Sketching the Brooklyn Bridge

Hello, happy Thursday! Hope you're doing awesome. It is May 22nd. I had to take a look. I'm Jason Nicholas Nicholas with the Inkspired Life, where I love sketching architecture and doing urban sketching. Popping on, uh, here on a Thursday night just to, well, just to do some sketching and kind of, uh, wind down for the day. It's been a tiring, crazy school week, um, in a good way. Just been so busy, and I'd like to wind down tonight just, yeah, doing some sketching. So if you're watching live, let me know where you're watching from, and I'll be checking in with the chat. Um, I thought tonight It'd be cool to sketch, uh, maybe, uh, something inspired by the Brooklyn Bridge. If you look on my gallery wall back here, you can actually see some, some Brooklyn Bridge images on there. It's a structure that I love. I'm inspired by it. And the Brooklyn Bridge has its birthday coming up on Saturday. If I remember correctly, I think it was built in 1883, so that would make it, um, 142 years old if I did the math right. So how cool is that? And, um, as you probably have heard, the Brooklyn Bridge, bridge was just recently in the news. Um, there was a misfortunate accident that happened with a Mexican training, training, naval training sailboat, um, that the masts were too tall and kind of struck the bottom of the bridge. And, uh, I don't know the latest numbers, but I know there was some, there were some lives lost and a lot of injuries as well. So prayers and peace go out to everybody that was affected by that. That event. So yeah, so let's do some Brooklyn Bridge sketching. Let me change the camera view and let's look at my desk shot. So this is a sketch I did last year, um, really quick, loose. And when I think of the Brooklyn Bridge, what really stands out to me besides its, its massive stone structure are these Gothic arches. That we see on it. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna capture maybe this view of the bridge and we'll, we'll see what happens. So this is kind of my inspo pic. I gotta grab a Sharpie here. I have a lot of Sharpies here, so I'm always ready to go. So we're gonna grab, uh, let's see if we grab one of these bad boys here. I have Sharpie Ultra Fine Points. I have Sharpie Fine Point Permanent Markers. I have Sharpie gel pens. What else do we have? We also have— this is another Sharpie roller ball pen. So Sharpies come in so many different styles. We also have Sharpie Creative Markers. So I know this sounds like a Sharpie ad, not sponsored, just talking from my heart. I love their products, use them, use them all the time. All right, all right, good. So we're gonna do the Brooklyn Bridge here. Um, I'd love to go Saturday to the birthday celebrations that are, I'm sure, happening on or around the Brooklyn Bridge. So we'll see what happens. All right, cool. Hey, I see Chip. Chip is in the house. Chip, it's so good to see you. I hope you're doing well. Um, we'll definitely have to connect this week for sure. I am lucky today. I— today was our last day of school for the week. We're not back in school until Wednesday. We have a very nice long weekend coming up for Labor Day. Got some snow days back, so It's all good. All right, and hold on a second here. I just, I just pulled a tick off of my neck. I'm not even kidding. Here you go, I'll show it to you. That is a tick, my friends, that I'm gonna Squash. Wow, welcome to live, uh, live streaming. I felt it crawl on my neck. We have— the ticks here are so bad this year. You're guaranteed that if you go outside, you're going to come in with a tick, at least one tick on you. It is insane. Um, if anybody has any good advice about getting rid of ticks, let me know. It is not pretty here. Right here in, uh, New Jersey where I'm living. Wow, that was, that was fun. All right guys, I will not charge extra for that, that bonus tick footage. So my goal with this sketch is just to do a rep— representation of the bridge. It's not going to be a technical drawing, it's not going to be precise. I'm just going for a vibe, really. And I'll throw some color on here too. Um, should we do— let's see, I mean, I have Creative Markers here. Thinking about doing some watercolor, but just gonna grab and go. I didn't prep tonight with watercolor, so we're just gonna go with what we have around us. So I definitely wanted to capture these kind of Gothic arches happening here. With some hatch lines to show some shadows. So I'll zoom in a little bit closer. Hey, DB's in the house! DB, I hope you're doing well. It is always a pleasure to see you. Awesome. All right, cool. Zoom in a little bit closer. There we go. So here's where I'm going to draw some hatch lines, or sketch rather. So yeah, the Brooklyn Bridge is turning 100, and feel free to correct me, uh, 142 years old. Something like that, this Saturday. My brain's tired. I've, I've been fortunate enough to walk across it twice. I, I love it. I'll do it— be doing again this summer for sure. The views are spectacular walking along the bridge. Um, it was something on my bucket list for for many, many years. And to be honest with you, I never had the courage to go and do it, um, just go to, you know, go to Brooklyn by myself. Um, I don't mind going to the city, but this was a new place I had never gone to. And yeah, I just, I finally got the nerve to give it a try, and I'm so glad that I stepped out of my comfort zone and got to experience it. So don't be afraid to step out of your comfort zone. It, it's not easy, but sometimes amazing