Sketch Fearless : Loose Style

Hey, it's Wednesday, July 29th. Hope you're having a good day today. Hopefully wherever you are, the weather is behaving itself. We've had some crazy, crazy weather here. No rain now, so I'm outside. I wanted to do a quick livestream out here. I brought— I'm using a different camera, my document camera. I haven't used it in a while. So I thought I'd bring it out, give it a test run, and yeah, see how it goes. So thanks for joining me. What we're gonna do is we are just going to do some quick sketching here. I'm live streaming on Facebook and Instagram as well, so if you're watching, feel free to say hello in the chat. And boom! And if you hear random sounds, I'm outside. Who the heck knows what we're gonna hear? Anything from lawn mowers to air conditioning units. It's all good. Alright, so first of all, I want to, um, give a big thank you to anybody who signed up for my sketching workshop this coming Saturday at Stationery Fest in Brooklyn. I am super, super excited. It's sold out. So how cool is that? So 15 people, it's gonna be a fun workshop. We're gonna talk about loose style architecture sketching using my sketch framework. Stay tuned, I'll be going through my sketch framework here on upcoming YouTube videos. Awesome. And what do I have out here with me today to sketch? I have— oh, Camera's there. I got my, uh, creative markers. I have some white gel pens, of course, in my Lochbie Quattro. I love this. I have a few of these. This one just happens to have this stuff in it. Another Quattro has colored pencils. Another one has pens in it. Uh, great, great tool. Uh, EDC, everyday carry device. So love that Lochbie folio. Boom. And some Ugly Books sketchbooks here as well. I have this one and the smaller one. Yes, in the back. So cool. So, um, let's do some sketching. I want to just, you know, test this camera out, make sure it's working okay. And, uh, here is one of the buildings we'll be doing, is the Copper Building. Let me zoom in. We can all zoom in old school that way. See if that works. Cool. I haven't used this document camera in a long time. I originally got it during COVID when I was teaching from home, so breaking it out just to test it out. And I see if, uh, Adi Fatma is on YouTube. Hey, how are you? Thanks for watching on the YouTube. I appreciate that. It's always fun seeing who's watching out there. Alright, cool. And just bear with me, I'm just clicking some things here and boom. Alright, let's do some sketching. I don't know what we're gonna sketch. Let's— we'll sketch in our— we'll use the mini book here. And we'll break out— let's break out a Sharpie. Let's start with a Sharpie on this one. We'll keep it loose, loosey-goosey. So in my workshop coming— upcoming workshop Saturday, we'll be sketching the copper building. Um, it's in a— it's in a side— it's like in a studio space, I imagine. Or office type space, so we're not going to be outside sketching these buildings. I'll be bringing example pictures. Uh, we'll be doing the Domino Sugar Factory as well, Empire State Building, uh, the Brooklyn Bridge. We have a Statue of Liberty torch, and here's a Brooklyn Bridge. So we'll be doing a lot of the things you see in here. But let's, uh, let's sketch something. I don't— hmm, what do we want to sketch? Can you guys see that okay? You know, actually, you want to sketch— let's do a water tap, water tank, water tower. And we're gonna use white. We'll do it on this side here. So we're gonna do a nice, a cool water tower that you see on the top of many, many, many buildings in NYC. It's got that cylinder shape. We'll do like a conical type of roof on here. I'm gonna keep it kind of loosey sketchy looking. Notice I'm holding the pen kind of away from the end. I'm not gripping it down here because my lines would be too tight. I'm holding it towards here so I can have more looser lines. So we have the top of the tank and the body of the tank, and we'll do a little bit of structure. We'll show like a post, maybe some cross bracing here, just some X bracing here. Boom. So basic shape of a water tank. And let's break out— let's keep this white for now. We can always add some color later. We're gonna add some contour lines. Contour lines are curved lines. Helps give this some more shape. In a water tank, these would be actual steel or metal hoops to help to keep the wood slats together on the tank. And as these metal bands— think of them as belts— as these metal belts wrap the tank, they kind of get closer at the bottom because that's where more of the water pressure would be. So we're going to sketch those on there, and it gives a little bit of sense of curvature to it, right? Pretty cool. If you're just joining me, hello, welcome. Feel free to say hello in the chat, ask any questions. I'll be checking in. And then we're going to draw some vertical hatch lines. And again, just trying to give the idea that this water tank is curved. So these lines would get kind of closer together as it gets towards the side. It's just an illusion of kind of a cylinder happening, right? Pretty