Sketch Fearless: Loose Lines & New York City Architecture

Hey, how are you guys? Jason Nicholas Nicholas with The Inspired Life. Hope you're having an awesome day. All right, Jason Nicholas with The Inspired Life. Hope you're having an awesome day. It is Monday, May 5th. 4th, 2026. May the 4th be with you day for all you Star Wars fans. Um, I love Star Wars, I'm a fan for sure. Uh, new Mandalorian movie coming out end of this month, I think, so that'll be cool. So if you don't know who I am, my name is Jason Nicholas Nicholas. I am an architect, I am a high school teacher where I teach architecture and CAD. I am an artist, creator, creative, and I love sketching, especially architecture sketching. Architecture for me is a way of life. It's a way for me to process the world, a way for me to capture a moment in time, a way for me to change this right here— not my hair, my state of mind, my state of being. So join me tonight. We'll be on, uh, I don't know, 20 minutes to a half hour. We're gonna do a couple things. We're gonna switch over to my desktop in a second. We're gonna sketch, um, I think just a loose cityscape. Not gonna look at any photos or anything. Um, and that's also key. I believe in loose style sketching and I believe in, um, imperfection. For me, imperfection is perfection when it comes to sketching. So you'll hear me talk a lot about that. So we'll do something here, um, in my— this book here. Let me switch to the desktop. Boom! And then we'll switch probably to the New York City Journal and do something in there depending on time. So anyway, stick with me. I hope you're having an amazing day. Feel free to say hello in the chats. We'll put on a little bit of music and let me start sketching.

Fallin', realizing I'm changing. Still fighting, still learning, still trying. No script, no plan, no perfect version. This is simply being human. This is simply being human. made me someone worth fighting for. I'm struggling, I'm rising, falling, realizing I'm changing, still fighting, still learning, still trying. No script, no plan, no perfect version. This is simply being human. This is simply being human. I'm not here to be flawless. I'm not here to pretend. I'm here to keep moving again and again. I'm here to keep choosing a life I can stand it, a life That's my own. I'm still becoming. I'm still becoming. I'm stumbling, I'm rising, falling, realizing I'm changing. Still fighting, still Still trying. No script, no plan, no perfect version. This is simply being human. This is simply being human.

All right, so this is a quick cityscape, um, off top of my head. I'm just gonna wing it. We're gonna add some color to this. Let me check in with you guys, say hello. I see D-Ray. Oh my gosh, how are you? Good to see you. Thank you for summarizing what I'm saying. JLMs— JLM, I always want to do the alphabet when I say your name. Sorry. JLM, good to see you. Hello from Houston. Well, you're in Houston. Hello from New Jersey, so good to see you. D-Ray says you're in the groove tonight. Hey, thanks D-Ray, sometimes I'm in the groove. Um, let me put some music on here. By the way, I hope you guys— hope you like that tune I played. That is, uh, well That could possibly be the theme song for my upcoming podcast that I put on the calendar. June 1st, launch date June 1st. Um, got some work to do before now and then to get it out there, but, um, that— it's going to be called Simply Being Human, and I'm excited about it. So stay tuned for more info about an upcoming podcast. All right, so here's what I'm using to sketch right now. I am using a Zebra Sarasa clip pen. I love the clips on these. Check these out. This is a serious clip, guys. Um, this is like a brown color, which I like. And we're gonna now take out my latest favorite color discovery for Sharpie Creative Markers. I'm dropping a lot of brand names. I— they're not sponsors, although I am a Lockbee ambassador. If you guys buy anything with Lockbee using my discount code, it's on the screen, uh, it's INKspired, I-N-K-spired, you get 10% off. So I am a Lockbee ambassador only because I do love them. And here's what is in my Lockbee pouch here. My creative markers. I love this pouch. This pouch holds so much stuff in it. And here is my fave new color. It's like a terracotta-ish color, and I like to use it on these— they're kind of Italian hill town inspired sketches. So here's one from— inspired by— or Spain as well. This is Toledo, Spain. But you can see the orange color here. Boom. And then we have the orange color here. Uh, this is an Italian hill town, so I just love that. And then we had a suggestion, I think from Gigi the other night, and Gigi's like, what about blue for the sky? So the only blue I had available, or I thought would be really cool, was right here. My