Sunday Sketchbook Share

Hey everybody, happy Sunday, um, May 18th, 2025. Hope you're doing well. Yeah, I had to actually look to see what year it was. That's kind of crazy. I'm Jason Nicholas Nicholas with The Inspired Life. Hope you're having a great day today. I just want to do a Sunday sketchbook show and tell or a sketchbook share. I was in New York City yesterday. It was awesome and a beautiful day. I went to the Frick Museum. What an incredible museum. If you're ever in New York City, check out the Frick Collection. I was inspired. I saw Rembrandts, I saw Matisse paintings. My God, there's so many famous artists I can't even begin to tell you, but I have to say I was really, really impressed by the paintings by Turner. Oh my gosh, Google Turner. Yeah, I'm enamored, and I'm going to do some research and studying about Turner and the way he works, incorporates light into his paintings. It's extraordinary. But I digress. So yeah, I was at the museum and then went to Central Park, hung out there, did a few sketches. So, that'd be cool just to kind of do a few minutes here and do a little sketch show and tell. So yeah, I hope you're having a great day today. I brought my Lockbie folio which always gets good love and I only did one sketch in here and the other sketches I actually did were in my little moleskin— what do you wanna call it? Pad, I guess, or yeah. We'll call it a pad, booklet. So we'll take a look at that as well. But here, here's the sketch I did. I did— this was a quick sketch I did at the museum yesterday. Inside the museum, you're not allowed to use markers or a pen, so you can only use pencil. So I used some pencil and you're also limited to the size sheets of paper you can use. So I think it has to be 9 by 12 or smaller. So this was a great size. I did a quick sketch. This was a fountain area or a little garden court inside, a little public area. So this was a fun— I just sat down on a bench, brought the pencil out real quick. Try to capture the idea of the kind of vaulted or barrel vault curved ceiling in that space. So that was the only thing I actually did in the Lockbie. Everything else was done here in, in this Moleskine. I love this little book. I've been using these for a long time because they are so easily portable. They fit in my pants pockets. Coat pocket, so it's so easy to carry around. So, I'll show you a couple of sketches I did in this. This is a sketch of— I was sitting outside the New York Public Library, so here's a little sketch I did sitting outside. This is just a real small section of the exterior of the building. Got a column here, a big archway. There's an urn in the foreground, some stairs going up. Zoom out so you can see it all. There you go. So this was a fun sketch to do. And I titled it— I thought the title I came up with was fun. It was, I said, "Urning to Sketch More." So a little urn on there. So that was a fun sketch from yesterday. And this is just in the Moleskine, which is a textured watercolor paper. I forget the weight of the paper, might be 140 lb. And Sharpie sketches here. The next sketch I did, I really like this one. This is a sketch of while I was sitting in Central Park over by a pond with turtles in it. Um, this was kind of the view I had sitting down on the rock looking across the pond, and you can see the skyline in the background. So I thought it'd be cool to do a sketch of the skyline. I'll just pan across so you can see it better. So that is the skyline sketch. One of the things I'm noticing, and I did a sketch on this— let me see if I can get the focus a little bit better. There we go. Um, I noticed my skyline sketches kind of look like an EKG report, you know, the heart monitor thing. So, um, I actually did a painting. I think my friend Akalia— I think Akalia has it now. Um, That was one of the very first paintings I did, or sketches, that kind of gave me that idea. So I love the metaphor of heartbeat, the heart of the city, the skyline, the energy. So this is kind of— was a fun sketch. I called this one "I'll Park Here for a Few," which is a pun on the word park because I was in Central Park. Um, it was so gorgeous out yesterday, I did not want to leave. Then here's another sketch I did. This is also done while I was sitting in Central Park, a different location in the park. Let me zoom out so you can see the whole thing. This was kind of fun sitting on the bench looking across the water. You can kind of see the top of some buildings kind of peeking up here, and there was a tree canopy in the foreground. So quick, loose sketch. I'm going to zoom in just so you can see the detail of how I like to capture my sketches really quickly. And you can see just my really fun, quick, loose style of sketching here. Ta-da! So this is it. This is kind of my vibe when I'm sketching. This is how I like to do it. A lot of people— not a lot, but some people say it's pretty messy looking, which is, which is cool, and that's fine. But for me, this is how I capture the spirit of a place, especially a place where I see energy or sense energy. I feel that energy, which is really cool. And actually, notice I'm going to move this up so you can see You know, down here is where the tree line is, right? So it's a little less frenetic, a little less energetic, not as scribbly as up here. So, right, city