Sketching a Barn

Hello, um, happy October 14th, 2024. It's 8:23 PM here in New Jersey. Yeah, that was not practiced, but just like my sketching and these shows, they're always off the cuff, spur of the moment, never practiced, um, just being me. And that's what I love about doing this stuff. Um, yeah, I hope you guys are doing well. I'm gonna, uh, sketch just for about 20 minutes tonight, quick short session. I'm gonna sketch a barn. I've been working on barn sketches. I have an upcoming workshop on October 26th. It'll be virtual via Zoom. You can see the information right here on the How do I point to it? Yeah, right there in the bottom left of the screen. Easier for me to not point to because the cameras are wonky. There we go. You can see the bottom left of the screen here, a couple of barns I've been working on past a week or so. Just kind of fun mixed media, Sharpie ink, colored pencil, um, type of barn sketches. So I thought I'd do another one tonight. Let me know where you're watching from. Hopefully you're doing well. And, um, it's a little bit, a little bit of wind howling here. Um, nothing to talk about or complain about. Prayers go out to those in North Carolina and Florida and everyone affected by the recent hurricanes. It's been crazy, crazy. All right, let me do some sketching. So I am starting with a Sharpie like I normally do. Um, a couple of reasons. One, I like throwing a Sharpie down on paper because once it's down, I'm committed and I'm not worried about making mistakes. I'm not worried about being perfect and having to erase something. Once this ink is down, it's It's there. We're going to let it flow. We're going to let it happen. Um, let it be what it is, as wonky as it wants to be. Another reason I like using Sharpie is I'll often come back and add watercolor or ink on top, and I don't have to worry about the black Sharpie marker bleeding. Let's do a long, tall kind of barn structure here. Hopefully that makes sense. All right, so let me know where you're watching from. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to please put them in the chat, whether you're watching live or a re— play. It's all good. So again, we're just going for loose, quick, wonky fun. Let's do a cupola here on the roof, and maybe this will come down like that. I love October. I love the fall. The leaves changing color are just amazing. Well, so let's see, what do we want to do? Maybe we'll throw some barn doors Maybe on this side we'll have some kind of barn doors or something happening here. Maybe there's a window above to let some light in. And I kind of like the proportions of this. It's very long and, um, very tall. Unlike this, you know, this barn is kind of opposite. It's horizontal, and this one's going to be just long and tall. So this is, uh, this is just coming out of my kind of my brain right now, my imagination. Just letting it fly. I think sometimes we're too afraid, or we have a, um, sometimes we have a picture in our mind of what we want our sketch to look like, and that's okay sometimes, but lots of times I try not to have a finished image because it frees me up just to be even more creative. And I'm not expecting anything, right? I'm not pre-planning. Um, even if I'm working off a photograph, oftentimes I'll just use a photograph just to get maybe a rough quick outline, and I'll totally get rid of the photo. I just want the creativity to, to fly and just kind of happen. It's taken me a long time to kind of get that mindset where, you know, being an architect, I always want especially my architectural plans to be perfect, precise, technical. They need to be. That's information that they're conveying, right? This is not that kind of information. This is just playful. So that's the spirit I go for. Hopefully that makes sense. Let me know in the comments. Let's do, uh, let's just do some kind of long narrow windows here. This is almost— this almost has, um, like an old schoolhouse kind of vibe to it now that I'm looking at it, especially if I made this into like a bell tower up here. But I think we're just going to show this. Maybe we'll, um, I'll put this— I'll make this a window up here. I'll do another window here. Cool. So now we have a pretty good outline. Let me zoom in, and I think I'm just going to throw some color on here really quick. I'm only going to be on for maybe 10 more minutes at the most, but, uh, let me zoom out again and let's throw down some watercolor to start with. Normally I like to start with the roof because, um, I like to start at the top and let the colors run down or bleed down if they need to. We're going to grab some turquoise. Let's see if I can put that there, if you can see that better. Grab some turquoise. I, I like to go for this kind of rusty roof look. Turquoise