Sketching the Brooklyn Bridge

Everybody, happy Saturday night, January 14th. Hope you're having a great, great day. Hope the weather is nice. Hope you're doing well. And yeah, I'm just popping on to do my daily bridge sketch. And I'm just doing a sketch inspired by the Brooklyn Bridge tonight. Hey, Karen's in the house. Karen, great to see you. Hope all's well. So, thought it'd be fun to pop on. I'm just using a Sharpie right now and just doing a little Brooklyn Bridge-ish type of sketch here. Do a perspective view of it. Um, yeah, this is one bridge I would love to, uh, to walk over. I have driven over it once and I definitely have, you know, I've seen it from a distance many times, but I actually have never walked over it. So that's my goal. Sometime this year I want to take a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. I think that'd be so cool. They have a nice pedestrian walkway, which is nice, which is great. You don't have to worry about cars or anything like that. There's actually even a separate bike path. So as a pedestrian, you don't have to worry about getting run over by a bike, or vice versa, if you're riding a bike, you don't have to worry about pedestrians getting in your way. So it's pretty cool. So I want to keep this kind of fast and loose. I'm thinking a little too much about what I'm sketching here. I'm not going for precision at all. I just want to capture the vibe of the bridge. So we'll throw down some Sharpie and I'll probably come back with my Lamy and we'll add, we'll bleed some ink on it as well. I'm feeling that tonight. Right now I'm feeling it. That could always change. Yes, let me sketch for a few minutes. I'll pop on, I'll see who's out there, say hello. Just kind of listen to the music for a few minutes and see where it takes us. I always appreciate you guys tuning in. It's so much fun to sketch live. Puts the pressure on me, um, not bad pressure, but pressure just to get something done. Come on here and try to keep it fun, try to keep it positive, keep the spirit going. Creative spirit alive. I just love that. So thank you guys for that, for the encouragement. I think that's the word I'm thinking for— thinking of. Yeah, my brain shuts off after 8. It must be after 8 o'clock. Yeah, creative brain is always on, but the memory part of my brain shuts off after 8 o'clock. It's very strange. It's just I've been that way for years. And then usually around 10, it'll wake up a little bit. But I could, I could sketch 24/7. It's just one of those things that kind of inkspires me in life. See what I did there? Inkspires me in life. So we have some cables up here, kind of coming out from the bridge. Boom. And then way back in the distance, back in here somewhere, we have another structure happening. We're going to make it pretty small back here. I want to give the illusion it's in the distance. We're going to keep it really, really small back here. I might even just keep it light for now. Um, but yeah, this— let's bring the bridge, the actual road surface down through here a little bit. We'll continue on this side of that structure. So there you go.

Cool.

And we got some lines in here and we have our arch, two arches happening. These archways are definitely iconic for the Brooklyn Bridge. I got to read. I really want to read more about the history of the Brooklyn Bridge. So I don't know if there might be some books out there. I'll have to Google and find out. So we kind of have this tower happening back here. Boom, cool. And we definitely have some cables that are drooping. Phew, some big swoops happening. So let me actually turn my page around. Let's do some swoops. Actually, before I do that, I want a swoop to kind of go from here. I'm gonna just mark a point from there. And we want to kind of go up here somewhere. What's the best angle to do this at? Maybe this way, let's swoop it. So we're gonna go—

shh.

So we got a big swoop. And the way I did that is I kind of started here where I put the point. I don't know if you can see that. And then I had a point here. And as I was sketching, I actually started here and I was looking at this endpoint where my finger is moving. So that's how I came up with that loop. So sometimes it's cool, you know, just put some points down. Um, yeah, there we go. So you guys know that I like seeing all the line work and sketches. I'm not trying to hide anything. I love architecture and old blueprints, and sometimes you see the guidelines on old blueprints, and I just love that. So something I like incorporating in my sketches is just seeing all the, you know, how it was laid out, where the mistakes happened, where the guidelines were. So I don't feel like I need to hide anything. There's kind of a swoop happening, kind of comes here and down here. We have a cable coming through here. Boom. We got a couple more coming through, maybe in here. We got one, we got some swoops happening there. And we got some swoops kind of coming up in there. There we go. All right, cool. So we got some swoops happening. We're going to actually— you're going to see, but I'll bleed some ink to make the bottom of the bridge here in shadow. I'm just going to kind of outline it like this. We'll just bleed that. I'm going to keep this really, really dark, I think. Cool. There you go. So let's bleed some ink on this. Karen says the Bridge series is great. Hey, thank you, Karen. I'm glad you're enjoying it. That's so cool. I'm having fun with the Bridge series for sure. It's been, it's been challenging in a good way. So thank you. Thank you. I'm glad you're liking it. I'm getting some really, really good feedback with it as well. Linda is in the house. Hey, Linda, how are you? It's great to see you. It's great to see you. I got close. I got this close, Inkling Guys, this close to starting a Zoom and seeing if you guys wanted to join, but I didn't do it. I'm kind of feeling a little tired today, so I didn't start a Zoom. I really wanted to. I was thinking about it. If you guys wanted to join, but I'm kind of feeling a little tired today, so I didn't do that. I did want to at least come on and sketch for half hour or so. And then we have our— we have our wires kind of our guidelines, guide wires happening in here. For the bridge. They'll kind of come back to a point here, lightly dragging them on there. So we have that happening. We also have some really light— very lightly here, we have the same thing happening. And back in here we have— there is actually— this is in perspective. So let me just kind of— I'm going to keep this tower area light back there.

Cool.