favorite, 100% absolute favorite color, whether it's pencil, marker, watercolor, is, uh turquoise. So let's pull these out and let's just add some more color on to this cool sketch. Hey, Edie's in the house! How are you? Good to see you. Hope all's well. How cool is that? Yeah, podcast. So, um, since you guys are live here watching, I'll give you a little preview. Um, you may have caught some of my Hike and Mike live videos or uploads on TikTok and Instagram and some here on YouTube, um, me walking and riffing about stuff, life, about the fact that it's okay that we make mistakes, but how do we move forward, right? So I'm turning this, all the ideas I have and stories I have, into a podcast. So I think it's gonna be a fun project, therapeutic, educational, I hope. And, uh, more importantly, I hope it gives everybody out out there watching and listening permission to simply be human. So that's where I'm headed with it, guys. You're hearing it kind of first here because you're awesome, and I hope you guys will, um, hope you guys will follow it when it drops. I'm— it's probably gonna be mostly me, but I do want to have some guests, and I think I may already have one person who said she might be a guest on it. So I won't tell you names yet, but, um, how cool would that be? Awesome. All right, so here I am, I'm just pulling out these rooftops, or rooftops, with, um, this kind of terracotta color. I'm going to zoom in a little closer. Let me know how you guys are doing on this Monday. It is— it was a beautiful— oh my God, beautiful, beautiful weather here in New Jersey. Everything was going amazing until I got home from— we had a beautiful walk, me and my pop. Everything was going so, so well until I pulled off a tick biting the back of my leg. That is tick number 12 in 2 weeks. It's making me not want to walk outside, but I can't. I have to. It's in my DNA. Um, this tick, I'm probably gonna have to go get it checked because it left— I know it's too early to tell, people say, but it did leave like a mark around where I pulled it out of. I've already had Lyme's— I already have Lyme's disease. Got it many years ago. Let's switch to a different pen, that one's kind of dying. Um, so Lyme's disease apparently stays in your system and forever, and it does activate back in me every summer. It kicks back in, it's really weird, like clockwork. In either July or August, it'll, it'll kick in and literally knock me out for a week. I can't think. Um, it really affects my brain. I can't— I'm so exhausted. Sorry guys, I'm just looking for a different pen here. Let's try this one. So anyway, watch out for those ticks. That's the moral of the story. They're kind of nasty creatures. Try to find beauty in everything, but I'm having trouble finding beauty in the tick. If anybody has any beauty reasons, let me know. All right, so I'm just kind of showing some texture for the roof tiles. D-Ray says great, um, terracotta color. Thanks, D-Ray. D-Ray, I hope you're doing well. I haven't seen you in a while over there on the Facebook land. I hope you're doing well, my friend. It's always a pleasure watching— having you watch me. I can't, I can't watch you guys, that would be kind of creepy. Um, 12 ticks. So Edie, here's the thing, I am, I am wearing long pants. I'm wearing long pants. I even have had a jacket on. Um, I'm gonna say 10 out of the 12 ticks I pulled off, I've had long pants on. So I don't know how they are finding their way up my leg, but they are. Um, this, this bite actually hurts. I feel it as I'm talking. So yeah, long pants are not doing the trick. I wish, I wish, I wish. Of course, I gotta check our pup, make sure she's okay. It kind of sucks because I love walking outside. It is That's one of the things I live for. I love sketching, you guys know that, and I also, I love walking. I'm just going through some hatch lines here, give a little depth. These are fun little cityscapes. I really enjoying doing these. Sorry, it's kind of sketch— the sketchbook always moves, as you know if you've watched me before. I'm always moving it and pulling it down and turning it, so there's nothing wrong with your screen. It's the artist here moving the paper. All right, um, we're definitely going to do some of that. Let's do some of that blue sky now. And I'm going to rotate the book to do that. I'm going to put it like this and grab some tea here. Summary: Sharpie, great, favorite colors. Yeah, thank you, D-Ray. I love, I love when you summarize, it's so cool. Um, JLM, I hope you're doing well with your studies, by the way. Can't they give you antibiotics? So, Edie, yeah, so here's— so when I got Lyme's— did I always say Lyme's? I forget if it's lime or Lyme's. I think it's Lyme. Um, when I first got it, I wish I remembered how many years ago, uh, I was