energy, buildings, nature a little bit more calm. So really through lines, you can tell a lot of different stories based on if you're sketching fast, jagged, crooked, Hard lines can give a sense of energy. Soft curves could give you a sense of peaceful and calmness. And stay tuned, I'm working on putting together a kind of an introductory sketching course where I'll be talking about different line types and the language of lines. Cool. Hey, I see you have— Noelle is over on Instagram. Hey, Noelle, if you're still on there, hope you're doing well. Great to see you. Cool. And then I see a couple people are watching on Facebook. Hello, Facebook watchers. I can't see your names, but if you're watching, feel free to say hi. But I hope you're having a great day. And here's another sketch I did as well. This was a sketch looking at— so there's a building along Fifth Avenue. There was a building along Fifth Avenue. There's a vacant kind of corner. And with the building down, you're able to see this really cool view of this building. And there's some water towers, like two on top. There's another water tower here, some scaffolding work. So I thought it'd be cool just to sketch that. Once they put a new building in that location, this view will be blocked. So I took a bunch of pictures of it, but it was really fun to just kind of stand there. I was standing there on the sidewalk and just had this kind of in my hand, just stood up and was doing a really quick sketch of it. Pretty cool, right? So these were the sketches I did yesterday. I didn't really do too many. I do want to actually talk really, really briefly. I'm sure you have all heard the news about that— the Mexican training sailboat, a naval sailboat that unfortunately had an accident. And I don't know the statistics and the counts, but I think there were a couple lives lost, and the top of the mast of the sailboat literally crashed into the bridge and fell. It was just disastrous. It's all over YouTube. It's on the news. Um, I don't want to belabor the point. I just want to send prayers and good vibes to anybody that was involved with the horrendous, um, Yeselbo accident yesterday at the Brooklyn Bridge. Crazy, right? And I believe this week will be— I think the birthday of the Brooklyn Bridge is coming up this week. I have to Google that. So this, this was a sketch I did not yesterday. This was a long time ago. This was a real quick— this was one of those, I just want to loosen up and get ready sketches. There's the Brooklyn Bridge. Um, and here's another one of the Brooklyn Bridge as well. I really actually really like this sketch. Pretty cool. Awesome. Hey, I see Chip over on Facebook. Chip, how you doing? I hope all is well, man. It's always great to see you. Hope you're, um, you're doing great and hanging in there. Um, so I— if you're watching me right now, I would love some feedback. I have set up my other desk location. I have two locations in my room, two different computer locations. Each one is kind of a different purpose. Um, I was blessed to have won a a microphone. Uh, Noel, if you're still on Instagram, thank you so much. I was in a workshop that I attended and won a random drawing, so I am testing out that microphone right now, and I hope it sounds good. Hopefully I have it all connected right. Um, so I have kind of two areas, which I'm blessed to have. All right guys, uh, if you want to do a quick sketch, let me know. Just put in the comments, give me thumbs up, give me something out there. This was really going to be just a quick sketchbook show and tell from from yesterday's outing in New York City. I, I do want to show you— let's say, well, I didn't do this yesterday, but here, here's kind of a sneak peek. Sorry, my face is kind of off camera and on camera. I need to do that. Yeah, I'm more on camera if I do that. There we go. Sorry if you look inside my head before. Uh, here's a sneak peek. So I am going to be working on producing a lot of different Statue of Liberty torch sketches. Let's say 10. So my goal is to do 10 sketches and go to Central Park on a Saturday and see if I could, um, sell any torch sketches. I think it'll be awesome. Um, thanks to our friend Roo, um, I made a connection in Central Park to a really awesome guy who sells artwork there. And he's pretty successful at it actually. So, I guess I'm gonna— the inside scoop to just set up and try to sell some. So, that'll be fun and I just wanna see how it goes. So, I've been working on Statue of Liberty torches. There's one. Do I have any in here? Let's see. I don't know what else I have in this book. Let's just open this up. Womp, womp, womp. That's from a chorus concert actually, this sketch you're looking at. I like to bring sketchbooks with me to chorus concerts. Actually, I take it everywhere, pretty much, my sketchbook. But I love sketching. Um, I don't know why, I just love sketching a chorus when, when they're holding their, the books of music. It's just a fun thing for me to sketch. I actually did one today. My, my wife had a concert, and I'll pull up the sketch I did today. So I don't only like love to sketch buildings, but I'm— I love just trying to capture a scene. Here it is. So today I brought, brought my pocket journal, Lockbie Pocket Journal, and let's see if I can find some sketches in here of the Chorus concert. Here's