Let's see, get some details, some shadows, stuff happening. We have our kind of guard— some kind of guardrail across here. So I'm going to quickly sketch some vertical lines, show the guardrail. By the way, you guys probably noticed I have it— I have two cameras on, well, three actually, but I added this one right here. I don't know what it looks like. Why do I— I can see it actually. I thought it'd be cool just to have a different angle on screen when I'm sketching. So let me know if you guys like this camera here on the bottom right. Is it adding any benefit, any value? Can you guys— I don't know, I just wanted to show like a different perspective of kind of my hand and how it's going down on the paper. So I'm curious to know if you guys think it's a good idea or not. Let me know. I always value your opinions. Alright, cool. Alright, let's bleed some ink on this bad boy. So again, this is just inspired by the Brooklyn Bridge. I'm gonna keep this kind of— I really wanna focus on this piece, so I've been doing a lot of sketches where I'm kind of fading off part of the bridge. You may have seen that. Where is it? You may have seen that on my, the bridge I didn't stain. Augustine, the bridge of lions, kind of just faded off the one end. Cool. So I'm just gonna, we're just gonna bleed some Lamy ink. I'm keeping this simple tonight. Sharpie and a Lamy, I think that's all we're gonna use. So let me put my Sharpie there. We got the Lamy. And I have some water here, and where's my brush? Where the heck is my brush? Hmm. Oh boy. I mean, I have— I do have this. I have my Aqua brush. I have a whole thing of brushes here, so I don't know why I'm just looking for the bamboo brush I've been using. I really like it, but it has escaped. Where the heck did it go? That's so weird. Is it under? Hold on, I think it rolled underneath my board. Here it is, I got it. We're doing a little, um, little retrieval mission here. Under my board. Oh, there's the cap. All right, found it. I also found the cap to my Aqua Brush. I don't know how it got under there, but that's where it was. Um, hope you guys are doing well. Pardon my craziness, my silliness. I'm gonna get a drink here, I'm pretty thirsty. Uh, QQQ, are you looking at a bridge or is this from memory? Yeah, so I'm actually— I'll show you what I'm looking at. I'm actually looking at a postcard. Good question. Good question, Linda. So let me put my water here. I'm actually looking at a postcard from Junior's Bakery— not bakery, Junior's Restaurant— in Brooklyn, actually. So I'm using this postcard right here as a reference. Can I do the Brooklyn? I could actually do it from memory. I'm pretty good. I would be able to capture The main towers, not a problem. I could do that from memory. But the reason I'm looking at the postcard tonight is I wanted to— I'm just trying to get the perspective. So I just wanted to see how this kind of went down and to this tower down here. It's a really good question. So I'm looking at a reference postcard tonight. Yeah, don't be afraid to use references. I mean, there's nothing wrong with it. So I'm throwing down some Lamy. The reason I start off with my Sharpie first on most of my sketches is because I don't know if I'm gonna bleed the ink. If I did everything with my Lamy and I bled the ink, there's a danger I would bleed way too much ink and it would become really muddy. So when I start with a Sharpie, I can lay the groundwork because Sharpies won't bleed with the water. And then I can come back with a Lamy and then throw down ink on top of the areas I kind of know I want to bleed. It's like, for example, I know I want this area to be kind of like in shadow, shadow-ish. Let's do something here. And maybe back in here, we'll just bleed this. And then I know the bottom side of the bridge here, I want to kind of make this dark. So I'm going to throw just a line across here, line of lammy. A line of lammy, that's interesting. A line of lammy. All right, so I'm just dipping my brush in water and let's just bleed some of this. It's gonna be quick and loose with this, not trying to stay in any sort of lines. You can see how it's just bleeding, creating just some dark areas, add a little bit of shadow, shadow edge happening. Is that a word? Shadow edge? Some shadowing. So this is black Lamy ink. I have blue Lamy ink, which is really nice. Maybe I'll do a sketch with that tomorrow. I want to bleed some ink in here. I just want this to all be dark and shadow. So I'll bleed the ink, and I'll probably come back with my Sharpie and just do hatch lines on top of it. There we go. That's cool. Let that water run down. That's fine with me. Boom. Here we go. Just going to touch some of that ink there. I'm, I'm just tapping my brush down. I'm not even painting. I'm just kind of just tapping it in areas. We're dabbing. Let's see, there's some more. I don't know, let's just throw some shadows up here. Why not? It's the why not method of sketching, or I like to call it sketch painting. Just why not? Why are you doing that? Why not? So welcome to the why not today. Taste pro tip: the why not method. Why are you doing it? Why not? Cool. Yeah, this is cool. Quick, loose. I'm, I'm actually liking it. Um, after it dries, I'll come back with my Sharpie. I'll probably show some of the block work on the, on here. I'll definitely add some hatch lines. As well. Linda says, "I have an easier time when I look at something." Absolutely, I get it. Some people feel like when they look at images they are cheating, but there's nothing wrong with it. Totally. I mean, especially the Brooklyn Bridge I have sketched a bunch of times. The Astoria-Megler Bridge in Oregon and Washington, I've sketched that a few times, so I can pretty much do that one from memory. But some of these other— most of these other bridges, I— like the ones in Venice, I have to look at pictures. I've never sketched them before. I have never seen them in person. And this back in here, I just want to show— I want to throw this whole little piece back here. Um, you know what I'm going to use? Actually, we're going to use graphite. I'm going to actually just want to put this all like dark, but I want to use graphite for that. So I'm going to throw my graphite down on the board and we're going to lift it off. Reason I'm using graphite, I don't want it to be too, too dark. I want to start off lighter, and the graphite will dry nice and light. But I just want to create the idea that this is way back here. Again, I'm not trying to stay inside any lines. So I'm actually— I decided to use graphite here. I want to show the texture of the paper. I'll zoom in so you can see what I'm talking about. Move this down a little bit. So I'm using graphite. I like the texture of the paper showing through right here. Where's my frame? I'll show you guys. Focus on it. So right in that square, I love that texture showing through, and graphite sticks to a really nice job. If you just keep them really lightly, uh, touching the paper, you can do a nice job of getting a texture to show through. It's just one of those things for me, like texture of the paper is another Another tool we have in our creative tool bag here. Or is it a toolbox? Or is it a tool shed? Let me know. Toolbox, tool shed. And you could also see as I zoom out, we have left hand smudge syndrome happening. I got some here. Boom. Got some here as well. But it's fine, it's fine. I'm just playing around, just practicing. I might end up doing a sepia wash. Actually, let's do that, guys. We're gonna— let's add a sepia wash kind of around the bridge. I do want to throw down some more lamby on this, I think.

I'm going to wait for it to dry. Let's see.

You know what I might actually— you know what I'm going to do?

All right. Here's what I want to do.