on antibiotics for almost a year. I had it so bad. So yeah, I was on medication for about a year. Um, but nowadays, now when I get it, the recurrence, I don't go on any antibiotics. I just kind of let it run its course. I know, those darn ticks. The head breaks off in your skin if you just pull off a tick. Um, yeah, that's so true. And I have to be honest with you, I haven't looked close enough to see if— I think I got the whole thing. But yeah, it was definitely— it was number 11 or 12 that I've had in literally the past 2 weeks. So now you guys know why I'm always ticked off. See what I did there? Now you know why I'm always ticked off. I'm going to flip this over in a second and you can see how the blue is really making the buildings kind of pop out. Ta-da! Right, you see how the blue makes the roof, the roof line, this roof lines pop out. Pretty cool, right? Let's add some other stuff on this. I'm really enjoying this fun little sketch, so I don't— we might not even visit NYC tonight. You might stay in this little, this little sketch here. I could literally get lost. My imagination gets lost when I do these kind of cityscapes, whether it's New York City skyline or hill towns. My brain is always wandering, like I'm here imagining what's going on. Um, I threw some red on this last time. I kind of liked it. On the last one I did. Maybe we'll break out some color pencils too. All right, so here's what I've used so far. If you're just joining in, I am sketching in my Lockbie Field Journal on a Lockbie plain paper. I forget the weight of the paper. It's, it's thin-ish. And then we are using Sharpie creative markers, and then I used a Sarasa pen, a Zebra Sarasa. That's so fun to say, Zebra Sarasa. All right. Oh yeah, I like this song. All right, if you guys— if you guys want me to put music on, let me know. I can play music from my— my music that I made, or if you just like listening, or listening to what you're listening to at home, that's cool. So I just kind of like those pops of red. I'm just gonna throw some blocks in, trying something new. So I'm— this is— I'm just experimenting, right? This is, this is a sandbox. Sandbox. Why is sandbox is cool? Or sand, you know, sandboxes remind me of childhood. We build things, we would build, say, sandcastles, and then Sandcastles would eventually get wiped, you know, washed away or blown away or destroyed. But think about the fun we had building those castles. That was our creative sandbox, right? So this is my creative sandbox here. I'm just enjoying and embracing the journey. And, um, I might take away a couple things that I can do in other future sketches. I definitely want to throw in— you know what, we're going to throw some chartreuse in here. I'm going to get a little crazy on this one. Chartreuse, and I want to throw some neon yellow. I'm trying to be organized with my desk. You might see me stopping and putting stuff away. All right, come on, who does not love this neon yellow pencil? Aichiwawa and a half. Yeah, I, I love, love, love neon yellow colored pencil or highlighters. I also am loving, um, Sunburst Yellow. Which I might have to sharpen. All right, I think I need to buy another one of these soon. Note to self: I need another Sunburst Yellow pencil. Check, check. All right, here it is. I knew I took it out. Oh, just broke the point. All right guys, brace yourselves, here comes some ASMR pencil sharpener. This pencil— I love this sharpener, guys, right here. Boom. I've had it for quite a few years. It works really well. Uh, if you go to my— I have it— if you go to my Inkspired website, which sometimes is very low, slow to load, if you go to my website, I have a page called Tools and Materials, I think. Uh, you can find links to a lot of the stuff I use. Amazon links, so feel free to check that out. If you guys buy through my link, I get like 1 or 2 cents, um, and the price does not change, but I just— I get a little Amazon affiliate link. But yeah, you can feel free to check out the tools page on my website. And again, it is kind of slow, so I don't know why. That's something I have to fix. Figure out. So I like this chartreuse here. Where do you imagine this— where, where'd this hill, hilltop town be? Any ideas? I'm going to read the chat. If you guys have questions, I'll check the chat in the A few seconds here. I like it. I need some more orange though. Let's pop out some more of these roofs. All right, cool. Let's see. Um, another reason why I like to have pavement underfoot, no ticks. That's true, I'll give you that for sure. Listening to you is just enough. Oh, thanks, I appreciate that. What if you're not, uh, what do you do if you're not inspired to art something lately? I'm going through the motions. What do you do if you're not inspired to art