Sketching a Wonky Barn

Hey, happy, um, Tuesday, October 15th, 2024, 8:10 PM here in New Jersey. I'm Jason with the Inkspired Life. I'm laughing because I almost forgot my name. Um, my brain is so tired. It's been a tiring week and it's only Tuesday. Um, but tiring in a good way. It's just I pour my heart and soul into teaching and trying to keep up with school stuff. Um, but I'm just kind of feeling drained a little bit, but that's okay. I am here to sketch this barn. I want to finish this barn up that I started yesterday. Um, it's got some Sharpie on it, it has some watercolor, it has some ink. So it's a really fun mixed media sketch, and today I'm going to just, I think, wrap it up. We'll add some more details on it. I love sketching architecture, especially fun, whimsical, wonky kind of buildings. This is from my imagination, so, which is cool because there are no rules, right? So have fun, create, be playful. All right, so if you're watching live or the replay, feel free to let me know where you're watching from. Say hello, um, let me know if you have any questions. Let's sketch. So I just have my Sharpie. I'm gonna go and throw down some— I love showing these kind of metal roofs. This Sharpie might need to be refreshed with a different one or replaced. So I'm just showing the lines here to give some, uh, texture kind of to the roof. Let's, uh, switch it up and go to this one. I always have a backup Sharpie or 2 or 3 or 4 or couple boxes of them around. Yeah, this pen definitely has, uh, it has more marker stuff in it. Ink, I guess, has more ink. It's inkier. I'm throwing in some wavy wonky lines, Morse code lines, kind of dashes, dots, a little bit of, um, a little bit of wiggling going on as I'm dragging my Sharpie down, I'm wiggling my wrist and my fingers a little bit to get this wavy kind of look here. And for me, it just adds some character, some interest, rather than doing these perfectly straight lines. So you can see, just by adding those lines or showing some detail And it's really— it's just starting to, um, take this— what I had when I first started— is taking it to another level. Let's sketch a windowsill here and some trim at the top, maybe some trim on the side of the window. Cool. And let's just do these kind of crisscross grids here. These grilles, or muntin bars, on the windows. So we have some stone across the base here. All right, so I'm liking the way this one is looking. You see, I added some color pencil, um, added some purple down here just to kind of fill in some window glass areas. Threw down some red, um, Pilot Precise pen on here as well. I guess the question in my head is, do I want to do the background? I don't think I'm going to yet, at least, because if we look at these other— let's do this— look at this series of barn sketches, I haven't done the backgrounds on any yet. So I'm not sure if, if I do a background. I think I almost want it to be a sepia, sepia color, um, which normally I would use my water sepia watercolor marker. But I, I'm not feeling it right now, so let me see what I have in here. What do we got? Graphite Gray Watercolor Stick, maybe. Let me take that out. Let's see, going to throw some down on a little scrap here, see how I like it. I think it might be too dark. Yeah, this is going to be too dark for what I want. I'm definitely thinking sepia or some kind of gray, maybe a nice like gray fall day happening in the scene. Uh, graphite stick. Where are my graphite sticks? That might be the way to go. Hmm, I know they're here somewhere. Did I not see any in here? I did not see any in here. Where are they hiding? Let me take a look over here. Dang, I'm not sure where the heck they are. Where's— where are my graphite sticks? Usually they're right within reach. I did just pull out some Payne's Gray watercolor. Maybe I'll throw in some Payne's Gray on here in the background. All right, let's try that. Let's make some room, kind of sort things out a little bit, put on some— I think some Payne's Gray on the background. Give it a try and yeah, we'll call it a day. It's 8:28. Sometimes I need just to re— spend a minute reorganize, um, the clutter just to free my mind a little bit more when things are kind of organized. There we go. Yeah, let's use some Payne's Gray. Let's see, where can I— should I throw some on here? Yeah, maybe we'll just mix some right in this palette. This is old. I don't even know if I can get it open. It's opening. I don't even know how long I've had this. This might end up being too dark also. See, I like the— I like the gray here. I kind of get that with this. All right, let's do this. I'm going to prop this up. I'm going to do