One of the cool things I like about Lamy ink is when you go back over it with water, it, it changes color. Sometimes it'll change to a bluish color or grayish or greenish. It's interesting ink. It's very fun. Yes, ink could be fun. Cool. I like this piece. I wouldn't even mind just taking this part here and framing. I wouldn't even mind just taking this piece and framing it like this and calling it a day, right? You know, I'm trying to do the whole perspective thing, but we'll, we'll keep working on it, but I think for me, framing this— boom— is perfect. Cool stuff. Hey, Jean's in the house! Jean, good to see you. Jean says beautiful. Thanks, Jean, I appreciate that. Yeah, Karen, um, yes, this is my— this is water-soluble graphite. I'm trying to see if I have one in the wrapper I can show you. Hold on, I have one here somewhere. Let me grab it for you. Um, it's in my—

I think I have—

do I have some in here? I think I have some in here. Let me show you. Yeah, yeah. So here, here's what it looks like. By the way, guys, I love this tool roll. This is— I'm going to give Lockabee a plug here because I love Lockabee and their products. Um, so I'm going to plug it because I love their stuff. And also, if you go to my website, there is a discount code you can use for Lockabee. Just saying. Go to theinspiredlife.com, right on my homepage, you scroll down, you'll see a discount code for Lockbee. But anyway, uh, this tool roll is so cool. I'm using this one to keep my watercolor markers mostly. So it's so awesome. It has this nice little zipper area here, a pouch you could put stuff in. I know I got off topic. We're supposed to be talking about the Graphite. I promise I'll get back to that. There are pockets in here. You can see I have like a field journal in here, so there's some pockets. You know, and it rolls up really nice. So let me roll it up and I'll show you that thingy, that ArtGraph thingy. Alright, cool. So this is— let's try this camera down here. For fun. I don't know if it's focusing. I don't know if you guys can see it in that camera. I don't think it's focusing. I'll just do it in this camera. Whoa, there we go. So it's an Art Graph Stick, water-soluble graphite. Um, they last a while, so I love using these. I've been using these for a few years. And then if you guys were watching last night, I'll just kind of show these again.

Where the heck are they?

Oh, they're here. Duh. I actually just got these as well from ArtGraph. These are really, really cool water-soluble I love the shapes. They're really, for me, they're really messy to use, but I love— hey, it's not art unless you're wearing it, right? So I definitely like to wear these things. But so this is what it looks like. I used these last night, I think it was the night before, for the very first time. Really cool. And maybe I'll play with that on here. Or not. I gotta think about that. But yeah, so this is another water-soluble graphite product here. I love ArtGraph stuff. Uh, here's what I used it on so you guys can see. This was the first time I had ever used those, and you can see this is all ArtGraph graphite, the red color. Which they call sanguine or sanguine, not sanguine. Looks like linguine, sanguine, but I think it's sanguine. It's like a wine color. This is ochre. Never really used ochre until I did this. So we've got some ochre. Um, oh, what other color? This is a brown. I think this was the sepia maybe, or this was the dark brown, I think. Dark brown color. So this is cool. This was a fun kind of NYC sketch. Awesome. Hey, you guys are amazing. Thank you for the questions. I appreciate it. Let me know if you have any more Qs. I'm gonna wrap up probably 8:45, 8:45, so I can go and enjoy some television or maybe a movie with my peeps. Um, okay, Linda says, I like your frame the way you did. Oh, thanks. Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. This, this would be the final piece. I like it much better than the whole composition, to be honest with you, but I'm just practicing here. Um, pro tip: always sketch or paint a bigger scene than you actually want because you can crop it out. That we— I talked about that last, last night with this piece here. You know, let me zoom out here. This is the overall piece. It's pretty big. It's on a 12 by 18 sheet of paper, right? So here's my hand. But what I really like about this, and maybe I need a little bit bigger frame, but I love this section. So let's zoom in. I'll show you the whole thing. It's cool. This was fun. I was playing around, just practicing with the materials, never used them before. And then last night I was like, you know what, I really would love to crop out this section. Let me zoom in. I'll show you what it looks like to me. I, I I think this little vignette of the overall piece is pretty awesome. I love the composition. I love the balance of the white space with the colored space here. And it's just a cool little snapshot. So I love snapshots. Whenever I'm walking around, I'm looking at the world and I take, I take like mental snapshots. Of things I'm looking at. So it's really weird, my brain's kind of trained to edit scenes out where I can just snapshot moments in time. And sketching for me too, when I'm out sketching, snapshots, I like to sketch really small, quick thumbnail snaps, snapshot sketches. There you go. So I think that's a cool little piece right there. All right, let's, um, what do I want to do with this one? Oh, is it dry enough yet? I think I'm gonna— it is. I think I want to come back and let's throw some more lines on here. I just want to add some texture for the block work. Karen got my sister a Lockbee, they are very cool. Oh, that's cool, Karen, I'm so glad. Yeah, I can't speak enough about Lockbee products. It all started with their field journal, which I, I mean, this is pretty much always with me no matter where I go. I love the field journal. Sorry, I'm not trying to sound like a commercial, but just sharing with you tips with the tools I like to use. Started with their field journal, I love. I have their small pocket journals as well, which are convenient, easy to carry around. Check this out, I don't know if you guys can see this, I actually tried laser engraving the COVID So I use the laser at my school, because I can laser on different materials. Materials. I took one of my sketches of a sea— seaside shack in Maine, and I engraved it on the back of this. It's like a cloth, like a denim material maybe. And I know it's hard to see this on camera, but this is— oh, there we go, that's actually catching it there. So that sketch is engraved on here. So that was actually really cool. I'm going to do it to my big field journal as well. And I have their tool roll. I have, uh, yeah, all right, so that's my Lockbee plug. Hey, Lockbee, if you're watching, shout out to you guys. Love the littles. Yeah, so Linda, you have been mastering the littles. You're "House paintings you've been posting are off the charts." Awesome. Love it. Love, love seeing them. Just those little slices of, uh, life, right? Why devour a whole slice of apple pie in one shot when you can just have a little bit of that slice at a time. Enjoy life— I guess I'm hungry— enjoy life by the slice. No matter how you slice it, life is good. I'm going into marketing mode. I always, every once in a while, think about it would have been cool to have been in marketing, coming up with slogans. Catchphrases. So I'm just going to sketch some block work on here, just keeping it loose and light. But I'm going to show you how I can use hatching lines to help add with this, add to the shadows. So let's zoom in. I don't need to zoom Zoom in. I'm gonna just add some hatching. Let's do— do I wanna do vertical? Well, let's start in the arches here. So in the arches, I'm just gonna do some— zoom in. And I'm just gonna go and give some hatch lines here just to help create a little bit of depth. I like to do this because it keeps with my loose style. I love lines and how lines can use to be expressed different things. So I just kind of hatched those in and made it a little darker. Are these shadows perfect? Nope. Are they realistic? I don't know, maybe-ish. But it's just adding a little bit of interest to what I sketched here. Underneath, I'm gonna do— so I'm doing these at an angle because of the perspective, just trying to add to that depth of the arch. But here, I'm gonna go vertical. I just want to express the verticality of this piece of the bridge. So I'm not doing diagonal, I'm just doing vertical hatch lines. Oops, my Sharpie's getting— Sharpie's drying out, I think. Which I actually like to sketch with Sharpies that are drying out. They create really interesting lines. So I'll use my Sharpies until, um, Till I can't use them no more. It's a little wet here, so Sharpie does not like to sketch on the wet surfaces. It's damp paper. And I'm just gonna pull this edge out here. It's like a pier coming down. Pull that out. Same thing here, we'll come down. Kind of steps out a little bit there.