something? Um, that's a really good question. Let me probably process that. Um, here's— all right, so if I'm not inspired to art something, say, you know, not inspired to sketch, um I guess you— quite a follow-up question is, if I'm not inspired to sketch, do I absolutely want to sketch, or do I have to? Um, the answer is no. If I'm not inspired to sketch, sometimes it's telling me that my brain just needs a break. It needs a break from processing or from over-processing too much input, too much stimulus. I have a brain that is working constantly. It's always thinking of ideas. It never stops unless I'm, uh, sleeping. What probably still works when I'm sleeping, but my creative brain is always, always going. I'm always overstimulated by the way I'm wired. I'm always looking, taking visual stuff in. Um, uh, yeah, so Sometimes if I don't feel like arting, it's because I need a break from all that overstimulus, and that's okay. And that honestly is where walking helps me, um, even though still processing things visually, it's different. Nature has a way of calming my brain down. If that makes sense. So, or shifting the way I'm processing the world. And sometimes I need that break from sketching, and then I'll come back to it. I'll come back to it. I have— I had a problem a couple years ago, I guess it was, where I just stopped sketching, and then I didn't sketch for days and days, and days turned to weeks, weeks turned to you know, a month or so. That was not cool. So I've kind of taught myself, if I'm going to take a break, maybe 1 or 2 days. For example, I didn't like— you probably didn't see me livestream a couple days in a row. I was, um, I was taking a break. So if I don't feel like arting, one, I will slow down and give my brain a break, take a walk, get out in nature. Um, that's one thing. If I also— what else? If I don't feel like arting, um, if I don't physically feel like drawing, uh, sometimes that is when I'll use the time to, to look at other artwork or books or images, um, for inspiration. But I think the thing is, we as creatives tend to beat ourselves up when we— when we're not actually creating. And that's okay. We need— we have to forgive ourselves as simply part of being human, right? Or another thing I'll do is I'll do, you know, cooking. I'll just go and cook something or make cookies, or just something to change my state of being from sketching mode to different mode. So give yourself a rest. It's okay. I hope that helped. Sorry if it was long-winded. Love Neon Yellow, uh, he says, hold on, broken pencil tip, here comes a good whole pencil. Medicare studies are brain deadening for me, for sure. Oh, I'm, I'm sure I am. I don't, I don't like doing paperwork stuff. I don't like, I don't like doing the financials I have to do. I don't— as an architect business owner, my least favorite part is the business stuff. Teaching, my least favorite part is grading. I totally get that, but that's, that's when I do sketch, because that sketching is what inspires me or fuels me in a different way when I'm kind of brain dead from those other activities. So it's all on how we use our creative abilities, you know, where, when, when we turn it on, when we turn it off, and what purpose it's serving. So times— sometimes maybe set a creative intention. So like, you know, tonight my creative intention before I came online, I said to myself, I want to be playful with these hill towns. That was it. The only thing I said, the only outcome I was trying to go for is be playful with hill towns, and that gave me a target to focus on. If you notice, I haven't even done any New York City sketches tonight, and I'm, I'm happy. This is looking cool, guys. Let me know, do you like this one? Some days all I can do is arrange supplies. Uh, I did that yesterday. I actually have a whole cart over there. It was all dusty with tons of ink bottles on it. I took the bottles off one by one, washed them. Put them back, organize. I organize my desk here a little bit, so I get that too. I'm gonna throw some pink on here. I think we're gonna wrap up in a minute or two. All right guys, let me know if you have any questions, uh, if you're watching. If you're ninja watching— hello ninja watchers! It's okay if you don't know what ninja watching is. It means you're lurking in the shadows, and that's fine. I appreciate you guys. Uh, feel free to please give me a thumbs up, uh, maybe give me a like or subscribe on YouTube if you haven't yet. Let's keep building this community. Help me spread, uh, positivity through creativity. That's kind of a mission of mine— positivity through creativity. All right, this, this was my— this is what— this is my takeaway of the night here. My— I always reminded how much I love the color combination of pink and orange next to each other.