rewards lay right on the other side if you are brave enough to step up and step out. I want this to look like some shadows. I'm going to do some hatch lines, and I'm going to break out some Creative Markers in a minute. We'll throw some Creative Markers down, pop some color on. So I like to talk about setting creative intentions lots of times before I start sketching something. So my creative intention tonight was really just to come online and just, uh, practice my Brooklyn Bridge sketches. Keep it quick, loose, fast, and just capture the essence of the iconic structure. So when you look at architecture and you want to sketch something What is a feature of the building or structure that stands out to you? Is it a— is it a window? Is it a door? Is it the shape of the building? A chimney? A win— uh, I think I said window. Um, when you look at it, what resonates with you? And maybe just capture that part of it. So when I think Brooklyn Bridge, I think these arches. I, I need to show the arches on it. Don't feel like when you look at a structure or a building you need to sketch the entire thing. Just pick a piece of it, you know, or maybe it's a color of it that inspires you, or maybe the material. Maybe it's the stone or the bricks or the wood. All right, cool. So I'm liking this. I'm really liking the shakiness, the looseness of it as well. Pretty cool. DB says, uh, good to see you. Thank you, you amaze me with your talent. Hey, likewise, you, my friend, are so, so gifted. I was— I think I did a show last week where I was trying a pencil, and I thought of you because you are the, the pencil guru. Um, I was going to— I went to a museum. Was it last Saturday? I guess so. Where I could— you can only bring— use pencil to sketch inside. So I was practicing with my pencil. I, I'm a Sharpie guy all the way. Here, actually, here's a practice one I did of— I think that I did this one online. I was practicing using a pencil to do one of my Statue of Liberty, uh, torches. Came out okay. But DB, you are the pencil guru. Cool. Let me know if you're watching live. Should I, should I add color to this or keep it black and white? What do you think, color or black and white? And while we're doing— while you're thinking, I'm going to go to the other camera. Let's take a look at the wall back here. I'm going to point out some Brooklyn Bridge sketches that you see behind me. Um, so if you look in the top left, or is it your top right? I'm not sure. You'll see a Brooklyn, Brooklyn Bridge sketch. You know, I'm gonna just get up and point to it. All right, I'm gonna walk away from my mic. Pardon me if you can't hear me too well. All right, so we have a Brooklyn Bridge sketch here, here also, and there's another one here. So 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4, and then 5. Let me bring this over. So right back in that wall I have 5 Brooklyn Bridge sketches, and I just pulled this one over. So here's an example of what I was just talking about. When you're sketching a building or a piece of architecture, don't— you don't have to do the whole thing. Capture an essence of it. And here I literally just captured one arch of the bridge. I really love this sketch, actually. I'm going to zoom in even closer. There, there you can see it. So for me, this right here is all I needed to capture on, on that day when I sketched this. And I love, I love how loosey-goosey style this is. It's just, if you compare the two, I mean, tonight is really super duper loose, very, very blank. This one here has more detail. This one I took more time and it was slower. It's a little, little more precise. I never go for precision on these sketches, um, but if I slow it down, you can see the difference between slow sketching for me and then we have really fast rapid fire. Hey, Noel's in the house! Noel says these are so good. Hey, thanks Noel, always great to see you. Aloha, aloha, aloha. DB says I like the black and white, however if you add color, don't add too much. All right, DB, the challenge is on. You know, uh, you know how I am sometimes with adding color. Yeah, I go crazy. Oh my gosh, is that Cassie in the house on Instagram? Cassie, wow, it is amazing to see you. We need to catch up. You are amazing. All right, so I just have my Lockbee Quattro here with different colors happening. We're going to grab and go. I'm just going to use whatever colors I have in front of me here. I'm definitely going to use this, my favorite color. All right, DB, I'm going to try to restrain myself. Let's see how this works. Maybe I'll just use color to pop out the cables. So maybe we'll just kind of pop that over. I'm also streaming on Instagram at the same time, and I think Instagram only has a sliver of what I'm doing. So if you're on Instagram, you can't see the whole thing. I am so sorry, but I will post a final picture. You could also check it out on YouTube. Where I'm streaming. I'm also on Facebook as well. All right, so, so I just kind of wanted to pop the cables out maybe a little bit. No, I grabbed orange, but I'm going to change my mind. Usually I just go with my gut, and I don't know why. All right, you know, I will stick with orange. We'll see what happens. I'm getting Miami Dolphins vibe, vibe colors here. All right, this is in the ugly duckling stage. I am not— I am not liking this. So I would say all of my sketches have an ugly duckling phase where I really don't like, like them, and then, uh It has a turning point where things just kind of come together. So always give your artwork a