Sketching INKspired by The Steel Stacks

Hey, happy Tuesday, September 3rd. I'm looking at the clock, it's 9:42 PM, uh, here in New Jersey. Hope all's well. I have not been live for a while, it's been kind of crazy busy. Um, school is starting up for me this week, so today was my first day back as a teacher. And students are back on Thursday. So it's, uh, it's been a bit busy but really good. Excuse me. I've also been working on putting out a video. You may have had the chance to have seen it. Uh, it's on my YouTube channel. It was a— it's a trailer to a longer format video. Um, me and my friend Al, who is awesome at videography, We went to the SteelStacks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and shot some video. And yeah, fun project. So another announcement about that in a minute, but I thought it'd be fun to pop on, just do a quick sketch here inspired by the SteelStacks. This is a sketch I did, uh, on location. And let me pull up— so I can pull up a picture here. Uh, the SteelStacks is located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. It's a decommissioned steel plant. It was decommissioned in 1995, if I remember. And one of the cool things about this steel plant is it provided steel for such things as, um, the Golden Gate Bridge, for I can't remember exactly which battleship, but for a battleship, um, it supplied steel for a lot of important structures out there. So really cool facility. Here's just an overview of a small section of it. Um, you may have heard me talk about this in the past. I have sketched it before. This was my second visit out there. So, and this is a sketch I did while I was there, a quick one for the video. Um, you know, it might just— maybe we'll just mess around with this sketch and we'll just throw down some color because I'm only gonna be on for a couple of minutes here. It's great to see you. I see Janice. Janice and, uh, Janice Flanagan, great to see you. It's been so long. Hope all is well with you. Um, I will put together a show where we spend an hour just talking about the steel stacks. I'll show you pictures. We'll do a slideshow, maybe some Q&A. I think that would be a lot of fun. So let's just throw down some color on here. Uh, what am I going to use tonight? I'm just jumping on off the cuff. We might play around some of these Sharpie markers. Let me see if I can grab some. So I have a bunch of Sharpie. Yeah, let's, let's do this. Let's throw down some Sharpie. It'll be fun. So these are Sharpie Creative Markers. Let's just pull a couple of these out, and I'm just going to go to town, throw some color on, uh, no particular order right now. Just, just want to have fun. The original sketch you're looking at was done with a Sharpie. Um, I always like to start with a Sharpie in case I want to come back and add some color or ink on top of it. I don't have to worry about the black ink bleeding because it's Sharpie and it's not going anywhere. Let's— I'll zoom out a little bit so you can kind of see the array of markers I have out. So this is only like my second time using these Sharpie Creative Markers, and they're kind of like, uh, they're acrylic water-based paint pens basically. They go down really thick. I love it. They dry quickly, which is really cool also. I just have to be careful not to put my palm— it's not art unless— what? It's not art unless you wear it. So if I got some on my palm, that would be okay, then it's officially artwork. I'm just going to keep this kind of quick, loose, pop in some color. I have to honestly say, I do, I do love these markers. I've always been a Sharpie fan, and this just kind of just took my love to a whole new level. So I'm very excited. School, like I said, the kids come back on Thursday, and yeah, just bring it on. Let's, let's do this. It's been a great summer, so no complaints about that at all. I'm super excited. I have 3 Architecture 1 classes this year. Last year I had 2. I also have an Architecture 2 class this year, which is fantastic. I had 1 last year. And I have 2 CAD classes where we're going to be focusing on— I want to do product design. So I think it's going to be a really interesting class, or all classes this year. Janice, uh, it's good. Oh, awesome, you're fine. I'm so glad to hear that, Janice. It's great to see you, Janice. I love when you pop on your, um, some of your videos on YouTube— not YouTube, on Facebook— your New York City stuff. It's always great because, you know, I'm a huge fan of the city, so it's always fun to see, uh, see it from another person's point of view. So thank you for sharing those videos, Janice. It's so cool. Becky— oh, not Becky. DB's in the house. I