Sketch Fearless: Loose Lines & Architecture : 2026-05-08

Hey, it's, um, Friday, May 8th, 2026. Hope you're having an awesome day. I'm Jason Nicholas Nicholas with The Inspired Life. It's good to be here. I am looking forward to spending, uh, I don't know, not too long tonight. Let's say 20 minutes, 25 minutes of I'm sketching here. We're going to sketch some architecture. I think we're going to start off with a sketch inspired by my visit to Barcelona, and if we have time, I think we're gonna hop a flight on my, uh, paper airplane. That was good, actually. My paper airplane to NYC, and I want to do a Statue of Liberty sketch of you. I have only sketched once or twice. So we'll see how that goes. But thanks for joining me. Um, if you're new to watching me, my name is Jason Nicholas Nicholas. I'm an architect, a high school teacher, a creative, non-stop creative. My brain is always going with ideas, and, um, I love sketching architecture. It's a way for me just to process the world, to capture a moment in time. It's a way for me to change my state of being. Uh, sketching for me is just an amazing tool, one of the many tools in my creative toolkit. So yeah, feel free to say hello, ask questions, and, uh, I'll be checking in on the comments. Hope you're having an awesome Friday. All right, let's do some sketching here. I'm not going to tell you what I'm sketching yet. I'm going to just start sketching and see if anybody can guess what I'm sketching. This is— I have to be honest, this is a building I have rarely sketched, maybe once before, uh, the exterior of. So it's Barcelona, in Barcelona. And let me start sketching out. My zoom is being zoom crazy. All right, awesome. Hey, I see Edie's in the house! Edie, I hope, I hope doing well. Always good to see you. All right, let's get some sketching going here. Oh, you know what I want to sketch with? Let's try a blue Sharpie. Hope everybody's having a great day today. It's Friday, the weekend is upon us, which is amazing. I definitely need a weekend. I don't know about you guys, but I am so ready for the weekend. It's been a good week, but a long— kind of a long, busy week. So no complaints. And let's get the sketch kind of really fast and loose here. I'm not going to think too much about it. We'll see what happens. Uh, this is a, this is an interesting building to sketch for sure. Something I will be sketching a lot of. But this is, this is, I think it's only the second time I've ever tried to sketch the outside. And there's so many angles and vantage points of this building, it's It's a building, honestly, I could sketch for the rest of my life. There's so much to look at. That's assuming I'm— I live to be like 280. All right, let's see. So if you think you know what I'm sketching, put it in the chat. I'm going to take a peek in a minute, say hello, check in with you guys. All right, let me just catch a little bit more and then, um, I will check in. I got some electro swing music on. I love I love the energy of electro swing music. It's so fun, it's very cool. All right, song's ending, so let me check in with— check in with you guys, say hello. A couple more circles. I might continue working on this a little bit more. Let me check in, say hello. So Edie's in the house, always good to see you. A quick hi, good to see you, Jen. Hope you're doing well. Thanks for the quick hello. It's— yes, it's Gaudí. Yes, it is, 100%. This is, uh, La Familia Sagrada, or Sagrada Familia. Sorry, Sagrada Familia. Yeah, love this. I'll show you the picture of what I'm sketching in a sec. Jenna, so glad you were checked in. I hope you're great. You're really tired? No worries, go to sleep. But Jenna, I hope you are doing well, and I do appreciate you popping in. You're awesome, thank you so much. This will be a quick one tonight, guys. Yeah, so this is, uh, Sagrada Familia. Here's the view of what I'm sketching. This is a picture I took when I was there. So yeah, this is, um, thank you, Edie. I'm glad you guessed. That's so cool. Again, this, this structure is fascinating. I could I definitely have to go back and sit there and spend like the entire day at just this location. We had a wonderful tour of it. It was wonderful, wonderful. Little quick, not a complaint by any means, but it's the kind of place that I would spend my hard-earned money to go back to sometime. It was really that impactful, um, as an architect, but more importantly as a human being. It was just Wow. Yeah, breathtaking. And breathtaking. And it was kind of life-changing. Is this building— walking in here, really, I have to say, it really changed my life in a really, uh, just gave me more— I don't know what the word is— more peace in life, more hope. More, uh, it, I feel like it opened up more possibilities. Very hard to explain, but it was definitely transformational. Gaudí is— I'd have to go back just to study his architecture, uh, The man was a genius, a total— just a genius. Uh, I have goosebumps just thinking about his