Sketch and Chill

Hello, happy December 19th, uh, 2024. Hope you're doing well tonight. So I'm going to do some sketching. Feel free to join me, you know, you can watch me, ask some questions in the comments or chat, and I'm just going to be here just for a little bit and just sketch. Um, I think I'm gonna do the Brooklyn Bridge sketch tonight, so let's just see where it goes. Hope you're having a great day today. This is, uh, sketching on, um, hot press paper, which I don't usually use. I usually use the cold press paper, which has texture, but I thought I want to do a little bigger sketch tonight. This was the closest sheet of paper I had nearby, so I figured let's go for it and see what happens. Happy holidays, everybody! So I'm starting with a Sharpie. I'm probably going to be adding some kind of color on this, I don't know. I don't know what I'll be using yet, whether it's colored pencil or markers or a mix of things. We'll see. So let's just sketch the kind of outline of the bridge here. This is gonna— the sketch is inspired by the Brooklyn Bridge, my favorite bridge in New York City, if not on detail.

The entire world.

Well, I haven't traveled the entire world, but the bridges I've seen, at least pictures of, I love the Brooklyn Bridge. And I have been fortunate enough to see the bridge in person, walk across it. It's a pretty magical experience walking across the bridge and being able to see New York City, the skyline. Whether you're looking towards Brooklyn or you're looking towards the, um, the Wall Street area. Bridge has these iconic kind of arches happening here, these Gothic types of arches. This is meant to be a fast sketch, pretty loose and wonky. We're going to try to capture some idea of maybe a perspective happening. Bring this line down here. We'll bring this across. Bridge continues underneath the main structure. Got it kind of happening like this. And the road happens there. And we just move this out of the way for a sec. And then we'll just draw a sketch, a smaller version down here, just to get the idea across that there is some kind of distance or depth happening here.

Here we go. Cool.

So this is way out of scale. I really should have had the road up a little higher, so we're going to do that. We're going to Just sketch it in like this. There we go. That's better. So this is a 12-inch by 18-inch sheet of paper happening. It's kind of just going that way a little bit more instead of going downhill. There we go. I like quick, fast loose sketches. I love seeing the line work. Sharpies are great for me because I'm committed once I throw a line down. I'm not thinking about erasing it because I can't. So I just keep moving forward and I just love the stories that these sketches tell by me adding lines you know, going over lines, changing lines. You can kind of see the history of the work. It's not a clean— it's not clean, it's not precise at all. Alright, I think that's enough Sharpie. Let's throw down some color. I'm gonna break out some watercolor to start with. So again, this is hot press paper. I'm used to cold press, which has a nice texture. Texture. So this will be fun to see what happens. I do want to put this at an angle so that way the water runs down and the kind of magical things happen. Um, the water runs down, the colors will kind of puddle up at the bottom a little bit. So let me do that. I'm literally just going to put this underneath my board and tilt it up. Let's get a little bit of an angle. Let's give that a try.

Cool.