thought I saw Becky's name. DB says, hey, good evening. DB, it's awesome to see you. How are you? By the way, I'm not as pale as I look in that picture there. Looks really pale on screen. I think it has to do with the lighting, I'm guessing. So again, this is a sketch, was inspired or inspired by the steel stacks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Much more about that, and like I said, I'll focus a show or even a couple shows just to this facility. Hey, Janice is over on YouTube now too! Hey Janice, thanks for going on YouTube! I appreciate that. Um, so here, so for you guys that are watching this now, I really appreciate it, and I want to share with you— you guys are— have the first opportunity to watch the full-length video that I finished putting together with the, uh, with help from my friend Al, who did— shot the video for me. So I have a 15— it's about a 15-minute YouTube video. I'm going to put the link here. Feel free to watch it after I'm done here or anytime. Yeah, it's basically going to kind of just walk you around and you're going to get to see a little inside peek of what goes on in my brain a little bit as I'm walking around a place doing urban sketching. I think it's a fun video. I'd love to know what you guys think. Um, if you like the video, feel free to share it, you know, give it a thumbs up, a like, and all that stuff. I want this video to crush it out there. We spent a lot of time on it. And I think it's, uh, obviously I'm kind of biased, but I think it's pretty cool. I think it's a fun 15-minute video. So, and I never did a project like this, so it's a new thing for me. So, uh, if anybody's interested, I'm gonna put the link in the chat. So that link should take you, and I'll be posting it on my social stuff also, but that link should take you to the 15-minute-ish video of the SteelStacks. It's really cool. So thank you guys for watching this live. If you're watching the replay, definitely check that out. So I'm just throwing down some colors here. All right, so those are— these are, um, these colors are done with the Sharpie Creative Markers. And let's also throw down a little bit of— I will throw down a little bit of watercolor, and I'm going to wrap at 10 tonight, so 8 minutes-ish. I hope, I hope that link works. It should work. So another thing that's a little bit different is this. This is hot press paper in this sketchbook I'm using here. This is one of the sketchbooks I brought with me on site to the Stacks. So usually I'm a cold press guy, so I brought this. I wanted to test out some hot press and play around with it a little bit. All right, we're going to throw on some watercolor here. I think I'm zoomed too close. There we go, it's better. DB said— oh yay, DB found your, um, marbles painting. That is— that's awesome. Yeah, so DB has had— had lost her marbles. She's working on a very cool jar of marbles painting. I am so glad you found that. That's awesome, awesome news. All right, we're gonna throw down my favorite— I'm gonna throw some ink down on here. Yep, you got it. My favorite color ink from Birmingham Pen Company. Unfortunately, there is no Moss available online, so I am, I am gonna miss this ink when I run out of it. This is, this has been my favorite color for a while, so I'm kind of babying it a little bit. I also want to tilt this up at an angle because I like when the ink and the colors run down Uh, what could I put underneath here? No, I'll just put a— I'm going to put a sketchbook under here. There we go. All right, cool. Hope you guys can see this okay. I'm sorry I'm moving things around a lot. I didn't really, uh, I didn't prep before I came on it. My desk has a lot of stuff on it here. So I have done SteelStack sketches in the past. You may remember them, uh, here I have them right here. So here's a— here's Here's a blast from the past. So this was a SteelStack sketch I did, gosh, probably last year, but I love the colors and stuff, so I'm trying to work with those same colors. It's kind of where my industrial color palette really developed was when I was working on those sketches. So this is so cool. I'm watching how the hot press paper is so— excuse me— it's so different than watercolor. I mean, uh, cold press paper. So different. I don't remember what, what pound weight this paper is. I don't know if it's bleeding through or not, but we'll find out. It's all good. All right, cool. There you go. You can see that color. It just has like a— it's like a caramel color. Maybe that's why I like it, because I love caramel. Anything caramel, sign me up. Curious to see if it's bleeding through. Uh, it's not bleeding through, the paper's