cool. And then let's just do— do we want to throw some color on here for fun? Maybe show some kind of maybe bolts here for structure. I think we're going to do some color on here. You know what we're going to do? We're going to add some— let's do like a blue background here, like a sky or something. We'll make the tank pop out more by adding a background color. Now if you want to know, this is the sketchbook I'm using. It's called an Ugly Books sketchbook. Love, love, love these things. Ugly Books actually was kind enough to donate sketchbooks for my workshop on Saturday, so how cool is that? So everybody coming to my workshop will be getting a sketchbook this size right here. Different colors though, different colors. So I was really happy and thankful that Ugly Books did that, so shout out to them. All right, so we're just taking this Creative Marker and we're going to just throw down some blue. I'm not trying to be perfect with it. Just like a sweet little— kind of scrub it a little bit. It'll be scrubby. There's some scrubby lines here. I don't know if you can hear me okay because I am using the microphone that's on my MacBook. I'm not in my studio, so I'm not using a really good mic. I'm gonna throw some in here as well. You can see how that blue just kind of pops that tank out a little bit, right? Kind of a cool little graphic. Awesome. So hopefully you guys are getting vibes of a water tank happening here. Notice I didn't use any black Sharpie. We'll use some now. Maybe we'll do some Alright, so we're throwing down some black Sharpie. Wanted to make it a little darker shadow area here. Maybe we'll do the same thing under the tank. We'll kind of do, do some diagonal hatch lines here, just give a little shadow line. Boom, there we go. Hey, Sketches and Some, thank you so much, I appreciate that. Good luck with the workshop, I appreciate that so much, it'll be so much fun. Thank you. Um, Adi Fatma says, I have been trying to sketch loosely but the results are extremely frustrating, absolute mess. I don't know how I can achieve some progress. Hey, I love that question. Let's take that on for a sec. I think I see the keyword that stands out for me is mess. And you wrote, right, mess. And let's— do you mind if I put this on screen here? I think it's a valid question. I think a lot of it is mindset. A lot of loose style sketching, at least for me, is a mindset thing. I say embrace imperfection. I think that word mess could be a good thing, you know. Make— try to make your loose style sketches, you know, you want them to be kind of free-flowing. Even you want them to be messy. If you look at this, you know, there are no, no straight, precise, technical, beautiful lines here. They're messy, they're scribbly, they're wonky, they're wavy, right? In my mind, in my brain, it's, it's interesting for me as an architect because I kind of have two two sides of my brain when it comes to drawing, sketching. My architect brain wants to do technical, precise, clean, perfect lines. My free-flowing, free-spirit, creative side wants to do these loose, messy drawings. So, um, but I had to kind of train my brain to, you know, do to do this kind of stuff. So maybe just embrace imperfection. Throw those lines down, scribble. Don't set yourself up and expect an end result. Just go for it. Sometimes if we have an end picture in mind and we don't get to that end picture we're trying to create, we feel really, really frustrated. You know, instead of having an end image in mind, I would set a creative intention. And that intention could be like, before you start sketching, I would say, all right, today, you know, for the next 10 minutes, my intention is to have fun, put music on, throw lines on paper. That's it. So I didn't set myself for a picture in my brain of something I wanted to make. Um, that's a cool way to train and practice to get loose. Um, and you know, here we'll look at St. Patrick's Cathedral. Really, really, really wonky. It's crazy. Is it messy? Heck yeah, it looks messy, but I like that. I think, you know, you have to embrace imperfection and change your mindset and not expect, uh, not expect such a detailed outcome. I don't know if that made sense. Let me know in the chat if that made sense or not. I always love questions like that, so thank you. So cool. Hopefully that made sense. Um, you know, I That was a great question, and that's really what the whole sketch framework is about. It's about seeing the world through childlike sense of wonder. That's the S in sketch. The K, the K stands for keep moving, keep your pen moving, just keep the lines moving. You know, ease, embrace imperfection. So, you know, it just really is a mindset. I think the more you do it, the easier it becomes, although it's always a challenge. Hopefully that helps. Cool. All right, so here's our water— kind of a simple water tank. I could throw more color. Uh, Eddie says, but not a good mess like yours. I really appreciate your style. I, I appreciate your comment, so that's really, really awesome. Um, this, this falls