity. Um, this has been Jason Nicholas Nicholas with the Inkspired Life. Um, if you see any sketches you'd like to my sketchbook, let me know. I'll throw them on the Sketch Shop. All right guys, take care. Have a great, great rest of your day.