buckling. That's not a problem. I'm going to dip into some turquoise watercolor paint next, and I am switching— I have some music going here, I'm going to switch it up a little bit because yeah. This is my new— I have a new favorite song that I just keep playing over and over. Kind of motivates me, it pumps me up. This will be really fun, um, to see how it dries. All right, I'm going to throw down some orange. We're going to grab some orange watercolor here. Watercolor really pops a lot more on hot press paper. That I'm totally noticing. Like, the colors, the colors are really, uh, it's a real nice punch of color on this hot press paper, which I, which I'm liking. All right, next we're going to throw down some Lemon Zest. I don't think that's the name of the color, but I call it Lemon Zest. Why? Because it adds a little touch of brightness. Just like when you're using lemon zest and you're cooking, it does the same thing for me in sketching. It, it adds a sense of a— or pop of freshness, or a pop of brightness. So this is the color here in my palette. It's this color right here. All right, so we got our zestiness happening there with our Lemon Yellow. And I'll zoom out so you can get an overall of what it's looking like. Um, I think that's all I'm going to do for tonight on here, on this one. I'm going to let it dry and then I'll come back and add some more details with, uh, probably my Sharpie, pop a little more color on there. I'll definitely break out some colored pencils and we'll just take it to the next level. So this is just kind of, I guess, step one, I guess, would have been, uh, when I was on site, use a Sharpie and I sketched the outline. If you watch that full-length video, you'll actually, you'll see me sketching this in the video. I do 3 sketches. They're really quick, not developed, and they're not finished sketches, but just give you a sense of me kind of in action. But this was the first, um, one in the video. Cool. All right, we'll zoom in, take a look at these colors that we can see how it's looking. I'll wrap it up. We just kind of pan around a little bit. I'm, I'm really loving the colors happening right here. That looks really cool. All right, so there you go. This kind of a close-up of what it's looking like. Uh, probably tomorrow I'll come back and add some details. We'll pull some of the shapes out more and it'll start making a little more sense. I don't think I'm going to add a lot more color. I'm going to leave a lot of white space on here. Um, yeah, it's kind of where I'm headed with this. So thank you guys for watching. If you're watching live, I appreciate you jumping on because this was totally random. If you're watching the replay, I really appreciate that as well. Um, feel free to— if you like the video, feel free to share it. If you're on YouTube, give it a thumbs up. I would love that. Leave comments too, um, or questions in the comments. That would all— that's always helpful on Facebook and especially on YouTube for, um, kind of getting the video out there. All right, let's look if there's any final questions or comments. DB says— I gotta move this window because it's covering the question— your color choices are amazing. Oh my gosh, thank you so much. I'm gonna put that on screen. DB, look at this, you just made the screen. Thank you so much, I appreciate that. Um, especially since I was a person that was always afraid to add color, or if I did add color, I was always afraid to show it to people. I did black and white sketching for many, many years, and I still do. I still think it's my favorite, but it took me a lot of, uh, honestly took a lot of courage and guts for me to start adding color and showing it. So when you say comments like that, it really— I really appreciate it. You have no idea. Thank you. So cool. Wait, how do I take this off the screen? I think I click here. Ta-da! That's so fun. I love doing that. You guys gotta leave really cool comments for me, then I could show them on screen. That is like a bonus surprise. All right guys, you are awesome. I appreciate you all so, so much. Be sure to check out the full-length video of my trip to the SteelStacks. I had a lot of fun putting it together. Shout out to Al K. He's awesome. He was my— he's— well, make sure you watch the end credits. Watch the end credits after you watch the rest of the video. Um, it's fun. All right guys, take care. Have a great, great rest of your day. Remember, you You too can sketch architecture one line at a time. This is Jason with the Inkspired Life. It is time for me to go to bed because I have to go to school in the morning. All right guys, take care. Peace out. I'll see you soon.