is a great way just to kind of start that process happening. And we'll do some in the roof cupola as well. I'll even throw a little bit down here, maybe just to bring that color elsewhere on here. Cool. Let me throw a little bit more. Um, one of the things I love about watercolor is I love how it transforms when it dries. This will look very different after it dries, and, um, I'll be sure to post pictures, or even probably finish this live tomorrow night for a few minutes. All right, I got some turquoise. I'm going to grab some orange. These are color combinations I just love using. Especially when I want to create a rusty kind of look. I'm big into— I love industrial architecture. I love the grunge, the grime, the rusty metals, the textures, the colors. And I'll zoom in so you guys can see that closer. So right now it's not looking incredible, and that's okay. I feel like my— all of my sketches go— have an ugly duckling phase, um, where you're just like, oh, what is going on? But keep working at it and it'll have that turning point where it just changes before your eyes and you're like, wow, that looks cool. I think that happens every single time I'm doing something like this, and I just love the surprise of working at it and having that transformation point happen. Hopefully that makes sense. Hey, I see some thumbs ups! Thank you so much for giving me thumbs up. I'm not sure who's out there watching. I don't see any names. Feel free to say hi in the comments. I'd love to know How you're doing and who is out there watching. I'm dipping into some yellow. Zoom out so you can kind of see me. There you go, working on it. Uh, I'm very messy when it comes to watercolors. I mix-match colors. Look at my palette, it's I'll literally mix colors in here, and it's okay. It's how I work. It's imprecise, but it's fun. I, I— this is not about being pristine at all. It's about grab, go, create, enjoy. Hey, Sherry from Ottawa, thanks for watching! How are you in Ottawa? That is so cool. Wow. You might be my first Canadian viewer ever. That is so awesome. Hope all is well, and, uh, thanks for, for joining and saying hi. I love it, love it, love it. That's exciting. All right, so we got some colors happening. Let me show you. You know, this is the same palette that I've used for this barn and this barn. Basically the same colors, different effects. Although this one does have an orange ink that this doesn't. Um, let's break— let's break out some of that orange ink again. Uh, what color was that? I think it was called Sunburst. I think it's this one, or was it Streetcar? I don't remember. We're gonna use this color called Streetcar, see what it looks like. Hope you guys are enjoying this. And if you, if you are into this and you want to create some barn sketches with me— there we go, oh yeah— um, check out the link to the workshop I have in the bottom corner. I'd love to have you guys join the Zoom on October 26th. All right, this was an example of being brave, bold, throwing it down. I threw that color pretty heavy on there, but I'm going to let it dry and see what happens. Wowzers. Just got to live on the edge sometimes. Don't be afraid of color. I used to never add color to any of my, my sketches, um, Why? Because I thought the colors had to be realistic. I thought they had to match a photograph of a building I was trying to replicate. So I would never throw the colors on because I was afraid to mess it up. I don't know how I stopped that habit. I think I just told myself to do it, and I just started throwing colors down and I have to tell you, I still love doing black and white sketches, but I also love throwing color down and just having fun. Today's Canadian Thanksgiving. Love the barn. Thank you. Well, happy Canadian Thanksgiving! That is so cool. Do you celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving the same way we celebrate Thanksgiving here in the States? Like with turkey and all that stuff. Like, I'm just curious. That's so cool. I'm gonna pull this down a little bit. We're gonna make this one really kind of wonky and distressed looking, kind of like me, wonky and distressed. Well, Happy Thanksgiving! That's so fun. I love Thanksgiving. I think it is my favorite holiday. It's just a nice day to celebrate with family, chill, eat some good food. No expectations, I'm not worried, no pressure about buying presents. And, uh, yeah, I love Thanksgiving. Yeah, I grabbed a blue. I don't even know why, but I just went for the blue. Lots of times I'll just grab and go. And cool. Living Life in Ottawa says yep, yep. That's cool, Sherry. I learned something new. I love it. All right, let's throw some green down, down, down in the, uh landscape area. I'm just grabbing— I think this is Sap Green. I love this watercolor palette.