something very dangerous and use my phone to prop it. Dangerous because I might get some paint on it. All right, so let's do some Payne's Gray on here. I want to add a little bit of atmosphere. I'm going to dip into my dirty water. Dum-da-dum-dum. So right here we got dirty water. Let's throw down some water on here, and then we'll throw some of that Payne's Gray on as well, and we'll let's just see what happens. It's part of the fun, right? It's the mystery. It's, it's the what if. What if I do this? Rather than the— let's see, what's opposite of what if? What if I do this instead of what if I don't? So cool. I'm being way too tight with it though, so I want to be more free and Let this brush kind of dance around. Yeah, I'm liking it. Getting that gray fall kind of sky. I love gray fall skies with a little bit of drizzle. I know that sounds kind of weird, but it's so— I just love that mood, that mood, that vibe, that rainy kind of drizzly fall day. Whenever I say that, people are like, oh, you should go live in Seattle. There we go. I actually like Panette Gray because it's making the colors pop out even a little bit more around the barn. I'm using a lot of water and I'm just barely dipping into the the paint down here. I may even throw some Payne's Gray, uh, on the building, maybe on some shadows here. That is not what I wanted to do. No, no bueno. So we're gonna bump it off like that. That's better. I kind of like what just happened here, actually. This looks so cool. Yeah, so yeah, I really think this is helping to create just that kind of setting. We'll just maybe throw it down heavier in some places here. All right guys, I have to admit, that was— for me, that was a brave thing to do, to throw this gray in the background. And then we're gonna— I'm liking this a lot. We're gonna blot a little bit back. There we go. Just let it kind of stain the paper. All right, cool. I'm really liking that. And I want to, I want to add some yellow on that roof. Don't know why, but my gut said let's throw some yellow on here. All right, I'm thinking this is done. All right, we're gonna call this one a wrap. So, um, here's kind of the overview of the whole thing. We'll zoom in, look at some of the details. I like the gray as it's drying. It's looking pretty cool. I just realized, if anybody had any questions or comments, I don't have the chat comment window open. Silly me. There we go. Hey, Paul Loves Art, hello from Missouri! Great to see you. I literally just opened the chat window, so if you guys were on there, I'm sorry. A hum. D-Ray, hey everyone, great to see you. D-Ray says we had gray fall skies today. Did you? I hope that's cool. I hope you like gray fall skies. So here's kind of a close-up of some of the colors and what's happening. You can see the gray maybe better if I kind of angle it. This is kind of cool. I like the yellow just kind of bleeding up into that sky. Pretty fun. Get closer so you can see some of the textures and move that light up a little bit. There we go. You can kind of see that roof close up. That's so funny, I didn't have the comment window open. Wah wah wah. But it is now. You can see some of this. I like the effect of the, um, the light aqua colored pencil on top of that orange ink. I love that color, it's really popping. This is actually a pretty cool color that's happening right here on the door area. Sorry, I'm trying to hold it steady. I got shaky hands. Um, this is really cool what happened in the ground. I just— I'm leaving that. Maybe there's some, I don't know, landscaping foliage— not foliage, but shrubs or something, patches, a bit of this and that happening in the foreground there. Ta-da! Wonky Barn for the week. Wonky Barn 3 done for the week. So we have this. I need to start naming these barns. Besides 1, 2, and 3. But here's one— Barn 1, Barn 2, St. Patrick's Cathedral 1— that somehow got in the pile. Cool. So there you go, you can see, uh, 3 wonky barns using the same basic color palettes. Um, they all look very different from each other. Really cool. I, I don't know which my favorite one is. It might be this one. I love the vibrancy of it. Let's just put these together and kind of compare these two. Although I kind of like the unfinished— well, there's a lot of white on this one, which I think looks really, really cool. All right, awesome. So if anybody is interested, I am going to be selling these original sketches. I'll put it on my, um, probably on Facebook. Let me know, I'd love to have these barns go to a really awesome person that will enjoy these. Hey Heather, great to see you. Heather popped in. So Barn 1, Barn 2, and Barn 3 right there. Um, if you guys like