stuff. It's incredible. I know we hear the name a lot, especially in the architecture design world. Let me— it's not— he's not overrated by any means. Pretty cool. So if you're watching, feel free to say hello in the chat. It's always good to see you guys. Um, also let me know in the chat, do you guys— should I— I want to kind of do like an online, not a lecture, but just a just a chat about this building. I kind of really want to spend an hour on it and go through some pictures, slides, just to get a little more in-depth with it, um, talk about it. It's definitely a building I need to present to my students, especially next year, so it'd be good practice for me to put together a presentation. That's cool. I like it. I like it, like it. Do I wanna— I wanna pop— do I wanna pop this out, throw a color in the background? These are kind of like I did with these, um, these are Hilltown— Hilltowns, um, mostly from my imagination, but I like the background color. It makes the buildings pop a little bit. Here's another one. Here's another one. This one is actually inspired from Toledo, Spain, where— if you don't know what Toledo, Spain— Toledo, Spain is known for, um, one of the things it's known for is sword making. A lot of the swords you see in movies are made in Toledo, Spain. Yeah, it's pretty interesting. Um, another town as well, but I don't know what color I put in the background. I don't know, that's okay. I'm thinking too much. I'm gonna do yellow. All right, let me check in, say hello, then we'll continue, continue on this. And then if you stick with me for another couple minutes, I will show you where I'm going to take you next to New York City. Um, and if I don't sketch it tonight, it'll be a sneak peek at what we'll do next time, which would probably be tomorrow. All right, I see people have some coffee or dark chocolate or both. Edie, that sounds good. Jen, I would take Edie up on that. I could go for some, uh, some of that. I'm actually just drinking some mint tea right here. You went like hiking last Sunday and climbed part of a mountain. Jen, that's awesome! Isn't it fun just getting outside? I love being outside, taking walks. It's just, it's a great way to, uh, change your state of being, change your energy, get some fresh air. It was beautiful. Want to paint the pics. Oh, awesome! I would love to see, uh, that's cool. Be cool to see pictures of your hike. You guys are awesome, so polite in the chat. All right, all right guys, so Sagrada Familia. Do I want to color the background here? Um, yeah, let's do it. I took yellow out and I'm just gonna go for it again. This is just fun practice, you know what? Let's try it, and then we'll move on to, uh, I'll show you the New York City. I want to sketch a view of the Statue of Liberty. I've only sketched once, and I have the original sketch right here. Oh, see, I opened the wrong one. Um, but I think I want to just— I want to try sketching it again. Let's just throw some yellow. I just want to pop out the, um, shape of these turrets here, these kind of towers or spires of Sagrada Familia. Sagrada Familia has been under construction for over 100 years, slated to be completed this year, so it's getting closer. I honestly think it's a building they'll be doing something on for the rest of its life, whether it's fixing, maintenance. I don't know, it's just so spectacular. All right, so let's put some yellow on. I'll show you guys what it looks like. I was, I was thinking of going to NYC tomorrow to sketch, but It's supposed to be a rainy, crummy day, and I actually have some legit work I need to do, so I will stay home and I'll get some work done. All right, let me flip this around so you can kind of see it a little bit better. There we go. So, right, so actually I like that. I like it. The yellow is just popping the kind of the shape of the spires out a little bit more. You could say it's inspired, it's inspiring. See what I did there? Inspiring. Um, hence the name, The Inspired Life. All right, cool. All right, so this is Sagrada Familia. We'll just write it here, Sagrada. You will see more sketches of this in future live streams for sure. Stay tuned. If you like this architectural sketching or loose style sketching, or if you like architecture or design or just creativity, subscribe, give me a thumbs up. Definitely, definitely subscribe wherever you're watching. Follow me. There's so much more. This is only the beginning, guys, only the beginning. And we have an amazing community out here, especially, uh, people— YouTube seems to be the most active community and A shout out to Jen and Edie who are actually on the chat now. All right, cool. Sagrada Familia. All right, we're gonna hop on a plane, guys. I'm gonna take you on a journey from Barcelona. Barcelona on my bucket list to revisit. Not to be greedy, but gotta get back. We're gonna hop on a paper airplane. Pun intended, paper airplane. Here is a view. Here's a view of the Statue of Liberty that I've sketched