Mm-hmm.

So, I actually need to— this is one of the reasons I love loose style sketching is I need to add a whole nother line here for the bridge, for this trestle area. And when you have loose sketches, it's easy for me to just come back in and add a piece and looks kind of— looks like it was there already because it's not perfect. So now I got that piece in, which I definitely needed to add in. Yeah, this is looking cool. I think actually this part of the bridge, I am going to go to this way. It's the bottom. Trying to darken that up a bit. There you go. Linda says thank you. You're welcome. That shadow makes the middle stand out. That shadow that makes the middle stand out is cool. Oh, so cool. This one here. Yeah, there's some depth to the bridge. This actually does pop out. So just adding the shadow, boom, you got a little pop, little pop going there. Grab a drink here. Hope you guys are liking this, this vignette sketch. Um, let me know, should I add a sepia wash in the background? I'm actually really going to focus on just this piece. I mean, I might wash the whole thing, but in the end, this will be the piece that I feel is the keeper. Of this. Or let's see, I have this frame here. Is this too big? That's way too big. That's not going to work. How about this one? Nah, that could work also, that size. But I kind of like— maybe if I had a quarter of an inch around this opening on each side. Would be a little bit better. The proportions, I kind of want it to be more vertical, so I think I would cut, cut this matting back a little bit. But this is just what I have here to test it out. Hey, D-Ray, good to see you! Hope all is well. D-Ray's in the house. It's good to see you. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna put a sepia wash, and I'm gonna use What do I want to use? I don't want to use the graphite. Let's use my sepia watercolor brush marker. So I, I do like these Winsor Newton watercolor markers. I'll tell you my favorite colors that I try to keep on hand in here. So I have my faves I like to keep are Gamboge Yellow right here, Cerulean Blue right here, and I think this is Sap Green. Sap Green, is that right? Let's check it out. Yeah, Sap Green. So these three are my fave. And also the Sepia. These four are my favorite. Winsor Newton, um, watercolor markers. I do have some gray tones in here as well, which are fun for using for shadows. But we're going to throw some sepia on here. And so here's my technique. I like to put the sepia on the board. Actually, coffee would look cool, but I don't have a coffee wash ready to go. Teresa says, "I agree." Linda says, "That black makes it stand out." Yeah, definitely. Hey, I'm so glad to see you guys. You're awesome. You may have noticed in the chat, I don't know if it's showing up, it might only be showing up on YouTube. I don't know if it's showing up on Instagram— or Facebook. Um, so I have a link. I don't know if it's on Facebook or not. Oh, it is actually, about a membership. I want to start a monthly membership thingy, but I'm looking for your guys' feedback and input. Um, and I'm just curious if anybody would ever be interested in joining a monthly membership and maybe some of the things you would like to see in that membership. So there's a link. If you could fill it out, that would be so awesome, just to give me feedback. And yeah, there you go. I said through this— talking a lot tonight— through the marker down there, I'm just going to lift it off and we're We're gonna— it's gonna kind of— let me throw down some water here. I just want to add some sepia around this bridge. Let the music talk for a few minutes here. I'm just gonna change up the tunes, um, let's go to a different playlist. Alright, cool. I kind of like that sepia background. It has a— it creates an interesting mood here. Um, what's your new marker? Sepia. Yes, D-Ray, you got it. Karen says, I signed up. Is it— it is on Google? Yeah, it's on Google. I don't know if— it's actually a good point. I don't know if you guys can access it or not. I created a Google form. Let me know if you can access that Google form. That would be so helpful. I didn't even think about that. I'm just so used to creating them at school that obviously my students have access to all, you know, my school stuff. But this is— I created with my personal Google, so I don't know if it's accessible for you guys. I hope so. So I'm just darkening just some areas as this dries. I'm just throwing down some more on here. No particular order, I'm just— I kinda like the back here, it looks almost like it's in a haze. It's interesting. Cool. I don't want to overdo it, so I think I'm going to leave it at like this and let it dry. Um, and let's see what it looks like with the frame section. Actually, this is going to dry really nicely here. I like that darkness. So we'll have nice hard edges when that dries. We have some really cool hard edges happening in here. Pan down, or I'll move the thing down. I'll zoom in so you can see it better, right? I like the hard edges that are happening here. I purposely tried to keep it away from the bridge. I want to leave a little white space around the bridge, so you'll— that's intentional. Yeah, I like the hard edges. This is a little a little too hard for me right in here.

But that's okay.

Oop. Let me see, do I wanna mess with it? I guess I do, 'cause I'm messing with it.

There we go.

