SKETCH FASTER: Loose Lines That Speak

Hey, it's Saturday, August 8th. Hope you're having a great day. Let's do some sketching. I'm, uh, I'm gonna sketch this. It's a picture of a crane that I took in Brooklyn last week. So have some music on, let's do some quick, fast, loose sketching, a little warm-up here, and then we'll see where we head after that. Not gonna be on too long. I do have maybe one thing I do want to do before we end today. So yeah, I hope you're having a great Saturday. Please feel free to say hello. And let's zoom in a little bit. There we go. Perfect. All right, cool. So that was just a quick fun— just wanted to get my hands kind of loosened up, switch my brain a little bit. Um, here's what I want to do for the next maybe 5 minutes is, uh, I need to prep some more pages in my sketchbook here for my NYC calendar I'm working on. So let's do that. We'll throw down some acrylic paint on here. And just have fun throwing down colors. And basically what I need to do is create some backgrounds, uh, that I can sketch on top of. So you can see from these examples that it's just really quick, fun, loose acrylic. I'm throwing paint down and I'm sketching on top. So I need to prep some pages. Um, so let's do that for the next few minutes. I'm going to pull out some acrylics and we're just going to have fun throwing down colors. Feel free to say hello, ask any questions, and, uh, yeah. Hey, I see Aaron Beitner and Do You Salute and Andrew on Instagram. Hey, how are you? Good to see you. Do You Salute, good to see you. Thank you for joining the workshop last week. I, I, um, appreciate your kind words and it was great having you, so thank you so much. Feel free to ask questions or comments. Yeah, this is great. And Andrew, I hope you're having a really, really good summer. I hope, uh, I know you're getting ready to start go back to school soon, so keep in touch, man. All right, I am gonna grab some random acrylic paints. I have no rhyme or reason of throwing the color down, you see, other than just kind of going with my gut, my instinct, and what I'm feeling. Just a vibe, right? Um, so let's prep a couple pages and then we'll see after I do that. Maybe we'll hit, hit a sketch or two. I am actually going to be going away for the next few days, so I wanted to prep something so I could bring it with me tomorrow. So I grabbed this color and let's just throw it down. And I'm literally going to just put it right on the page and you kind of— you'll kind of see how this plays out here a little bit. Um, I have a cloth here I can wipe the brush off with. I have some dirty water— yeah, it's dirty— and some kind of old wonky brushes are kind of not clean, they're kind of stiff, and that's okay. I'm not looking for beauty, I'm not looking for perfection. Let's just spread some color on this sheet. I got some music going here. I can't play it because otherwise they'd get copyrighted. But, uh, if you go to Spotify, look for The Inkspired Life, and you can see my, uh, what I'm listening to there. I have a playlist. So let's do that. I did, I did forget to break out a piece of scrap paper, but that's okay, we could do that pretty quickly. Um, here we go. I'll just take this. I got this little kind of sketch thing here. We'll just kind of wipe the paint off on it. All right, we got a nice yellow. I'm going to throw down some neon pink. Yep, just gonna be totally random, throw some on. Andrew says, hey Mr. Nick, hope your summer's going well. I'll always be in touch, don't you worry. I am not worried, sir. My summer's going great. It's going great. No complaints. I do actually have one complaint. Let's do two pages at once, guys. We'll just kind of push that over here. Um, I do have one complaint about the summer. It is going way, way, way too dang fast. Yeah. That's my complaint. It is just going too fast. I gotta catch my breath. You know how it goes. When do you— when do you— when do you start school? Let me know. When does college start up? The good old C word, college. Are you excited for your freshman year? Are you nervous? All the above? It's gonna be amazing. All right, let's just keep throwing out some more color. Someone is doing fireworks. This— I have no idea why. It's annoying me though. It annoys me because I know my dog. My, my dog can't stand them, and I don't blame her, and I just feel bad for her. Again, we're just randomly throwing down colors, guys. I'm just trying to create a couple of abstract backgrounds. All right, cool. And I'm going to kind of scratch through some of these colors a little bit. And it's just a quick way for me to prep these backgrounds. Um, let's grab some, some of this as well. So my goal is to— I want to take this sketchbook with me when I leave tomorrow and just have it so I could do some sketches while I'm out and about. Um, Andrew says school