under the C in the sketch framework. Um, the letter C stands for It can stand for a couple things, but I like to— I like it to stand for comparison trap. So don't put yourself in a comparison trap. I fall into it a lot. I'm on Instagram looking, I see other urban sketchers, and I'm like, oh my god, their stuff is incredible, I can't do it, I'm not like them. But as soon as I say that, I know it's a trigger in my brain, like I got to change that, shut that down, that thinking. I can't compare what I'm doing to what they're doing. We're different people, we're unique, we're different humans. Um, so comparison really can shut us down. Instead of using that comparison to shut you down, you can use it as fire or fuel. Like, yeah, like what, uh, XYZ— well, my friend Mel was on Sketches and Some. Mel's amazing. Mel does incredible people. I can't do people. But when I sketch my architecture people— and here's a person— I can't compare mine to Mel's because I wouldn't do it. Instead, I look up to Mel. I respect him. I'm like, that Mel's people, you're so cool. And I use it to fire my passion to work on my people, my style. So that's kind of how I would respond to, um, comparing yourself to others when you're you know, when you're creating. Use comparison as a fuel to ignite your fire to create your version. We got some wisdom going on here today. Love it. Um, let me know if you have any other questions or comments. Adi, Adi, I love, I love your participation in the chat. Thank you so much. You know what? I was tempted to throw more color on this, but I am not going to. I'm just throwing some little details on here. Um, I'm gonna make it messier than it is. Yeah, I want to do some scribbles here. So I, I tend to turn my sketchbook a lot when I'm sketching. Keeps me looser and freer instead of keeping it upright and my hand forced to be locked into position. I move the paper around. And, um, yeah, I'm gonna do some scribbles back here. Oh, I think I just heard thunder. Actually, it's getting dark out here, so you might see me pack up really quickly if that was thunder. All right, so we got some scribbles kind of going in the sky. Aidy, you're welcome. Thank you for your input here. Having a bad hair day, guys. I always have a bad hair day. It's not about the hair. Yeah, just keep going for it. That's it. Just have fun, really. That's the H. So I've been talking about this sketch framework. The H stands for have fun. Have fun, right? H. Embrace— I've— for me, the real fun part about this stuff is I always— I usually talk about from A to Z, right? We start at A, we're trying to get to Z. My, my fun part is what happens in between A and Z. That's the journey, that's the learning, the growing, the creating, the pain points, the challenges. Um, that's what, that's what really lights me up is that journey. So I have fun by just embracing the creative process. Yeah, again, it comes back to I'm not, I'm not 100% focused on a specific outcome. I didn't know what this was going to look like. I wanted a water tank. If, you know, if I was trying to do something photorealistic, I would be disappointed because this is not photorealistic. Realistic, right? Set up your expectations. The wind is kicking up out here. There's an airplane flying really low. What the heck? There might be a storm coming in, I don't know. Yeah, maybe that's why the plane's low. Welcome to the world of sketching outdoors. This is so fun. Pretty cool. I just want to pull these cross braces out a little bit more with this white gel pen. Boom, pretty cool. I am gonna just go grab something. Alright, so I'm gonna wrap up. I'm gonna give a sneak peek here. These will be available on my website soon. If you're interested, send me a message or go to my website, theinkspiredlife.com, and there's a contact form or page you can email me. I think I'm going to be putting these out pretty soon, maybe probably for a little fee or something. I'm not sure yet, but here's kind of a card. With the sketch framework on it. I'm giving these out at my workshop Saturday. But you can see S is stay curious, K is keep it moving, E embrace the mess, T is trust the process, C is cut the noise— that's the comparison trap one— H is hold the joy, okay, or have fun. Um, the T for trust the process, really what that means is, um going with your gut. Trust your gut instinct, your gut feelings. If my brain says that it wants to throw yellow down, I'm gonna— or my gut says use yellow, I'm gonna use yellow. I'm not gonna fight it, I'm just gonna go with that flow. So that's kind of it. Alright, so thank you for watching. I appreciate the comments and the thumbs up. If you did watch this or you are watching it and you haven't given me a thumb up and you like it, hit that thumbs up. I would really, really, really appreciate it so much. Um, yeah, this has been fun. I guess the camera's working, so it was a good test. I'll be bringing it with me to the workshop Saturday. Until then, uh, sketch boldly, live creatively, and embrace imperfection. Man, that wind really messed my hair up. See ya!