Just wanna soften it just a little bit. Cool. I'm actually gonna bring some of that sepia down into these shadows here. I can't see 'cause it's zoomed in too much. There we are. Maybe we'll even do some, uh, sepia underneath the bottom of the bridge. Walnut ink would have been another good choice. I have walnut ink, which would have been darker than the sepia. So sepia, walnut ink, or a coffee would have been cool here as well. Oh, I like what I just did there. That was a— that's a happy accident right there, guys. Boom! Dang, I like how that just traveled down there. I'm leaving that, I don't even want to touch it. Brushes down, brushes down. Gives a comfy hue. Oh, thanks. Yes, a haze. Yes, it's accessible if you have a Google account. Okay, thanks, Karen. So you need to have a Google account, good to know. Yeah, that would be fun to see an instant replay. I'll have to go back and take the video footage and, um, I can edit it and do like a slow-mo kind of— watch the ink travel down. I'm afraid to move it. Here's— let's kind of do the frame thingy. If we were to frame it. I don't want to— I'll just hold it over there. Um, I do want to pull this out after it dries. I do want to darken this. And I did notice there's something I definitely need to do. I need to pull this edge of the bridge down here. Because I added that piece afterwards. And technically it would come down, you would see it coming down in here. So I have to kind of add that piece in. Um, and then I would— when it dries, I do want to pull this edge out. I think I'm just tapping my Lambie down a little bit here. We could actually probably pull out this edge after it dries a little bit too. I'm not, I'm not vibing with with this music tonight. I'm being fussy with my music tonight. Um, I don't know. I'm like in a weird musical mood tonight. I'm just gonna pick— let's pick this one here. Bullfight. Let's play this one called "Bullfight." There we go. I'm pretty fussy about my music. Different music helps me, affects me in different ways. I think it's true for everybody. Music can affect us in different ways. I just get frustrated sometimes because the music I want to listen to, I can't. I can't because of copyright stuff, and it stinks. But I get it. I understand. So I have— I subscribe to this service which has awesome music, but it's not the music I want to listen to. It's really interesting. It's not, not a complaint, not a complaint. I'm blessed to have any kind of music to listen to. Let's throw some graphite down. I just want to get some of that texture we had going earlier. Oh yeah, now we're talking! Let me show you. Yeah, I like that. I love the texture showing through right there. Maybe we'll drag some down in here. Let's Dipping my graphite into water, and I'm just gonna lightly kind of sketch paint on here.

Ooh, it's working on—

alright, I'll wrap up at 9.

Cool, there we go.

There we go, I like that. Fussy Jason's being fussy over music, so we're on to a bullfight. Yeah. That was definitely fun music. I love, I love, I love Spanish music, flamenco music. I love all that stuff. It's so fun. It's interesting to sketch that. Let's see, I'm just looking at titles of songs here. Let's see, I have no idea. Here, this one's called Beautiful Venice. Beautiful Venice. Yeah guys, I think this one's done. I want it to dry and we'll come back maybe to it, but let me put the mat on. We can kind of get it taste of what it could look like finished. This music goes with my dinner I had tonight. I made, um, I made homemade bolognese sauce. Oh my God, so good. I am hungry again. We didn't have rigatoni though, so I used regular spaghetti. Spaghetti. Spaghetti with homemade bolognese. It was so yummy. I'm just looking at this in different formats. That's actually kind of a cool format this way also. I think I'm liking the horizontal. Let's see if we go over to this way. I'm liking the horizontal format. This could go either way for me. It could go horizontal or vertical. You don't have to show the whole bridge, do I? That's kind of interesting also. I don't know, I think I'm liking the horizontal on this one better. Maybe, maybe here. There we go, something like that. This one is done, turn vertical. D-Ray likes it vertical. I made baked ziti. Oh nice! Hey, Dawn's in the house! Dawn, good to see you. Do you have to buy— do you have to buy the copyrights for music? Yeah, so there's a service I subscribe to. It's called Epidemic Sound. I pay a monthly fee to use that service. I think it's $20 a month. I think I have to look at the price. And I can use any of the music on that site because I'm paying to use it. So that's what you hear. You hear all this Epidemic Sound music. Which is great. They have so many different songs, which I love. But, you know, in my brain I'm like, oh, I want to listen to, you know, a song I've been listening to a lot lately. I love this song. It's Phil Collins, Another Day in Paradise. I have listened to that song over the years so many times. That song has such a great message. If you don't know it, check it out. Phil Collins, Another Day in Paradise. And whenever I hear that, it just resets, reframes my perspective about life and how fortunate I am to have shelter, right? It's a song about homelessness. You know, I just— it's a great song. I'd love to play that and talk to you guys and It inspires me to be a better person and to do things to help out. So, that's kind of what I'm talking about. And then I go from that to like Green Day. So, I can just kind of do some head banging over here. Well, that's Metallica. You could listen to that. So, I am very musically oriented when it comes to creating. This one's called Seashore. Let's see what it sounds like.

Seashore.

I know I'm not sketching a lot right now, guys. I'm trying not to move this too much. I want it to dry. If you guys want to see one more quick sketch, let me know, and then we'll wrap up. Landscape takes away too much of what popped. Okay, hey D-Ray, that's awesome feedback. I always appreciate your guys' feedback. Pardon my big arm in the camera there. Let's take another look while it's drying. Hope you guys don't mind this. It's part of the creative process. Yeah, I mean, this could definitely go either way. I would— the opening for me would have to be— I'd want to see more of the height if I did landscape. See, look at my little cardboard frame here. You know, if I have— if we look at the cardboard frame, something like this landscape could work. We do vertical. So, D-Ray, I totally get what you're saying. So I totally appreciate the feedback. Thank you so much. Guys, let me know if you have any last final questions before we wrap up here. I think I can move this now safely. Yeah, Donna says she agrees, landscape needs to be bigger. Yeah, I'm with you guys, totally makes sense. I have a huge— this is a huge frame. Not huge, but This is a— so the overall size of this is 6 by 8. So that would— the outside edges are 6 by 8. So that's what a 6 by 8 would look like on this. I love just having these little cardboard framey things. I just keep them here. I have this one as well. I just always keep these handy just to see what things could look like. At different sizes. Yeah, if this was definitely a— if it was more like of this format type of framing, like this paper, it would look better. Long and narrow, like a panoramic kind of format. I guess that'd be like, what, 16:9 format? 16:9. Cool, guys. Uh, but you did mention trimming the frame. Yeah, one more sketch. Yeah, I'm gonna do one. I'm gonna do something here. Let's do something. So we did our bridge sketch today. Awesome. This is bridge sketch number— oh my gosh, 45. I think this is bridge 45. I started beginning of December, end of November, somewhere in there. I believe this is Bridge Sketch 45, so let me just write it on here. I've been trying to write— normally I'm very bad at dating my drawings. Although, if you were to date a drawing, where would you take it? Ba dum bum tsh! If you were to date a drawing, where would you take it? I'm sure there's a pun out there somewhere. Where would you take a drawing on a date? Brooklyn Bridge. Brooklyn Bridge. Um, bum bum bum.