I'm just throwing down some pieces of tape on the top so this paper doesn't slide around. There we go. So I'm just mixing up some purple. I thought it'd be cool to have a maybe some purplish type of shadows going on, give it a little more depth. These colors are not the colors you would actually see at the Brooklyn Bridge. It's just a vibe I'm creating. I'm— I just pick colors that kind of make me feel good, and depending on the day, the moment, the music I'm listening to. So I'm, I'm not a realistic painter at all. I really just kind of go with my gut when I'm picking out colors. Um, actually kind of want some splatter on here, so I'm going to mix up some purple. We're going to splatter on here. When I think of New York City, I think of energy. And when I add splatters, it kind of creates some kind of energy to the scene. Just kind of splatter a little bit. Yeah, just like that. Awesome. I like the way this is drying right here. I'm gonna throw some yellow on here just to add a pop of freshness, a little bit of zestiness. Grabbing, um, I call it lemon yellow, some lemon yellow. Thread that on here. It just will pop some of this out a little bit. Yeah, so I like the colors on here. I think I'm gonna let this dry a little bit, um, we'll come back. We'll definitely add a little bit more detail with a Sharpie, and I think I'm going to break out some of these Sharpie, uh, creative markers as well, and I think I'm going to do the cables of the bridge with some of these markers. I don't know what color yet, so I'm going to wait on that. I'm just going to go in a moment and pick some colors out for the cables. Let me zoom in here. You can see how this is drying. It looks kind of cool. It's a close-up. I really like the colors happening here. Let me get a black frame out so it kind of pulls it out even more. Hope you're having a great night wherever you're watching, whether you're on YouTube or on Facebook. It's always great to see you guys in the chat. Feel free to say hello, ask questions. I'll be checking in with the chat so I can say hi to you guys. So I'm gonna put this frame around here. You can see the colors kind of popping out a little bit more. Hey, I see Paula over on YouTube. Hey Paula, how are you? Happy holidays to you too. So cool to see you popping on here. Hope all's well. So tonight I'm just doing a Brooklyn in Brick— Brooklyn Bridge inspired sketch painting. Sometimes I call these sketch paintings because I'm doing a little bit of sketching and a little bit of painting. Probably makes sense. Um, I like the way this is looking. I actually like the way this is drawing. Let me zoom in this section here. I kind of like the way this is drying right in this area. Got some like kind of hard edge happening here a little bit. Very cool. It's always fun to take these iconic structures and just throw your own twist on it with color. Don't be afraid to be playful and experiment and just have fun with what you're doing. Um, if I felt like I had to recreate the exact colors of the Brooklyn Bridge or the Empire State Building or the, uh, Copper Building, I think I'd be at a standstill because I feel like, um, I'd be thinking way too hard to create exactly what's there. And that's not why I do this. I do this for fun, keep the flow going, like I take photographs to capture the actual reality of what's there, if that makes sense. Just let loose with that color. You know what? I'm gonna get you to use some of these markers. Let's see, just sketch some cables on here. I think I'm gonna go with— I'm gonna bring out some orange. This would be— this is a really fun way to get to structure of the cables to pop out a little bit more. I should wait really till this is all dry, but I like to— I'm kind of impatient. You guys impatient when you're creating? I'm a little impatient. So you can see those cables kind of popping out when I add the orange. I'm going to bring out— break out some other colors as well. I'm going to turn the board here sideways. Hopefully it stays on camera. There we go.

So let's just kind of do some quick—

some vertical cables here a little bit.

Cool.

Notice I'm not bringing the cables all the way down. I like kind of the unfinished look here at the bottom of the cables. Let's grab another color. Uh, these Sharpie Creative Markers were definitely a really cool find for 2020. 2024. I'm loving them more and more. So actually just did a video earlier this week. I put it out there. It's a kind of a best of 2024, just a few of the items I really enjoyed using or rediscovering in 2024 for my sketching. Um, it's only a partial video. I'm gonna make another one with more items. But feel free to check it out. I did post it earlier this week. You can find it on— right here on the YouTube channel. Let's go with— I'm thinking too much, so we're gonna go with this green. And on the Brooklyn Bridge, we have these kind of diagonal cables happening as well. So there we go, got some of the more cables showing up. And I want a color I really don't really see on here, so I might break out some blue. —and we'll do some blue here. I just want the blue so it contrasts. I'm gonna turn this again, and we'll do some down here, I think. Maybe I'll add some more in here as well. And I think that might be enough for the cables for now, so we'll leave that like that. So this sheet I think is 18 by 24. Let's see. Oh, I am wrong. 12 by 18, I meant to say. No, I'm way off. 12 by 14. 11 by 14. So it's about 11 by 14. Hot press. I usually use the cold press paper. I like the cold press a little bit better because it shows the texture of the paper. This is hot press, so it's really smooth. It's always fun though to play around with different, different mediums, different papers. Let's see, I'm going to break out some turquoise paint and I'm going to pop some turquoise really brightly, so There we go. Just want to pull out the structure of the bridge a little bit more, kind of like that.

There we go.

And pull that down here as well, just tie it together a little bit. Boom. Hope everybody's doing well. Hope you're looking forward to the upcoming holidays. I am off of school next week, which is awesome. As much as I love, love teaching, it's good to have a break too for teachers and students and parents. My break will give me some time to catch up on doing some more sketching, organizing, planning for 2025. I really want to change the sketching thing up a little bit, take it to the next level. So I want to— I'm really excited to kind of work on those plans and get that going. We almost hit, almost hit the goal of a 1,000 subscribers by the end of this year. We're so close, 906. So I'm really thankful for everybody that's supporting me and by liking and subscribing to the videos. So thank you guys so much. And I'm just mixing up some more purple watercolor here. I want to Just throw some more purple shadow kind of underneath here just to create more depth.