chance to develop a little bit further, or step away, come back. Um, you'll feel it. You'll be like, oh man, I don't like this. And it'll transform at some point in time. You still may not love it, but it'll transform. It's like watching Bob Ross. I used to watch him all the time, and at the beginning I was, you know, when I watched the beginning of his shows, I'd be like, what is he doing? Then there was that moment that I waited for on every episode where magically I would— if I could snap, I would. Ouch, um, where magically the painting transformed. It came to life, it took shape, and you knew where he was headed. If you haven't watched Bob Ross paint in a long time, go for it, watch some episodes. You'll see, you'll see that it's so fun to experience that magic turning point. You know what I am going to do, guys? Uh, do I have an aqua brush? No. All right, not here. All right, I was going to bleed some of this. You can bleed Creative Markers before they dry. It's kind of fun to do. Alright, cool. All right, there we go. So I have how many colors? I have the, um, aqua, I have a blue on there, I have an orange, purple. I have 4 colors. DB says black and white with shadows looks very noir. Yes, I agree. I, I preferred, I preferred the black and white version of this. Yellow flags, DB, you know what, for you Because you're awesome, I am going to throw some yellow on there. It's got to grab right behind me here, right here. All right, let's throw some yellow on there. Why the heck not? So I have a little bin here of all, all different creative colors, creative marker colors. #IloveSharpie. By the way, if you ever want to know what I'm listening to, um, thanks to Noel, I started posting the playlist I'm currently listening to as I'm live streaming. Tonight I'm listening to the Talking Heads. Love the Talking Heads. All right, all right, DB, here you go. We got some yellow in the house. Let's do some yellow flags. That's fun. Ooh, I like that. It makes the flags pop. Cool idea. Cool idea. Thank you for the suggestion. So we got some yellow flags happening. All right, cool. Good call on the yellow. Noella over on YouTube is saying good call on the yellow. I'd love that. I forgot I could do this, guys. I can— we'll add to broadcast. DB says another workshop. Yes, another workshop is happening. I love that you asked me. So here's the scoop, um, I'm putting together a workshop on sketching industrial architecture. So sketches based on the, um, steel stacks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and you'll see a link really, really soon to joining a waitlist for the workshop. It's going to be a lot of fun. I have me pull out an example here. Do I have any on the backboard? Nope, I got one right in front of me. So here, I'll just pull this one down. So I've— you've probably seen me sketch the SteelStacks before. I have a really cool YouTube video. I can put a link in the comments later. It's about a 10-minute video of me sketching at the SteelStacks. It was It was awesome. My friend Al, um, who's kind of a real mentor to me, a real good friend, um, co-teacher, we— he shot the video. He teaches video production, so he came with me, took the video. I did some sketching and it was a lot of fun. Here's an example of, um, a sketch that was inspired, or inkspired. Inkspired. You see what I did there? Um, by the steel stacks. So the idea with the steel stacks is such a complicated structure, it's just finding shapes in it, pulling out shapes. And then this is a color palette I've really come to love for sketching industrial architecture, including the neon pink, the pops of that pink, which maybe we'll throw some on the Brooklyn Bridge. So yeah, so the workshop will be This is May. I'm gonna do the workshop in June, so stay tuned. I would love for you to join that, and I'll put in— I know you're on my email list, and I know where to find you on Facebook and all that, so I'll make sure you know about it. If anybody else wants to know about my workshops, you can go to my website at theinkspiredlife.com, and I have a waitlist or a signup right on there for free. You can sign up, just get on my email list, and I'll let you know when workshops are coming up. I'm just going to grab a neon color pencil behind me, the man says, as he can't find them behind them. So, oh yeah, I grabbed them. All right, um, also, I, I am going to do some live in-person sketching workshops in New York City this summer. It's been a dream of mine to do that. I want to at least do 1, 2, or maybe even 3 this summer. Um, be cool. We'll meet in a location, stay there, you know, and do some sketching, maybe grab a bite, and, uh, I'll go over some techniques, do do some sketching, could do some feedback. I think it'd be a lot of fun. So stay tuned for some announcements about in-person meetups and workshops. All right, let's pop on some of that pink. Here we go. Boom! My favorite way to add pink— Prismacolor neon pink color pencils. This is just a regular color pencil. And why do I like to use pink? For me, pink adds a sense of vibrancy, a sense of whimsy to my sketches. Um, you know, I just think, I think of whimsical places and magical places, you know. Um, I think Alice in Wonderland and just having that touch of whimsy, uh or even madness, like the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland, right? I just kind of like— I just like that in here because it's something— sometimes adding the unexpected can take your sketches to a really interesting place. Um, I love when people are