Heart.

Paper's a little damp. Jason Nicholas Nicholas. Year 2023. Brooklyn Bridge, NYC. I wish I could write this, but I don't know how many versions I've sketched because normally I put like 1.0, 2.0, 3.0. Depending on how many times I've sketched this bridge. If I had to guess, hmm, 1, 2, I'm in deep contemplation. I need contemplation music. Here's a song called The Architect. Let's see what this sounds like. The Architect. As I contemplate. Man, I don't know, 12? 13? I don't know. 20? I gotta go back and look at everything I did. Anyway, that's enough for now. It doesn't matter. Alright, cool guys, so here's the Brooklyn Bridge. This sketchbook, we're almost out of paper. We only have one more sheet left in this one. Let me grab a different book. I think I'm almost— I've been sketching like a madman. I think I'm almost out of sketchbook. Sketches on this one. No, no, this is the new one I started. Alright, good. So we're in good shape with this one. Uh, I've been doing bridges in this one. I don't really feel like sketching a bridge right now. So I'm gonna get something else to sketch on. What else could I grab? You know me. Alright, you know, we're just going to sketch in my field journal. I love to carry binder clips with me. Here's another tip. I always love to have a binder clip with me. There's so many uses of them. So I keep this one here. It's great for holding down pages. Here's a bridge I sketched in here. So you can do light ink washes or light water washes in this Field Journal, this paper. It's fairly thin paper, as you can see. You can do light washes and the paper will get wrinkly, which is okay. That came out kind of cool. Those are notes for me. Notes I took in school. So let's just clip this down. We'll do a quick sketch in here. We'll zoom out. All right, cool. There we go. Um, let's just sketch. No, actually, let's play some of this graphite. Let's just mess around with some of this. I want to see how this graphite, how it translates onto this type of paper. Um, let's see.

Here, let's go back to— Very cool.

That was just a fun little quick sketch there.

Awesome.

Boom. Hey Heather, good to see you. Hope all's well. Great to see you. Hey, Chip's in the house. Good to see you, Chip. Great to see you. Awesome. Yeah, so this was just a quick little sketch. I wanted to play with these little graphite sticks on this really thin paper. Again, this can hold a light wash. I kind of have it really saturated, so it's buckling. I actually went through to the next sheet. Um, that's okay. It's fun to play around. Cool. Now let's take a look at how the Brooklyn Bridge is drying over there and we'll wrap up. Um, let's see. Linda says, getting close to 50. Are we talking about my age or is that the number of bridges? I'm kidding. I wish I was getting close to— if I was getting close to 50, I'd be regressing and going backwards. So I would take that for sure. Yeah, cool. Let me hold this a little closer. You can see it. Oops. Just a fun, whimsical little sketch. Maybe a factory. Maybe some beachside cottages. No, it looks like a factory. I had a factory in mind with like smokestacks on the side. Um, so I bled some Lammy there towards the end just to add a little bit of depth and some darkness. Very quick, very loose, just kind of sketching to the music. But here's the Brooklyn Bridge, and we'll see how that's drying. And here we go. Here's our piece we worked on tonight. Boom. It's drying really, really nicely. I do want to come back and add some more hatch lines with my Sharpie. I think it's dry enough now. You also noticed the last sketch I pulled out my— I love this. This is my favorite color pencil here. Color colored pencil. Favorite color of colored pencil. My gosh, brain's turned off. Light Aqua. Love this color. It really goes well with Sepia. I almost would— should I pop some Light Aqua on here just for the heck of it? Hmm. I feel like this needs a pop somewhere. It's missing a pop. I don't know where to pop or what to pop on it. Isn't there a Dr. Seuss book called Hop On Pop? I think there was. Hey, Chip says, hey guys, sorry I'm late. Chip, you are not late, you're right on time. You guys could never be late because I don't say what time I'm gonna be on, so, so there you go. So you guys are not late. If this was school and the bell rang then you would be late. But we did not ring any bells tonight, so you're awesome and I appreciate you just tuning in. Appreciate all you guys just putting up with my very, very loose online schedule. It's just kind of how I roll doing this stuff, so thank you guys for sticking with me. I've had people in the past complain to me like, you're not on regular, and you know You know what, they don't, they don't, they actually don't follow me anymore, which is fine, that's cool. I understand people sometimes need to have schedules and I get it, but it's just not how I roll with this stuff. I like to keep it loose and light and pop on when I'm up for it, have the energy. So thank you guys, I do appreciate your flexibility and for sticking with me. It means a lot to me.

Me.

Like, really means a lot. So thank you so much. Hey, uh, hey Chip, Heather says, "I'm late, I've been quilting." Ooh, Heather, what are you quilting? Can you tell us in the chat? What are you making? And maybe you already did, but I don't, I don't know. I'm probably way behind on the chat here, but what are you quilting? That is so cool. I wish I had a talent for, for that kind of stuff. I'm just darkening this up with some vertical lines here. I think this one's done. Didn't I say that like an hour ago? I think it's done. I keep pulling it out though.

It's okay.