I'm kind of digging this one.

Ooh, I just hit the whole board there. Yeah, so you guys can see how this is drawing. It's coming out pretty good. Hey, D-Ray's in the house! D-Ray says, "Hi folks!" D-Ray, it's always great to see you over there on the Facebook side of the world. Hope all's well with you. Love it, love it. D-Ray is a long-time viewer and always so positive in the comments and in the chat, so thank you so much. I really appreciate it. You, and I hope you're doing well. Yeah, I like this. It needs something. It needs something. My, my guide's telling me I need to put red on here. I usually go with what it says, um, so I'm going to break out— here we go. Here is my favorite way to add red to my sketches. Right here. Ta-da! The good old Pilot Precise Pen. Something about the red in here, I just love the color of it. Goes on easy. So whenever I need a red, this is my go-to. I'd rather use this than even the red watercolor paint, which I find for me, it's really challenging to use red watercolor paint. I don't know why. Might be a creative mental block. I have been using the red Creative Markers Sharpie markers. Let's go for it, let's add some red on here. Oh, what the heck? Alright guys, here we go. That is, that is not a lot. My Precise Pen is bleeding, so I now have it all over me and it actually worked its way onto the sketch here. Okay, that was interesting. How are we gonna— alright, we're gonna work with it. Kinda, it kind of ended up in a good spot here. That was interesting. So I don't know, actually, I'm going to blot some of it off. Interesting, interesting. So I'm not sure why this thing was leaking. I'm going to be brave and keep going with it though. We'll see what happens. Looks like I injured injured myself, but it's only ink. Alright, that was funny. And I'm just gonna kinda do a red outline here. What the heck? That was fun. I definitely need to come back out with my Sharpie and pull out some of these shapes more after it dries. But I guess we have red on here now. Should we splatter? Can I splatter? Yeah, yeah, let's splatter some too.

There we go.

Wow, good thing I'm not wearing a white shirt. That's all I'm gonna say. I would have got red all over it. Hey Chip, how are you? Just got here and I love what you're doing. Hey Chip, thank you so much, I appreciate that. You just missed the, uh, the red pilot pen explosion. So we just had a nice downpour of red ink. It is on my fingers here. All right, I am moving this pen somewhere off-grid so I don't— where should I put it? It's going right in the garbage. Alright, so yeah, so guys, it's not art unless what? It's not art unless you wear it. So I'm gonna kind of say that I think this is some artwork tonight. I'm definitely wearing it. Oh, got a big drop down here. I'm just gonna go with the flow. I kind of do want to get off— there we go. All right, um, that was fun. All right, so I need— I really want this to dry so I can add some Sharpie on top of it. While we're waiting for that to dry, let's do a quick show and tell. What do I have nearby? This is a cool little sketchbook. This is a Moleskine sketchbook, fits in my pocket. Um, you see I take it to New York City with me, so I have some sketches from 20— from 2023, not 1923. If it was from 1923, I would be looking pretty good for my age. From 2023, and there's 2024 in here as well. Take a quick peek. This is, um, Museum of Modern Art. I went to that day, I remember, to go see the Pinocchio exhibit. So if you guys haven't seen, uh, Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, it's a really cool stop-motion movie, and they had an exhibit in the Museum of Modern Art that was incredible. They had the models from the movie, it had the characters, the miniatures, the puppets. Loved it. Iconic water tower sketch. Gotta always do one of those for New York City. What else do we have in here? Again, I love this size book, fits into my pocket. This is a building along the High Line. It's a very modern space-age looking building by Zaha Hadid, world-renowned architect. She is, she was an incredible architect, sadly passed away. I love this building. This is called The Shed, New York City. Here's part of the building. This building slides open and closed. It's located in Hudson Yards. Love Hudson Yards, one of my favorite, favorite areas. I'm heading into New York City this weekend. I don't know if I'll get to Hudson Yards, maybe. These are some just quick kind of stairs and bridge sketches. Very fast. You can see the fury and the scribbly lines. This is the Richard Rodgers Theatre where Hamilton— is this where Hamilton's being shown? I think it's the theater where Hamilton is. Uh, Grand Central Terminal. I love sketching inside here. Great space. This was fun, just adding these colors. New York Public Library, St. Patrick's Cathedral, which is iconic, one of my favorite buildings to sketch. This is just a kind of a skyline type of view. Anything else? Yes, that's a quick show and tell. It was right here, so I thought I'd show it to you guys. All right, let's see if we can add some lines on this. Sorry that happened. Leave it. Yeah, coming back to New Jersey on Christmas Day. I'll call you. Hey Chip, that would be amazing. Please give me a shout. I am off all of next week. I am off all of next week. It would be so cool to possibly See you. All right, let's add some detail. So these are kind of the guardrails on the side of the bridge, side of the roadway. We'll add some here as well. The red, the red is spreading. I might have to— so this, I was gifting this to somebody, but I don't know now if I'm gonna gift it or not. But it's all good because I love sketching this anyway. All right, let's add some detail. Um, let's see, there's an American flag somewhere along the Brooklyn Bridge. We'll kind of sketch a flag here, maybe in the distance. I really want to pull out these vertical elements here. I'm afraid to put my hand on the red ink. Ah, what's the big deal?