I—

these are mostly Winsor Newton Cotman watercolors, which I have been using for a long time, and, uh, they just do the trick for me. There you go.

What else?

I'm think— I'm going to throw something different. What haven't I used? What do I got here? Um, Here, I have this ink here. It's called— it's called Rotted Cork. Let's see what color Rotted Cork is. It's kind of almost like an olive green. I'm going, I'm going crazy on this one. All right, cool. Let's see how many colors you can throw down. Um, you know what I'm going to grab? I'm looking at this purple watercolor pencil right here, so I'm going to throw this down on here. I'm dipping it— I dipped it in water, and let's just kind of sketch paint with this a little bit here. I'm just moving some of these colors around a little bit here. All right, this one I'm going a little bizarre with. Just grabbing and going with what's in front of me here. I think that's going to be enough, uh, color for now. Actually, I do want to add some more, um, yellow. That might be enough color. And then I would probably let it dry and come back and we'll add Um, I'll probably add some more details, or with the Sharpie pen, and we'll add some more color on top of color, layer it up a little bit. I just want to add some yellow just to kind of add a little brightness to this. Yeah, look, let me know if you guys have any questions or comments before I head out in a couple minutes here. I think we're almost done with the first step here. There we go. I'm going to zoom in and show you guys how some of this is drying before we head out. I think that's going to be it for now for color. All right, cool. All right, let's zoom in, see how some of this is looking as it's drying, especially, especially this area. I'm really loving how this— so I can bring it up to the camera. I love how that roof is looking right there. Love, love, love the colors happening right in here. That really excites me. Yes, I'm one of those nerds that likes to see paint dry. Um, there's just something magical about it, exciting, the way it transforms. I do like that purple thrown in there. I think, I think looking at these colors across here, it's a nice combo. You can see that orange I threw down is— it's, it's intense. I'm loving it though. I'm actually liking the green on top of that as well. Some really interesting color play happening. And down here you could kind of see— I love the hard edge that's going to happen here as this dries, get a nice crisp edge on that. Gravity is our friend. Gravity is a great tool when you're painting, right? I'm just totally shifting and tilting the paper, letting gravity move that paint around a little bit on the bottom. That's one of the reasons I like to paint at an angle. So I actually have this little palette here, and if I just throw my book down on it, it's keeping this at an angle so all the ink and everything can run down. Actually, I just noticed this. I don't know if this picked up on camera. Let's zoom in on this again, see how close I can get. Um, right here, if you look— yeah, I don't know where I put— I have a 1-inch square frame, I don't know where the heck I put it. But if you look right in this area here I don't know if you can see that turquoise, the way it kind of just soaked into the texture, the grain of that paper. It pulled that in. Um, it almost has a metallic look as it's drying, which is really interesting. All right guys, I think that's going to be a wrap for this one for now. Um, I'm gonna let it dry. I'll come back to it tomorrow. I'll probably come on live tomorrow night for 15-20 minutes and we'll wrap this one up. I just want to get it started. If you like this process, you want to learn more, you want to have fun creating along with me and get into my creative mindset a little bit more, Uh, check out the link for the workshop on the bottom left right there. Hey, I figured out how to point to it. Got it. Um, check out the link. You can check out the workshop that's coming up on October 26th. It's a Saturday night, 8 o'clock to 10 o'clock PM Eastern Standard Time. Uh, we'll be Zooming, so I already have I think 6 people that signed up. Um, I love doing these Zoom workshops where you guys can create with me. You can even do your own thing if you want. You don't even have to Sketch with me, um, but it's always fun to be together in a group of people that are positive, creative, and encouraging, and we can share what we're doing, give each other feedback. All right guys, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. Enjoy the rest of your night. And, uh, Sherry, if you're still watching, enjoy your, your Canadian Thanksgiving. That is awesome. Eat some good dessert for me. All right guys, take care. Um, remember, if you can scribble, if you can sketch lines, you can definitely sketch architecture. I'll see you guys real soon. Peace and live creatively. Where am I waving? Oh, the camera's right there. I'm looking for the— this is the awkward part where I wave until I can hit the finish button on screen here. All right, take care guys. Peace and live creatively.