Cool. I do want to— I do want to show you guys again how the texture is showing through from that graphite stick. And to me, this texture just adds some more character. I love the texture. Paper tip. So the paper— oh, so the paper I was— so this is the paper I was using in the— this is my field journal, Lochbie Field Journal. This is the paper I was using. It's awesome paper. I love this stuff, but it's not really meant for saturating. You can do light washes with it. But sometimes I go a little heavy with it. But this is the paper I was using. Um, turquoise! Heather's like, "Turquoise! Yes!" Let's hear it for turquoise! T-Ray says, "Hash lines." Oh boy, yeah, we got the hatch lines going here. Love cross-hatching. Single hatching, quadruple hatching. No bells, no bells in tonight's class. We are a bell-free classroom tonight. She says, "I love quilting almost as much as painting and drawing." That's awesome, so cool. I love eating almost as much as painting and drawing, eating like things I shouldn't be eating, treats. Ice cream. I love that, that's awesome, so cool. So I just wanted to zoom in so you guys can see the texture happening. Quilting a baby blanket for your granddaughter, ah, that is so cool, love it. That'll be a keepsake that she can treasure for years to come, so awesome. D-Ray says, "Thank you, Jason Nicholas Nicholas, we like the way you roll. Another great visit." D-Ray, thank you, dear, hope you're feeling well, hang in there. Hang in there. Hope you're, you're resting and feeling better. Dawn says, I think your favorite part of this bridge is the dark shadow on top of the middle column on the larger end. That shadow is a chef's kiss good. Ooh, I like that description. Let's see if we can find the shadow you're talking about. Dawn, I love that. I love when you guys comment on this. It's so cool. So let's see, uh, dark shadow on top of the middle column here. The shadow right here. Zoom in again. So I think you're talking about this right here. Oh, let's do it this way. Okay, we got our frame out. I think you're, you're talking about this area right in the frame. Um, let's get a good drink here. Hey, thank you guys. I'm just catching up with comments with you guys. Let me see, guys. I love the comments tonight. I love when the comments are flying in the chat. This is so cool. Gives me even more energy to keep going. Um, I like that you are spontaneous with your sketching, keeps us "on our toes looking for it. Fun." Oh, thank you, Linda, that's cool. I'm glad you guys like my bad hair and my spontaneous sketching. So cool. "T-Ray knows me, pizza." Oh my God. I said to my wife the other day, I am obsessed with pizza. I don't know why. I crave pizza 24/7. It's really strange. And no, I am not having a baby. So there you go. Yeah, he's heavy with— yeah, I'm heavy with the light watches. I am heavy. I just have a need to create and learn. Oh, Jean, I love that. That's so cool. I'm with you. I love learning. I love learning. Learning is growing. Learning equals growing, and I'm always trying to grow in different, different ways. Oh, at the very top where it is very dark. Awesome. That's it. Oh, so I got it. Thank you. Chip says, love the depth and how the other side looks. Between the fog. Oh, Chip, I'm so glad you said that because you joined late. Yeah, we were talking about how this is kind of hazy back here. So I just really, really, really light popped out the outline. So I'm glad you said that. The idea was that this would be hazy. So that is cool that you said that. Again, just trying to create some depth here. Not a lot of detail, but just the outline. That's so cool. Thank you for saying that. You guys are awesome. 9:25. I think I'm getting ready to rock out of here. Did I say rock out of here? Is that an expression? Rock out here? Rock out of here? So cool. So I think this one we'll call finished. Again, it's just The debate is in the air. You know, if we were to frame this and crop it out, would we vertical or we do a nice like a 16:9 landscape or panoramic kind of frame around the whole thing or just focus on that part. And it's always good to have options, guys, right? My hand, my arm's in the way.

There we go.

Kind of cool. Hey, let me know, guys. I need your feedback. Let me know the cam— the image I have in the bottom right, this camera here where my finger's pointing. Oh, my battery only has 20% remaining. Do you like this camera? Is it adding anything to what we're looking at or not really? Just let me know. I put it on tonight, trying something new, so I'm curious to know what you think. And my battery is dying in this camera, which is weird because it's plugged in. Hmm, plug into the computer. I have a battery pack here. I'm gonna wrap anyway, but let me just plug this into here, so give me a sec. I don't know if that's gonna work. What if I do this in here? Will that work? I think that'll work. Let's try that.

I think that'll work.

Uh, yeah, it's charging. Cool. Karen says, I usually catch you at 5 or 7 PM. Love it. Oh, that's great, Karen. So awesome. Yeah, I know you're out on, uh, out there in California. So cool. Haze makes the bridge sketch on the right pop. Rock out, Jason. Gotta run. Hey, D-Ray, have a great night. Take care. Hope you're feeling better. Thank you for tuning in and please keep warm out there in Alaska. Cool, guys. We'll call that one finished. I have one more sheet in this. Who would like to— I'm not going to sketch it tonight. Tell me what bridge you guys would like to see. For the last sketch in the sketchbook. Here's the last page. What bridge would you like me to sketch on this last sheet? I'm not going to sketch it tonight, but I will get a Post-it note and put it on there so I remember. Give me some suggestions for bridges you want to see on this page as I go get my Post-it notes back here. Got some Post-its here. We gotta do, you know, we have to do our art giveaway sometime soon. The mystery art giveaway. All right, let's sketch some. I wanna keep sketching. We have 9 people out there, that's so cool. Let's keep sketching some. So let me know what bridge you wanna see in this last sheet. I'll show you what's in this sketchbook so far. Do a little sketchbook tour. Hey, if you're watching and you're just joining, thank you guys for tuning in. I appreciate everybody watching and sharing this and liking it, so thank you guys so, so much. Um, so the Brooklyn Bridge tonight, this was Bridge Sketch 45, I think. Now let's see what else we have in this book. If you guys want to do a little sketchbook tour This is actually 1264 Fabriano paper made in Italy. So cool. I like this. I'm liking this paper better. Canson, don't hate me, but I have used these Canson— I have used these Canson books for years and I am just started using the Fabriano. Actually, this is the first time I've used it is this book. I'm liking the Fabriano paper better. I like the texture of it more than the Canson. There's nothing wrong with the Canson, you know, I'm still using them, but the Fabriano has a little more of a rough surface, which I like. So what's in this book? This, gosh, this goes way back. Here's a cool sketch I did on location of a building. Oh my gosh, there's a very abstract Statue of Liberty. I haven't done any abstract stuff like this in a long time, these cityscapes. Here's a perspective of Disney down here I was working on. This is Magic Kingdom when you walk in Main Street. You got the castle in the background. You actually— I tried to sketch some with Mickey Mickey ears on, like a Mickey hat on back here. That was a cool sketch actually. I forgot about that one. That's a fun perspective. Here I was just practicing some people in the corner. I didn't mean to go— I wasn't gonna give you a tour of this sketchbook, but that's cool, it's out. Here's a cool Whistling Cowboy sketch. You guys know the Whistling Cowboy character? "Will Have a Book One Day," him and Retro. Retro is way back there. Here's a close-up of the whistling cowboy. Cool stuff. What else is in here?