these barns and you want to know or get into my brain a little bit more, my creative mind, um, come and join the workshop I'm doing on October 26th. It'll be virtual via Zoomland. Um, let's put the link in the chat. We— 2 hours, we'll be talking about, or we'll be sketching wonky barns similar to these, and I'll give a little more detail about how I'm approaching it, what's going through my brain. I'll try to slow myself down a little bit, um, as I'm doing it. That's always a challenge for me to slow down sketching and explaining, so So it's fun working, working at that. But yeah, it's October 26th, 8 o'clock PM, Zoom. Um, there is a fee, it's a workshop, I'm putting some time into it. You guys get it, you all, you all creatives know how it goes. Um, but yeah, I'd love to have you guys sign up and join us. I think we have 6 people so far, and it's going to be a blast. Very cool. Um, they both have a great character. Thank you, D-Ray, I appreciate that. They do have character, I agree. Very— they're— these are very fun to do because I feel like there's very little rules for these barns, barn structures. I mean, this roof is extremely wonky here. Even a little kind of curve here happening, but it's playful and it's fun. Awesome stuff. And DB, if DB is watching the replay, DB will love the fact that I brought out the Payne's Gray. It pains me to do so. But I did it anyway. No, this is a great color. I don't really use it that much, but it was very effective for the background. Cool. Hey, you guys are awesome. I'm gonna sign out. I am tired. I have school tomorrow. But this is always a pleasure and treat for me to be here, and I appreciate you guys taking your time to hang with me here. Um, yeah, thank you so much. From— I'm pointing to my heart. You can't see it because my heart's off the screen. But from my heart to yours, um, keep using your creativity for positivity. We need it out there. Every little bit of positivity helps in our world, no matter how you can spread it, even if it's a nod, hello, or a smile to someone. You know what I'm saying? D-Ray says— D-Ray says thank you, Jason Nicholas. Thank you. You're awesome. I appreciate you so much. I think I put— did I put a link in the chat? I did. It just showed up. Hey, Heather says love the barns. Heather, thank you so much. I'm glad you're enjoying the barns. I'm getting a lot of really good feedback. I'm curious, for you guys watching Um, what is it? What are— what do you like about the barns? I'm curious. I'm having a blast doing these, but I want to know why— what you guys like about these. So I'm going to hang out here for a couple more minutes and just let me know in the chat. Um, it's always good for me to know what you guys like. I'll put these here so you can see them all. And I know I keep throwing the sales pitches out there, but, um If anybody's interested, let me know. Send me a message. You could DM me. You can email me, um, jason@jasonjnicholas.com. Let me know if you're interested in any buying any of these original sketches. Um, and the reason is because I love these, but you know what's going to happen? I have probably 200 New York City sketches here that I absolutely love, but they're sitting on my wall, they're sitting in my drawers. Um, that sounded weird. In my, uh, art drawers. Um, yeah, just filed away. I would rather have these out where people can see them and enjoy them. Paul's Art— Paul Loves Art loving this piece. Thank you. Yeah, this is when we— the new one, I think, that we just did today. Well, we wrapped up today. So cool. I'm glad Heather says, I like the rustic look. That makes me really happy to hear because that is what I'm trying to do with these. So you nailed it. That makes me feel good that you are catching what I'm trying to do with this rustic kind of look to it. Yes. That was a victory celebration. I don't usually— I don't usually celebrate, but you know what, you got to celebrate the moment sometimes. If you do something, it's all right to be proud of what you do. There's a difference between, between having a big ego and just being proud of yourself. And it's okay to be proud of yourself. Yeah, I, I, I'm loving the roofs on these. Hey, Becky's in the house! Becky, great to see you. Desk chores, Jason Nicholas Nicholas. Yes, yes, the artwork is not in my, my drawers, like my— those drawers. It's in my desk drawers. Becky, it's great to see you. Becky's in the house. Um, Becky, it would be fun to do a collaboration with Becky. If I gave some barns to Becky and Becky added her amazing horses on these barn sketches, that would be so fun. That would be really cool. Rustic is it for me, or shades of art. So