the 26th. Awesome. Mixed feelings, that makes, that makes sense. When you go back, sure, make sure you say hi to Connor and Thomas for me. Yes, I will say hello. Just for you. It's just for you. Any, any other requests, let me know. I think, um, I did see one of them, uh, in one of my classes, one of them in one of my architecture classes. So that'll be cool if I have one of them in class again. I really, uh, like them. They're stand-up Stand-up guys, a lot of fun. And I'll even say hello to Matthew for you as well. Hey guys, we're just loading this up. We'll throw— this will be the last color I think we'll add, and then we'll put this aside to dry. Oh no, it won't be the last color. I want to get pink on here. All right, I lied. I want to throw another color also. Yeah, I get it. Mixed feelings, of course. That totally makes sense. Well, I have nothing but faith in you, man. I think you will— you're the kind of person that can succeed no matter what you put your mind to. That's something I admire about you. It will have its moments for sure, man. It's not going to be an easy ride, but I believe in you. You can— you'll figure it out. Just make the best out of it. It's all you can do, right? You're gonna learn a lot of things. A lot of things you're not gonna learn just about, uh, things in your classes. You're gonna learn a lot about I think for me, college was learning a lot about myself as a human, uh, learning about independence and having to grow up in some ways, um, learning about— learning how to socialize in different ways. I was very— believe it or not, I was very quiet in high school. I had a very, very few friends, but I was so quiet in high school. And when I got to college, I had to figure it out. And how do I make friends, right? So embrace it as a learning journey and not just, uh, not just courses you need to get good grades in. Hopefully that makes sense. That's my two cents. All right, cool. I kind of like these abstracts. These will be good. Yeah, have a great night. Yeah, stay in touch. I appreciate it. Best of luck. Of course. All right. I think these might be good for now, just to let them— put them aside, let them dry. And again, the idea here was really nothing more than just to make some more abstract backgrounds that I can use later on to do sketching on top of. And that is what we have. Yeah, you know what, there's— I need to do one more thing. I thought I was done, but I really get an urge just to put some yellow up here. Woo! I always love, uh, it's always cool for me as a high school teacher to see what my seniors are going off and doing after they graduate. Then it's fun to stay in touch with them. All right, done. Let's put this aside again. So just quick, quick abstract backgrounds. I don't know if they'll be dried for me. They should be dry by tomorrow morning. Uh, where am I going to put these? Here. All right, cool. All right, let me put these aside and then let's break out sketchbook here, and I'll give a quick— just a quick run-through of maybe what I'm gonna bring with me on this, this very short visit I'm going to be doing. So of course, of course, I will be bringing— I'll be bringing my Lockbie, Lockbie Folio. Love my Lockbie Folio. Never leave home without it. Um, so I got my Lockbie folio, and I always keep just different color pens in here. Um, you'll typically see a red pen, so right now I have a Pentel— I'm sorry, a Pilot Precise red pen. Um, it's a multicolor pen, so yes, you can never have enough pens. And then of course a Sharpie, which usually lives in here. Um, and then paper-wise, I have this, uh, this is from Muji, I think, this Muji paper here that I can sketch in. I also have some other Lokbi, uh, Tomoe River paper in here, which I think I need to put a new one in. I'm almost out of sheets on that. I have And I usually have a dot grid for taking notes or brainstorming. Uh, and then in the back is— this is why I love this thing, because I can have my— I have some ugly journals. Definitely going to bring— where's my— where's the red one? Here we go. Definitely going to bring the red one here. Um, notice the white gel pen. You'll— I'll talk about that in a sec. So we'll throw that in there. I'm gonna have a couple in there and have it more— look at this, this thing holds so much, guys. That's why I love it. Another, another ugly books in here. I'm loving, uh, sketching on color paper. And then I have— I threw one of these, or I'm carrying these now with me. This is kind of the Sketch Framework Guide, so I keep these in here and I could talk about it and show people. And if you were in the workshop last week in, in, uh, Industry City at Stationery Fest, everybody in class got one of these. And, um, it's a really cool just kind of guide or different practices to kind of keep your sketching and your creative mindset fresh in