I—

this might be my favorite thing I did tonight right here, this little piece. I even like the red there. It's a cool color combo. Boom! See, be playful. You don't know what's going to happen. It's this simple thing right here that just made my whole sketching session tonight a win, a win-win. Besides being here with you guys, besides just kind of processing for the day, or unprocessing, deprocessing— what is the correct word? Let me know in the chat. Am I unprocessing, deprocessing? No processing. I have no idea. Oh man, that's why I don't teach language arts, my friends. A wordsmith I am not. Yeah, this looks cool. I think we have enough pops of pink on there. All right, I'm gonna check the chat if you have any last questions or comments for the night. Um, sometimes I second-guess myself too, Edie says. Yeah, it's— let's, let's go to the heart, the heart-to-heart cam. I like calling this the heart-to-heart cam. You ready? Let's switch. Background might be dark because my light turned off. We're going to end with the heart-to-heart cam because I think this is a good note to riff off of. All right, we're switching cameras. Warning, I did not do my hair. I did not do my hair. Can you guys hear me okay with the mic? All right, cam switch. Boom. All right, I love switching to this cam, and I think when we end, because I feel like it's a better connection, right? So I call it the heart to heart cam. I think it's kind of cool. Um, Edie left a comment: sometimes I second guess myself too. Yeah, don't we all do that sometimes? We do. Again, you're gonna hear me say this phrase a lot. It's part of simply being human. We often second guess ourselves and Why do we do that? I don't know. Is it a, um, a checkpoint? Are we telling ourselves it's a checkpoint or a stop point? Like, all right, pause, take a breath, and reflect on what's happening, and then we can pick a direction to go in, right? Do we continue something? Do we stop something? Do we totally change course? So when that second guess happens. I'm thinking for me it's a time to pause and reflect and take action. Um, second-guessing is also, I think, for creativity. For me, it could be a confidence issue. Second-guessing myself happens a lot, especially way back when, when I was afraid to put color on sketches. I was always afraid to add color because I wasn't confident enough that it was going to be the right color. I was second-guessing the choice because I lacked that creative confidence that this is my work, my outlet, my voice on paper. Um, I can express it how I want, right? So second-guessing could sometimes be a confidence issue, and that's just something we can work on. You can work on confidence. You can build confidence. Um, you know, I have the SKETCH framework— S-K-E-T-C-H— SKETCH framework, which we can do— we'll do some episodes on. The SKETCH framework is a way for me to help keep my creative confidence going and building it, and I'll be sharing that with you guys here live streaming, and I'm also teaching a workshop on it in Brooklyn at the Stationery Fest. So hopefully that was a good way to riff off the night there. Let's see if there are any other comments. Ninjas are me back in— that's okay, JLM, I got it. I appreciate the ninjas. The heart cam, heart to heart cam. I like the, the, um, emojis. Love these art bites. Cool. Am I too close to the camera? All right guys, you are awesome. This is so much fun. I would love to just have these kind of creative— I was gonna say fireside chats. Do people do fireside chats? Imagine we're at the campfire having s'mores and just talking, and I'm imagining I could play the guitar and I'd take the guitar out and I'd play a song. But I am not musical yet. Maybe one day. All right guys, again, it's Monday, May the 4th. It's now 10:07 PM. I appreciate you all so, so much. Thank you so much for your time, your positivity, um, your encouragement about, um, tics. Or maybe not encouragement, what's the word? Yeah, so I hope you enjoyed our sketch we did tonight, the little village. And, um, until we meet again, sketch boldly, live creatively, and embrace imperfection. I think that's gonna be the new one, guys. Sketch boldly, live creatively, and embrace imperfection. Like, subscribe, all that cool social media stuff. See you soon. Podcast coming out, I've slated it for June 1st. I got a lot of stuff to do. That's one of a billion projects in my brain, which we'll talk about next time. All right guys, see you.