Anything else?

This is one of, you know, abstract. I haven't done one of these abstract cityscapes in a while. Just letting loose with some of my ink and bleeding some stuff. Fun sketches. But yeah, sorry, I went down that path with that sketchbook. Yeah, so in this, you know, you can see— it'd be fun actually to go through this and just kind of look at some of the sketches throughout it and how the bridges have developed. You'll see other things besides bridges. This was a fun NYC I actually started this on location with an Urban Workshop I took in November, October. No, I think it was November. And I finished it at home. But this was a fun piece. I love the colors and the pops here. This was located in Times Square, as it says here. So this was started on site and then I finished colors at home. Here I was just practicing working with, with a street light and some signs as well.

Zoom out. There we go.

Just an abstract bridge. Love the colors on that one. Here's, uh, St. Patrick's Cathedral. Well, it's based on St. Patrick's Cathedral, but it's I played around with colors, just having fun. Uh, here's a bridge sketch in here. Deception Pass in Washington. Love this bridge.

Very, very cool.

Little bridge sketches here. Oh, look at that, I actually sketched on the backside of a sheet. I don't usually do that, but I guess I could. Here's— this is a cool bridge. This is the Astoria-Megler Bridge, connects Oregon to Washington. This is the Bellingham Bay, um, in Bellingham Bay, Washington here, this bridge. These are piers. We're just playing around with kind of shadows on here. It's fun to see different styles. This is a Brooklyn Bridge inspired sketch here. This is a Golden Gate inspired bridge. Very first time I ever tried the Golden Gate. Gotta revisit it big time. This was quick, quick. Just playing with red pen. I feel like I did not capture the Golden Gate at all with this, so I need to revisit it. But it was just fun playing with red ink and practicing bridges that day. Another Deception Pass bridge sketch. This is the Oh my gosh, this is the Manhattan Bridge. Manhattan Bridge. I almost forgot. Another view of the Manhattan Bridge. This is— this was inspired from the Brooklyn Bridge, walking on Brooklyn Bridge. I didn't walk there, but imagine walking on it, all these cables coming down. Actually, I really love the colors here. Let me show you this. Remember, I think we were talking about ink and playing around with different color inks. I love the colors down here, this rustiness we got going. That's actually really, really cool. I like this this. I like this better than this. I like that little piece down here. Um, this is just a bridge I made up. Love the colors on that. This is the Liberty Bridge. Oh my gosh, where's the Liberty Bridge. I'm drawing a blank. Liberty Bridge crosses the Danube. Can someone Google and tell me where's the Liberty Bridge? My memory is shot. It's shot right now. The Liberty Bridge crosses the Danube. Oh my gosh, I'm drawing a blank. At least I remember the name of the bridge. Uh, this was, uh, Quick first attempt at the Merrimack Bridge. Oh, we don't have a bridge, we have the Empire State Building. And this is what we did today. All right, cool. Let me see if you guys gave me any suggestions for the last page and then we're gonna wrap. I think I said that. Yes, the Mack. All right, so here's some suggestions I have for bridges to sketch next. I see. So Linda's saying the Mack. Is it M-A-C-K? The Mack. I know the Merrimack Bridge. Linda put that. Linda's like, you know what bridge I want. I sure do. It's an awesome bridge. I definitely want to sketch it. Oh, that's so funny. Have you done the bridge over the New River? No. New River Bridge. Hmm, I have to Google that one. New River. Don, where, where is the New River Bridge? If you can let me know, that'd be awesome. Karen is like the Forest Hill Bridge, not the Forrest Gump Bridge. Life is like, life is like a box of bridges. You never know where it's gonna lead you. Um, it's the Forest Hill Bridge in California, not the Forrest Gump Bridge. Karen said that. Cool, guys, thank you for suggestions. Oh wait, wait, wait, more. D-Ray, give us a heart out there, that's cool. And the Mackinac— oh, I said Merrimack, I'm sorry, Mackinac. I think there's a Merrimack Bridge somewhere. I think I think that's in New York, maybe. Oh wait, am I doing— Mac Inac, thank you. Mac Inac. Um, the No Hands Bridge in California. I love the name of that bridge. I gotta— that's cool. Sounds really cool. No Hands Bridge, that sounds interesting. I, I don't know that one. The Mackinac that connects the Lower Michigan to the Upper Peninsula. Gotcha. All right, thank you guys for the bridge suggestions, much appreciated. I'm gonna head out. Let's do Whistling Cowboy and we'll head out of here. Okay, it's 9:40. Holy cow, like an hour past when I thought I'd be which is cool, it's fun. And oh, the Ambassador. Ambassador. I have to definitely Google these bridges, guys. Thank you for the suggestions. So we'll see, one of these will end up in this book on this page. To be continued. All right. Time for Whistling Cowboy and then let's wrap. Hey, you guys are awesome. Thank you so much. Um, Whistling Cowboy sketch. If someone can give me a number from 1 to 20, we'll wrap up with our Whistling Cowboy sketch. And let's see. Actually, I'm gonna put it over here so we can see it. Boom. Cool. Karen says good night. Good night, Karen. Great seeing you. Take care. Number 5. Awesome. Let's go to number 5. Play the Whistling Cowboy. Guys, have a great, great night. I'm gonna wrap— do the sketch and wrap up. Number 5, I appreciate y'all for being here. Thank you for your comments, participating. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for paying it forward with your creativity and your kindness. You guys are all putting good out there, so I love that. Keep being you. It's called My Sombrero for Your Gun. That's the name of the song, My Sombrero for Your Gun. Have a great night, guys. Take care. Peace and live creatively. We'll see you guys soon.