cool. Let's put these here, put this here. So should I rustify St. Patrick's Cathedral? That would be fun to actually make this have this kind of look to it. Hmm, we'll save that for another show. That'll go on the air another time. Hey guys, so it's 8:45. I think I'm gonna wrap up. Um, it's been real fun. I've been trying to pop on for like 20 minutes every day this week. So tomorrow is Wednesday. Wait, what day is today? Tuesday. Tomorrow is Wednesday. So, um, yeah, I'll try to be on tomorrow night. I've been popping on around 8 o'clock, 8:10, 8:15, somewhere in there. And, um, D-Ray says read it again. All right, let's go back. What? Rust, rust. Rustic is it for me, of shades of art. Rustic is it for me, or is it shades— wait, oh my God, DeRay, I'm having so much trouble reading this because my brain— good thing I don't teach, uh, language arts. Rustic is it for me, or of shades of art. All right, I'm going to reread that later because I think I'm messing it up. Um, Paul, love— loving the great wonky barns. Wow, my brain is so tired. I'll read it again. I did. Night. Hey, good night, Heather Chapman. Hopefully I'm saying your last name right. Heather K. Heather K is in the house. Take the— take the it. Rustic is it for me. Of Shades of Art. D-Ray, you're awesome. We make a great team. I can't— no, it's not you, it is, it is me. This is so funny. You crack me up. You guys all crack me up. You make me have a good time, and that's what this is about. Gotta have fun. Cool. If you guys want, I'll stay until 9 and I'll do a really quick small barn. Let me know in the chat or give me thumbs up, hearts or something, and I'll stay on just till 9 and we'll do a quick, quick barn. Hey, Chips in the house! Great to see you, Chip. Chip, you caught me on a night where my Language art skills are failing me, and my reading skills. Um, 8:48. I'm gonna give you one more— another minute to decide. Should I do a really quick small barn sketch? I need to see some love in the comments. Am I allowed— am I allowed to ask? Am I allowed to demand love in the comments for sketching? Absolutely, why not? I'm gonna take this one out of the book. One of the things I love about this sketchbook is I love the perforations. It's just great for tearing stuff out, he says, as you can't rip it out. Paper's a little damp still. Also, you may have noticed, look where the spine is. I have the spine on the right-hand side. I think I've, I've wised, wised up over the years. Um, so being left-handed, if I had the spine like this, this spine was, it was crushing me, man. It was just stopping me from my hand from moving and hitting that spine. Listen to that. Hear me hitting that spine? So yeah, I finally said, hey, let's flip the book over, get that stinking spine out of the way. Welcome, Freedom City. I love that. Yes, another barn. Awesome, let's do it. Small barn sketch. Yes, love for the art. Paula, awesome. It's right in your name there, Paula. Paula loves Art. Well, Art is a very lucky person, whoever that is. All right, I'm feeling, I'm feeling goofy. All right, let's do a quick barn. This is— we're gonna do micro barn. I'm gonna zoom in. All right, I am actually going to be quiet for a few minutes and sketch. I'm just gonna put on some music. I wish you guys could hear my music. I'm gonna play some, uh, some— let's see, I'll give you some bonus minutes as I'm looking for music here. Nothing's jumping at me. All right. Got it. Here we go. Alright, cool. Alright, so we have a kind of a— doing a red barn here. Maybe there's a flag on the side. Um, gonna bleed some of that red ink. Now we're gonna get a little crazy. We're gonna add some, um, yeah, let's add some blue. Let's grab some blue watercolor. And just kind of throw it on here. We'll make some purpley things happen. And I forgot to put this in angle. Womp womp womp. Let's just use this. Alright, let's throw some orange on here. Oh, this is way up. Becky says need an old— need a tractor. That would be so cool. Yeah, I could see a tractor on here. I need some yellow. Um, I'm going to grab a yellow highlighter. I'm just trying to use some different colors than I've been using lately. Um. Grab and go, grab and go, grab and go. All right, let's just do it. Going for the highlighters. One minute, one minute. We're going to stop this at 9. We'll take a look at it again. I'm, I'm just grabbing and going with trying to use some different colors than before. All right, last thing I want to do is just throw some hatch lines to give a little bit of shading and shadowing on here. I think that's a good angle. Uh, so the— it's all wet, so I'm gonna, uh, let's go to the gel pen because I can use