like, why? You know, people are thinking, why did he do that? Why did he put pink? All right, so I got, I got a pop here, a pop here. I'll usually do it maybe either 3 or 5 places. I like to do odd numbers, so I have it 1, I have 2, and I got 3 here. Cool, awesome. This is fun, guys. Let me know if you have any questions or comments. I always love talking to you. What time is it? I'm gonna— I'll wrap up in a few minutes. All right, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go super cray cray. Super cray cray is in the house. Usually I like to bleed this ink. All right, let me grab an Aqua brush. Love my Lockbee stuff. I just seriously, I literally just turn on, grab this. I have a Lockbee set up with Aqua brushes. I have one set up with some color pencils, highlighters. Another one set up with creative markers. I use this stuff all the time. If you guys are interested in Lockbee and their products Check them out. I have a discount code in the bottom left of my screen. It's— the discount code is INKSPYRED where you can, um, save up to 10%. They do have some limitations, but I just love their stuff so, so much. Cool. All right, you know, here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna throw in this— I have a white shirt on. This could be dangerous. DB, yeah, so here's what I'll do. I'm gonna put the link in our chat right now for you. I'd be more than happy to do that. That'd be so cool. I'm currently reorganizing my websites and links, and I want to make things really easy and convenient and simple to find. So hopefully we'll have, uh, something revised soon. And, uh, Noel, if Noel's watching, Noel and Brian are— that's what they do, man. They're amazing people and highly recommend them for any kind of internet branding or marketing. Stuff. So shout out to you guys, I appreciate you so much. All right, I'm just finding this link here, so hold on, uno segundo. You probably hear that I'm tired in my voice. My brain isn't tired, my brain's fired up right now. This stuff fires my creative juices. My body's tired though. Where's my website link? I'm literally, uh, there we go. I have like 30 tabs open right now. While we're doing that, let's enjoy, uh, let's enjoy my background. Check out the wall in the back. If you've ever seen any sketches you like, let me know. They're all available for purchase. Um, I do have a gallery page I'm working on as well. But yeah, I'd love for these, these cool sketches to go to really awesome homes. I enjoyed looking at them, but I would love for, for you guys to enjoy them even more. All right, anyway, I, I'll get you that link, DB. No worries. You're actually— you're— you are already on my list, so you'll be notified. You're on the email list. Thank you for asking. My website is not loading up. Note to self: no es bueno. All right, let's go back and wrap up our sketch today. I just want to throw some of this— I love this color yellow, but I'm gonna do something even crazier with it. Oh, my website just opened. So this is a, this is a Preppy pen. They crack easily. You'll see tape on here. You can replace the cartridges inside, so you can see that cartridge in there with the rollerball. Um, but here's how I like to use these. I know I'm getting crazy. I actually like to use this color right out of the tube. Boom. All right, so, um, I'm going to live on the edge. I'm going to shake it and just let it splatter everywhere, kind of like I did here with watercolor. But let's just splatter this. It's going to be messy. I just going to back away. I don't want to get it on my nice white shirt, which has the Brooklyn Bridge on the back of it, actually. I know, what did he just do? I'm living dangerously. Um, let's do it this way. Run down a little bit. Kind of looks like it's on fire. I didn't want it to look like that, but, but I just love the color. That's kind of the point of this, just to show you the color of that orange, yellow-orange. It's so vibrant. It has a really cool, almost rusty color here at the bottom. Womp womp womp. All right, there you go. So I just wanted to show you that kind of technique. All right guys, I think I'm going to wrap up. Um, it's almost 10 o'clock here. I appreciate you all so, so much for watching. What I would do with this one is I would crop it, grab some frames. I would crop this one I kind of like this piece here, so I think I'd crop it, put a little mat around it. Just shifting mat around. Yeah, I kind of like it something like this, actually. So I think I would crop it like that. And I do love— I love the color that's happening here. Let me zoom in. I do love the colors on this. I love the orangey yellow rusty-ness happening here, especially when it contrasts with the aqua. So that is a lot of fun. Cool. All right, so I hope you enjoyed this quick sketch of the Brooklyn Bridge tonight. A little chit chat, some, uh, tips. Um, yeah, and I'm excited the Brooklyn Bridge's birthday is coming up Saturday. That'll be cool. Maybe I'll get there. I'm, I'm not sure. Probably not. Because I am going to the following Saturday. I'm definitely going, um, to sketch at the Domino Sugar Factory, one of my favorite, favorite, favorite buildings in the city. All right guys, this is, uh, this has been a lot of fun. I'm Jason Nicholas Nicholas with the Inkspired Life. Remember, you too can sketch the world around you, including architecture, one line at a time. Keep using your creativity for positivity, and let's just keep spreading good vibes out in the world. See you guys real soon. Take care.