different ways. So it's a fun reference card. If you're interested in that, um, go to my website, theinspiredlife.com. I actually have to update it. So if you go there, you'll see a Sketch Framework you can download for free. It's an older version. I have to update it with a new one. All right, cool. So this will be coming with me, and this goes in my bag I carry on the plane, or I keep with me at my seat. So boom. Um, what else is going to come with me? Of course I will be bringing I'll bring one of my LAMY Quattros with some colored pencils in it, which I could restock some colors, which I have here. Look at this, I love fresh, brand new fresh pencils. So we'll throw a couple of these in here. Uh, actually I'll just do it while I'm talking to you guys. Maybe we'll throw another neon yellow in there. I have a pink one, I have a blue one. Aqua. All right, perfect. Got that. I should throw a pencil sharpener here, which I can squeeze in there. So check that out, right? Pencil sharpener, pencils. That's gonna come with me. I don't want to get too cray cray. We do have art stores, and my friend I'm going to visit is an artist, so we're gonna be doing a lot of sketching. Um, I might bring a— I might bring a Quattro. I'm not sure. I mean, uh, I don't think— I don't know if I'm gonna bring that. And I want to bring this also. I'm going to bring another Lochbie Quattro that has some white gel pens and some of my favorite Creative Marker colors. I gotta throw the yellow back in there. Boom, boom, boom. You can tell what my favorite color is because I have two of them. So, so I'll throw some Creative Markers in here as well. So I think that's all I'm going to be bringing really, is just this, this stuff here as far as art goes and sketching goes. I might last minute decide to fill up my pouch here with other stuff, but I'm gonna keep it loosey-goosey. Um, you know, any other thing I may may not add would be just my watercolor palette, which could be cool. So that's it, that's what I'll be taking with me. All righty then. Hey, let me know if any questions or comments before I wrap up here. It's always great having you on the live streams. Um, yeah, I just love sharing this stuff. Pretty cool. I do want to check this. Um, yeah, I have some blank pages. I didn't know if I need blank pages left. These are my sketches I did last weekend in Industry City, so a lot of fun just kind of hanging out and did some sketching. Um, I like this. This is one of my faves. It's kind of cool looking at the storefront with a cat who was Enjoying me— enjoying my sketching, I should say. Boom. Very, very cool. All right, with that, I think I'm gonna wrap, um, for tonight. I appreciate you, you watching. You're awesome. You can do this. You can throw down quick, loose lines. Um, don't worry about perfection. This is all about sketching. Here we go. Here's the Flatiron Building. This is about imperfection, getting lines on paper, um, quick, fast, loose, and just to capture a moment, to capture a vibe, capture a, uh, an idea. Um, yeah, so I mean, here's an example. This is just a real quick take on kind of looking down towards the Flatiron Building. Right, really wonky loose lines here. This is the Met, the Met Museum, same idea. And this is— this was done with pens. These are just different color pens, you see. Uh, here's the Pont Alexandre Alexandre Bridge. Am I saying that right? Some flowers. If I was gonna sit there and sketch a— you know, I don't do a lot of flower, a lot of landscapes, but I like doing them. I should do more. But if I was gonna try to capture every single petal here on these daffodils, I would never ever start sketching anything. I I'd be so afraid. So in my brain, I'm just trying to capture some shapes, some overall shapes. Um, and it was fun. It was just fun to do. This is the High Line. This is the connector, I think. Uh, is it the Moynihan Connector Bridge? I think that's the name of it. Uh, pretty quick sketch. I was— I did this sitting there in person. Um, here's another one, an iris, my favorite flowers in the whole world. But you get the idea. So don't be afraid to just throw stuff on paper and have fun with it. Just paper, it's just ink, and it's a lot of fun. Until we meet again, sketch boldly, live creatively, and embrace imperfection. I might try to livestream, uh, on and off while I'm away. Uh, probably not. I'm not sure. Yeah, my brain's in many different directions right now. Welcome to my world. All right, until we meet again, sketch boldly, live creatively, and embrace imperfection. And shout out to everybody that came to my workshop. Again, if you're watching this live or replay, I really, really appreciated having you in that workshop. It was so much fun for me, and I'm sorry that we ran out of time. Voilà. But I think it was still pretty amazing because of you. Be well.