this on the wet area. This is just a real quick down and dirty kind of sketch here. All right, let's just finish the hatching and then we'll call this one a day. I actually want to do some under here. Let's get a little bit of depth happening there. Let me just pull this flag out a little more. Corner of the building, I didn't draw some vents up here. All right, cool. All right guys, I think that's going to be it for this quick little barn sketch. Let's put a frame around it. Ta-da! There you go, quick little barn sketch, threw a frame around it. All right, see if there's any final questions, comments, and we're on— we're in the, uh, the wrap-up phase. All right, you guys are awesome. Um, great idea for a lefty, thank you, about the spine. Yes, switch that spine to the right-hand side if you're left-handed. That sounded confusing. So there, yeah, that's exactly what I did. Love that. Um, love you to do a series on lighthouses in the future. Hey Chip, consider it done. I— lighthouses are the very, very first buildings I loved sketching. Every time I created— I used to always do homemade, uh, cards for people, birthday cards, greeting cards. Holiday cards and they always had lighthouses on them. I would love to do a lighthouse series, so that is— that's gonna happen. Micro Barn. I'm left-handed also, never thought of that. Hey, there you go, Paula. Yeah, try— give it a try. Kind of Blue, Miles Davis. Miles Davis, oh, that's, uh, some nice smooth jazz music. Wow, already awesome. Thank you guys, this is This one came okay. Um, DB, hey DB, you're in the house! Great to see you, DB. I'm glad you're here because I have to show you this. Look what I used tonight, DB. I don't know if camera's not focusing. Focus, focus, focus. Anyway, it says Payne's Gray. Ta-da! So on this one here, here in the sky, I threw some Payne's Gray on there. How cool is that, huh? And it took me a lot of courage to actually throw the gray on the background, but I think adding that Payne's Gray made this building pop, and it just gave it a little bit of— I don't say sassy mood, but gray is not sassy. Grim. I don't want to use the word grim, that sounds grim. A little bit of atmosphere, gray atmosphere on a fall day. We'll leave it at that. Um, so good to see you, DB. Paul says there's something special about barns. Yeah, barns are just— they're just so character— characterful. No matter how you sketch a barn, I mean, there's so many endless possibilities, right? I mean, they're just fun, wonky, whimsical. So I agree with you. Uh, Becky said maybe a barn cat laying in the sunny spot. I like, I like that idea. I like that. Oh, you know what I need on here? I need to do this. I'm just going to pull out a blue highlighter. It's okay, we'll just say this is a— there you go. I just want to pull the stripes out a little bit. Um, that would be cool. I love the idea of a cat. So much fun color. Thank you. Yes, they need to make a Payne's Gray marker. They— Winsor Newton might have a Payne's Gray watercolor marker. I'll have to look. Winsor— check out Winsor Newton watercolor markers. They may have a gray. Um, I have a water-soluble Payne's Gray pencil. Becky, that is awesome. Hey, Chris is in the house. Chris says, nice, Jason Nicholas Nicholas. Hey, thanks, Chris. I appreciate it. Great seeing you on the, uh, YouTube land. Shading with gel. Yeah, so I was using a Sharpie gel pen. Um, I like using these gel pens, especially on damp or wet areas. You can kind of see You can kind of see my scribbles there. Actually, I'll hold it close so you can see it, kind of how it's drying. Well done, thank you so much. What's the— what's the frame made out of? This frame is just a mat board frame, just something I bought at Michaels. You can see it's been well loved. Um, it's just, just a, um, like a cardboard or chipboard material. Framing nice, thank you. Smile, smile, smile, smile, smile, smile. Great foggy fall morning. There you go, let's call it a great foggy fall morning. Like that. Just for fun, I want— I know I always say I'm going to end and I don't end. D-Ray's probably— D-Ray, are you shaking your head at me? Um, I want to do some cerulean blue on the background. I want to throw a blue sky up, and I'll just show you guys. I have my— is this the one that has my, um, yes, I have some Winsor Newton watercolor markers. Do I have a Payne's gray? What is this one? Cool, it's a cool gray. What is this one? Another cool gray. I must have— I must think gray is cool. What is this one? Another cool gray. Oh my gosh, let's pull out this. This is what I want to use for the sky. Let's just throw this in the background. Uh, it's cerulean blue. I don't know