Let's just do it.

A lot of sketching and painting and just creativity for me is— comes down to mindset. And just how my brain approaches what I'm doing. Am I looking at things as challenges, as obstacles, as things that are going to stop me? Let me see what's happening here. I'm just gonna— I'm gonna keep going. I'm not gonna let it frustrate me. I'm sure you've heard the expression "happy little accidents." I don't know if that was from Bob Ross, maybe. But expect that, especially if you're doing fast, quick, and loose sketches. You have to kind of expect that, happy accidents. Things are going to happen, and that's part of the fun for me, not knowing what the outcome is going to be. If I was expecting this to look a certain way, I could become really frustrated because it's not, it's not headed in that direction. So I'm not expecting this to be an exact replica. It's my take, my feeling. But I will say I am definitely, um, more of a cold press paper fan for this kind of stuff. So it is fun to just play around with hot press tonight and see what happens. So I'm just kind of doing some hatching, add some shadows and create a little bit of depth to this, another layer. These sketches are a lot about layer, or I should say layers. Let's kind of do the same hatching under here. Maybe we'll say these red lights are our drones. I'm sure you guys have heard about the drone stories here in New Jersey. New Jersey. I have seen them, so it is true. There are these random drones flying around. I haven't seen as many lately, but it is, it is a real thing that's happening. And who the heck knows who's flying these drones, why they're flying around? I'm not playing into the paranoia that a lot of the media wants us to play into. Cool. Ta-da! Oh yeah, Chip, I would, I would love to meet you in New York City. That would be, that would be amazing if we could make that happen. Let's do it, man. I'm on on board, 100%. So we're headed in Saturday to go see a show. Um, I would love to head in and meet you there.

That would be really, really fun.

All right, let's get the frame out. Let's see if we can do a little framing trick here and I can salvage this to at least give to somebody. I will— I'm not definitely gonna this is not worth giving in the state it's in. So I'll look at it as practice and fun. But if I can crop out a piece of it, I wanna see what it looks like. Looking for my, oh, I don't think I have my big frame. What do I got here? I got this, but I want something more vertical. Let's see, I think I need to hit one of the big box art stores and get some more matte frames. I thought I had a bigger one here. These are kind of small. Crop it out. "Paloma, you have seed all over your hand." Yeah, I know. Again, if you're just tuning in, this is red ink. Red ink. This is not an injury. Yeah, this— no, I think it's too too busy to try to map to crop it. It really needs to be horizontal. So we're going to chalk this one up to playtime and fun time. And it gives me an excuse to actually do another Pokémon bridge. One that I actually— one that I would love to give away. What else can we do with this since this is totally not going anywhere? I don't know, let's freak out. I did say I wanted to use red before. Let's, let's dive into a Sharpie red creative marker. Now we're going crazy.

Very good.