once, and this is the sketch. Um, it's the back side. We rarely see the back side, right? Whenever we see the picture of Liberty, Lady Liberty, it's always the front side. Um, if you've watched before, you know I am obsessed with doing torch sketches. Why? Because I love sketching these and giving these out. So I give them out in New York City. Shout out to Dough Donuts, my favorite donut place in the city. Giving them a couple as well. And some of my friends work there. I call them friends because I go back and they know my name, I know their names, and it's just kind of fun. We connected over donuts and sketches. But here's the back. Here's a cheat code. Here, here's why I sketched the back. Let me zoom in. Feel free to say hello or ask any questions or comments. And I think I'm going to wrap at 9:35 tonight, guys, because I'm kind of tired. But so we might save sketching this for tomorrow. So, um, I am not good at sketching people. I am not a portrait artist by any means. I am afraid— yeah, I'm admitting here on air— I'm afraid to sketch the front of Lady Liberty. And I've done it. Do I have any back there? I've done it and I've gotten better at it. But one of the very first times I went to sketch the statue, I didn't want to sketch the face, so I did a cheat code and I sketched the back so I wouldn't have to deal with the face. But I love the way this sketch came out. Um, this is one that I've, I've had people offer to buy, and I have— it's one of the sketches that's been really hard for me to part with, obviously. So you know what we're gonna do? We're gonna do just a real quick 5-minute version of this. We'll use the Lockabee journal again. And, um, my sketches are not meant to be carbon copies. It's not gonna look exactly like this one. It'll never look exactly like this one. And that's why I love loose style sketching. It opens up freedom and permission to be loose, be different, be fast, be quick, and just be unique. Let's just kind of do it. All right, this will be interesting. So yes, I am looking at my reference, of course. This will be interesting. I've never tried to sketch this a second time. I kind of should have made it taller. I kind of, kind of squished in the bottom part. It really should have gone a little bit longer. That's okay, I'm just having fun recreating, sketching this, getting the vibe of it. My goal, guys, here's my goal: I want to, I want to sketch this on here So next time I sketch, you see me sketch this, we're going to put it on an accordion journal right in here, and it's going to be pretty tall sketch. So that's kind of what I'm working towards with this Lady Liberty, um, just like the torch I did. Where is it? Is it this one? I don't think so. Yeah, it is, uh, just like this. I love this sketch here. So this is the torch. It's on this accordion page. I love, love this sketch. So my goal is to do the back view of the late— of Lady Liberty on an accordion setup like this. Yeah, this— that's a great— that's such a fun sketch. All right, so So that's kind of my, my, where I'm headed with, with this one. So it's good for me just to get some lines and get loose, get a little practice in, create a little bit of muscle memory. Um, and I'm, I'm going to sketch with a Sharpie because every mistake I want people to see. I'm not ashamed to hide anything. I'm not embarrassed to go over lines multiple times. Because for me, imperfection is perfection. It's that imperfection is just my brain working, my, uh, pen moving, and it just gives me the style that's me, right? This is definitely off here, the sleeve area. I have to go back and try to find the video on YouTube when I— I think I, I think I sketched the one live. I think this was sketched live. So if anybody's on YouTube, feel free to go back, look through my history, maybe put Lady Liberty or Statue of Liberty, and maybe that video will pop up. Be interesting to find out. I'll have to check it out because I don't try to remember how long the original sketch took. Yeah, it definitely needed to be longer. But cool, that's kind of just a quickie sketch of Lady Liberty there. Um, pretty cool. Hey, hit the like button! Thank you so much, Jen, for saying that. Appreciate you reminding people. Yeah, if you're liking this, guys, please hit that like button. Please subscribe if you're on YouTube. If you like this kind of stuff, if you like walking talk videos on my nature walks where I just kind of think and talk off the cuff, or some NYC videos and live streaming, just a little bit. And I love NYC, but, um, I just got myself some new gear for making videos, so that'll be fun. I am definitely— I'm not a full-time vlogger by any means. I'm just a creative on the go and when I see something that's cool, I like to just pop on and show you guys. Pretty cool, right? Good night, Jen. Thank you so much, appreciate you watching. Always good to see you in the chat. The Inspired Life is the cathedral. Uh, Sagrada Familia is a, um, I learned this, I forget