why my camera is not focusing on the text. By the way, Lockbee shout out. Lockbee, I love my Lockbee products. This isn't my awesome Lockbee, um, tool roll I'm using. I have markers in it right now. I have another one with pencils and stuff in it. If you're interested, go to my website, check out my supplies and stuff, and I have a link there to Lockbee. And if you mention my name in the code, discount code, you— I think if you put Jason Nicholas in the discount code, I think you get 10% off. If anybody's interested or has questions, feel free to let me know. All right, here's what we're going to do. Payne's, uh, we're going to throw blue on here. First thing I'm going to do is I'm going to throw some water in the sky. This is just dirty water from the dirty water jar. Cool. All right, boom, water is on there. I am, instead of putting the marker right in the water, I'm gonna— I like to take my marker put it on the side of my board, and I'm literally going to lift, lift this off and put it on. And put my brother— brother, not my brother. I am not putting my brother in the water, putting my brush in the water. My brother would not appreciate that. That was pretty funny. I need to do a, um, what is that called, like a blooper reel, to put a best of blooper reel together. Dang, I wish I had my own video team. That would be so funny. So there you go, look at that, we got a cerulean blue sky happening, leaving white spaces. You know, white could be maybe the clouds back there. I like to put the water down first and lift it off the board because then it just— the blue likes to go and play. If I throw the marker right down on the paper, it often will just stain where I put it and it's hard to move it around. It doesn't flow as much, and that's just how I like to do it. Billion different ways to do the same thing. I'm going to blot this a little here, blot out a little bit there, create some clouds just by blotting. Uh, if you want to add more to it, let's tense some of it up. Pro tip: always put your caps on your markers or they'll dry out. And I'm just dabbing, not even painting, I'm just dabbing the brush on top of some areas, and we'll just get a little bit more kind of blue happening. It just adds a little bit of depth to the sky so it doesn't look so flat. And you can see how it's just spreading because I have that water, and also because I have the paper angled down, it helps to spread it a little bit too, rather than having the paper flat. There you go, pretty cool. Oh, that was me dropping the brush. I'm just dipping my brush in water and I'm just gonna spread that out more. And we'll do the same thing here and we're done. Pretty cool, we have a cerulean blue sky. Hope you like it. Fantastic sky, thank you Becky. So that is just kind of a shorthand quick way that I like to make skies. Using watercolor markers. Um, I have a sepia marker as well, so I could have used the sepia marker for this one, but I wanted to try Payne's Gray. But I could have done the same technique on any of these. Cool. Hey, you guys are awesome! Thank you for watching. Thank you for challenging me to do a quick small sketch. I love it. Um, this is a roll— I mean, a wrap. Oh my gosh, um, I'm dangerous without a script, but I'm never scripted. That's because I like to create on, create on the fly, off the cuff, be with you guys, be in the moment. I'm not worried about looking at lines, reading lines, and having to memorize something. Thank you guys for embracing me for who I am, and I appreciate all you guys her for who you are too. Paula says, love the tips and final product. Thank you so much, that is so cool. All right guys, I appreciate you all so much for watching. Paula, Becky, DB, D-Ray, Chris— oh my gosh, who else am I missing? Chip, um, Heather was on earlier. I'm scrolling through. If I miss your name, I am so sorry. Um, yes, thank you guys so much. Have a great, great night. Keep using your positive creativity for positivity. I am out. I'll be back on tomorrow night, probably around 8:15-ish, and we'll do another barn. See, you— we're gonna end with this. See, you don't need words for arts. I'm gonna put that on the screen. We're gonna end with that one. Take care, guys. Have a great night. Appreciate y'all. Check out my link for the Sketching Wonky Barns workshop. It's in the chat. It's also on screen. Love to have you guys join me October 26th, 8:00 PM Eastern Standard Time, where we'll be just having fun making wonky barns, and we always end up talking about food. Thank you guys, and some of you guys signed up already, and it means the world to me. Thank you guys for signing up. I appreciate you so much. Peace out.