Yeah, Thierry said now he's going crazy. I am going crazy. You know I'm a little cuckoo. Yeah, I'm just breaking out these markers. I have to say, I think when I was doing this Brooklyn Bridge tonight, I was feeling not as loose and free as I usually do. I think— I can't explain it. The vibe. I wasn't feeling it. I wasn't feeling it 100%. I was, you know what it was? I was thinking too much about what I was creating instead of just creating it. And when I think too much, it kind of puts me off my game. Um, it sounds weird, I know. I think I was kind of pre-planning what colors I was going to grab next, what where I was going to put things instead of just doing it. And for me, uh, one of the things that drives me is just going in the flow, grabbing and going and creating and not thinking so much about it. And I know that might sound weird, and I don't know, it's, it's just kind of my game and how I like to do what I'm doing. That's why I think I have a hard time teaching the way I sketch, is because I'm creating in the moment and it's hard for me to teach it while I'm doing it. I have to break the process down. So that's something I really, really need to work on and becoming a better teacher of teaching what I'm doing. I can do it, but it's hard for me to slow down and kind of teach it. If you notice, when I was just in that flow, grabbing, grabbing these colors and throwing things down, I was totally in my zone. So it is 8:46. I am going to start something new and we're just going to grab and go for 15 minutes. I, I do I do like the way the main part of the bridge came out. I'm kind of liking this. I like the colors. I'm liking the layers on it. That's where the ink spilled originally. So, and I'm gonna break out my paper I like using right here. Let's see, I got some more, I think. So let's grab and go. See what happens. These are some fun— these are actually some fun sketches I've done. Forgot about these. I kind of like this. I kind of like this sketch here. This is a building in Spokane, Washington. Can't remember the name of the— might be like the Spokane News Building or something like that. But this was kind of fun, just throwing these different layers down with creative markers, right? Like, this was kind of a fun sketch here. Steam Plant, Spokane Washington. But you know what, let's just— we have this barn here, let's just kind of mess around with this. I'm gonna throw some color on top of it, see what happens. I'm actually gonna change up the music a little bit too. Hey, Paula says, what a fun sketch! Thank you. Yeah, that was a fun sketch. So hope you guys are kind of just My goal is for you guys to get in my brain a little bit and how I think about what I'm creating and sketching. Hopefully it's coming across tonight and you're getting some good tips. I'm going to change the tunes up. Love the holidays, love holiday music, it's so beautiful. I'm actually feeling— we're going to hit the Whistling Cowboy track here. See what comes up. We get a little Spokane Washington. I like that building. Yeah, let me go back to it. Let me show you guys that again. Um, so there was the news— the news building here. This was a really fun fast loose sketch. This is a part of the building. The building actually is huge. It continues way off to the left of the paper. This was just me kind of messing around, nothing in particular, just from my imagination. And then this was the steam plant building. I love this building here in Spokane, the steam plant, is incredible. Um, what's the word I'm thinking of? Incredible building that's been repurposed. It was an old steam plant, now it has, uh, I think it has a restaurant in it and shops, maybe not shops but office spaces. So let's just mess around. I'm gonna Keep your old artwork, guys. It's always fun to go back over and see what happens, what you can do with it.

I'm just going to layer some Creative Marker on here.

Zoom in a little bit closer, you can see some of the detail happening. I'm just gonna go through this and use all the colors in here.

Ooh, I like that.

Alright, so this— I will admit I did plan on putting turquoise over the purple because I knew it would look really cool, so I threw the purple down first. So do I sometimes think ahead? Sometimes, yes. But in general, I don't. I just kind of grab and go. Need some of this color up in the roof.

There we go. What else?

I have red and a pink.

Cool, I like the pops of pink here. And then the last Color in here is red.