why. It's not a cathedral, it's a basilica. It's a basilica. And I think you might have to look this up because they were saying it on tour and they kind of was mesmerized by the architecture and didn't fully listen to the tour person, who was amazing. But I think it's a basilica. I think it has something to do with the having a cardinal in residence, maybe. I believe the Pope is headed there shortly, sometime this year, to officially, I think, bless the building. So right now it's a basilica. Um, so maybe that distinction might be the cardinal. And again, I am not 100% sure. It's a really good question. Awesome. I'm just looking in the comments here. Jen with her number one foam finger emoji. I still can't find that thing, but I love it. I'm gonna have fun with this. This looks cool, but let's throw some color and then we'll— I know it says to wrap up at 9:35. Do I ever stick to my time frame? I need to honor your time and mine. I think this is a— I like the color on the cap. I thought, you know, Statue of Liberty is such a beautiful color, the oxidized copper. It's a copper-built, copper structure, um, and the oxidization has turned it this incredible patina, kind of greenish color. Um, it's— it is— it is a spectacular color. So I think I was there in 2023. I'd love to go back. I didn't go up the— to the pedestal, so I didn't go up— I didn't go— here's the pedestal area. You can go up here. And I didn't make it up to the— we— oh, you can't go in the torch anymore, but I think you can still go into the crown. I didn't make it up there. I believe you need to reserve tickets for that like months and months ahead of time. This marker is running out of marker-ness. Has anybody been to the Statue of Liberty? Let me know in the chat. Have you been to see Lady Liberty? If so, let me know, what did you think? Cool, not cool. There you go. All right, and that's a quick Lady Liberty sketch, back view. Very, very loose, very quick, uh, not quite as tall proportion as I would love to have done, but that's okay. It was fun sketching. Here's the one I did. I didn't even put the year on this. I have to look. I don't remember what year I sketched that. 2023, 4, 5. Um, but anyway, so again, my goal is to take this idea, this concept, and put it onto the, uh, into— onto the accordion, onto an accordion journal sketch, so that it is long and tall and fun to unfold like the torch here. So stay tuned, stay tuned. Hey guys, let me know if any final questions or comments. I'm going to wrap up now. Hope you enjoyed this half hour or so together. It's always great coming on and seeing you guys and doing a little bit of sketching. And here's what we started with: Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, who apparently has an amazing hot— not hockey team, um, soccer team. I can't believe I said hockey team. Oh my gosh. One of the coolest things of Barcelona was, uh, and shout out to Victor, was helping me find a jersey for my son who never ever asks me for anything. He asked for a jersey from a Barcelona soccer jersey. So Victor, one of, uh, one of the people on a trip, he knows about this stuff and he helped me. We went to the official, like, Barcelona store and he helped me pick out the right jersey, so that was cool. Here we go. All right guys, let me check the comments. I'm gonna head out. Um, Edie was taken to the Statue of Liberty as a girl and was impressed. Magical memory. Wow. And he went back as a teen and you were disappointed. Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that. That stinks. The green oxidation is verdigris and it's somewhat poisonous. Eek! I didn't know that. That stinks. That stinks. Um, I loved seeing Statue of Liberty for the first time because I had only seen pictures, so seeing it in person was, uh, I was fascinated. It was only, what, a few years ago. I found it really interesting to see it. Up close and personal, but I, I do want to go back and at least go and climb it. I know it's such a touristy thing to do, but it would be fun just to do it. And, um, I think it's very beautiful structure, not only sketch but the photograph and different shadow and lights and the folds of the clothing, right? The, the way the shadows are cast, it could be really interesting. All right guys, you are awesome. Thank you so much for tuning in. Um, I will try to be back tomorrow, Saturday, probably tomorrow night around the same time. If not, I can't promise. I never know what my day is going to bring. But, uh, thank you for watching. Thank you for the thumbs up. Please like this, subscribe if you haven't. Love to see you back here and join in the chat next time. Shout out to Jen and Edie for being live in the chat tonight. I appreciate you guys so, so much, and your interaction is, uh, fun for me to— yeah, to interact. I think I just said interact twice in the same sentence. I don't even know. All right guys, you're awesome. Until we meet again, sketch boldly, live creatively, and embrace Imperfection.