Very cool. Alright, so there you go. So that was just me kind of riffing. I'll show you— these are all the markers I just used except for the black one in here. Boom. Um, that was— you may have noticed a difference. That was me in my groove, grabbing, going, creating, having fun. So I really felt a lot more positive energy on this than I was having on the Brooklyn Bridge sketch. Um, last thing I do want to do with this, I think I want to pop out the roof line. So now I'll grab the black creative marker. Cool. We're just gonna, we're gonna pull out the edge of the roof. I'm gonna go around here a little bit, pull out the cupola, pull out the cupola here, pull out this edge of the roof here. Maybe down here. We'll actually pull out the whole edge of the building. There. There you go. So I think just by adding that black around the roof really just popped it out more. You may have noticed it's not a continuous line in some places, like here. I purposely left it broken to keep that loose sketchy look. Look. I felt like if I made this all solid, it would look a little too polished. I really want to keep it loosey-goosey, so I did leave it broken here. Cool! I like this barn better than when we started with it. Alright, let's go back and look at the comments, see what other things, questions you guys might have before I wrap up. It is awesome seeing everybody. Thank you so much for your comments, your positivity. I love it so much. Off your game? Yeah, yeah, I was. I'm back on. What a fun sketch. Thank you, Paula. I think that was one of the sketches in here, I'm not sure. Spokane one, probably. Sketch of "Grand Central is phenomenal, my favorite. Love the vibe and energy it gives off." Oh, you like that one, Chip. That's cool to hear. Yeah, this was sketched on location. Hey, if we meet in NYC, maybe we can go sketch in Grand Central. Where's that one?

It's in this book.

I also like the Grand Central one. It's a pretty simple sketch, not a lot. Of lines, but throwing down the color was fun. I think— was this highlighter or colored pencil? This was colored pencil. Neon pink, neon yellow, and light aqua. 3 of my favorite colored pencil colors. Thank you, Chip, I'm glad you like this one. I like this one a lot too. I always have fun sketching Grand Central. Cool vibes. Love the Brooklyn Bridge one too, the perspective. Oh yeah, thanks. Let's pull it out and we'll see how it dried and we'll wrap up. Cool barn sketch, very fun. All right, so here's the Brooklyn Bridge. We'll see how it dried. Yeah, the perspective Perspective is a fun one. Let me pull out a sketch right here. Let me show you this one. I think I might end up giving this one away. Let's see. So this is a very similar perspective. This might be the one I gift. Um, we'll see because the person Jason Nicholas did ask for a little bit of green in the sketch, so we'll figure that one out. I might do it over break. But yeah, so similar perspective, you can kind of see them here. I like this perspective, it's really cool. So, love sketching this view of the bridge. I'm glad that you mentioned that. Good stuff. The black outline, wow, D-Ray says. Yeah, I think the black outlining really does help to make things pop out, and I typically will add that last cast onto a sketch. Um, depends if it needs it or not. This one definitely needed to pull, pull that barn out from the sky a little bit. I really like this. The more I look at this, I'm really liking it a lot. That is a cool little barn sketch. Very cool. Speaking of cool, you guys are awesome. So nice. Paul, thank you so Thanks so much for your awesome comments. I really appreciate that. It's 9 o'clock or just after 9. I'm going to wrap up for today. Tomorrow's our last day before winter break. We've got a short day tomorrow, which is cool. It'll be a fun day at school, I'm sure. And I'm super excited to be here. I'm going to do a lot of sketching, I think, next week. I'm working on some things for 2025. I'm working— I'm going to do a limited series of original original sketches of New York City. I think I'm going to do either 9 or 12 sketches next year that I'm going to— they're going to be original, be available for purchase, and I'm going to focus on my favorite places to sketch. So you'll see the Brooklyn Bridge, you'll see St. Patrick's Cathedral, probably the Copper Building, Grand Central Terminal. I might do some of the bridge bridges, or a collage of the bridges in Central Park. Um, what else am I thinking? That's all I have on the top of my head. Maybe, maybe a view along the High Line, um, maybe the Domino Sugar Factory. So yes, that's cool. I'll be doing a limited series of sketches in 2025 of New York City. That's one of my goals next year. And I'm working on something else that I've been encouraged to do, and it's, it'll, it's kind of fun. I don't want to say what it is yet, but, uh, shout out to Chip for kind of inspiring the idea. I appreciate it. You guys are awesome. Appreciate you so much. Means a lot that you spend some time with me, give me feedback, and just being positive and awesome people. Until we meet again, guys, keep using your creativity for positivity. Um, yeah, let's just spread some good vibes out in this world any way you can do it. If it's a simple nod hello or just thinking of someone, wishing them well as you're passing by them. Let's just spread, spread it, guys. Appreciate y'all so much. Until next time, have a great, great rest of your day. Enjoy your Friday. Peace and live creatively. I'll see you guys real soon.