some torches I've been practicing. I'm trying to do them without looking. I still need to look at my reference images to do a really good torch sketch. Zoom in. So, that's kind of a— just that's a practice torch. That's opening the comments window, close. There we are. Chip said yes. Thanks, Chip. Yeah, Chip will be joining me when we go to Central Park. That's gonna be really cool. So Chip, I'm so excited that you're— we're gonna— you'll be coming up and, uh, we'll be doing the outing. That's gonna be awesome. We'll be doing some sketching and hanging out and maybe sell some torches. Anyway, where is the sketch I did today? Oh, here it is. So this is, this is the, um, sketch I did today at the Chorus concert. It was really fun. Hey, I see Ray Edwards. Ray Edwards over on Instagram, great to see you. Hope all is well, man. Ray is an amazing guy, peeps. So here, I love taking my little pocket journal to even chorus concerts, right? So I— this is what I love about sketching stuff like this is this was in a church, hence the cross. But it not only is the architecture, I kind of caught part of the church structure. But it also has people, right? So there's something for me that's really magical about sketching in a church, listening to the chorus singing and just capturing it. It's almost like my hand is automatically kind of dancing around. Um, it's interesting, but I love to do that. I've done that in St. Patrick's Cathedral, which sketching in there is just another— it's an off-the-charts experience. Pretty cool. Uh, some of these are pretty old sketches. So yeah, so this is the little pocket journal. I not only do I do sketches in it, I also have, um, dockets in here. I take a lot of notes. I write a lot of ideas down. And here's a cool little— here's a cool little sketch I did of the— this is the H&M building, New York City. I really like this little sketch. Came out cool. Chip said the mood in church sketching is paramount. 100%. I'm actually— I don't know if you guys can see it, but I literally have goosebumps as I'm thinking about When I was last in St. Patrick's and I just sat there and sketched, I wasn't there long, maybe 20 minutes, but they had the chorus music going and the way it just echoed and it's— Chippie used the right word, it's paramount. It's incredible. So really cool. By the way, if anybody's watching on Instagram, I still have no idea on Instagram, do you only see part of my screen? I gotta figure that out. I'm trying to look at the Instagram livestream, but I think it's a vertical format. You can't see my whole screen. It looks like it's way behind too, like it's lagging. Cool. All right, so, um, love it, love it. Got the pocket journal. And the big field— I'm sorry, the big folio as well. So they ventured with me. Oh, I hit the microphone. Um, here's the pencil I took yesterday. Again, I was only allowed to sketch in the museum with a pencil, so I brought a mechanical pencil with me, and that was what I used for this kind of rapid-fire sketch. And this was fun. I actually, I don't really sketch with pencil, but it was a fun experience actually. And I did not erase, even though we have an eraser, I didn't use it. I believe every line, every mark I put on a sketch is there for a reason. It tells a story of how it was created. There's a reason I drew a line or made— like, for here, for example, here's a random mark. This has nothing to do with anything if you look here, but it— when I sketch, I'm a really quick sketcher and I'm just kind of capturing things. So I don't, I don't have an explanation as to why that's there other than it's just my creative brain and my hand just kind of on fire doing its thing. I like the story, I love the mark. I love mark making. Cool. All right, guys, so, um, I, I always appreciate you watching live and following me and give me thumbs up. If you're watching on YouTube, I'd love for you to like this and subscribe, and I'm trying to reach 1,000 subscribers before, uh, hopefully before school ends in June. I think it's June 20th, if I remember. So that's my goal. I'm close. I think I'm at 949. So we're getting there. One of my main goals is really just to spread positivity through creativity and just make people feel good just by putting good vibes out there, sharing a passion and enthusiasm for something I love doing, which is sketching architecture. And thank you. Hey, Matt LaRocque's on YouTube. Hey, Matt, how are you? It's all about the energy. Oh, I like that. Thanks, Matt, that's really cool. Let me put that on screen. D-Ray, it was a pause. Hey, D-Ray. Yeah, am I lagging, guys? Let me know if I'm lagging. It's very, very possible. Or maybe D-Ray meant my mark is the— oh, the random mark on Sketch is a pause. Got you. Yeah, awesome. All right. You know, I think I'm gonna do one quick sketch and we'll head out. Maybe I'll— let me practice a torch while I'm on here with you guys. All right. So, you can see here's another kind of practice torch I did. This actually feels— I haven't stood up and sketched in a long time. I've been Lately I've been sitting at the other desk sketching, but when I stand up and sketch, I have a whole different energy level. I feel more free to move around. It's really interesting. It's really interesting to notice that it feels so much more free. I'm not— when I sit down, I feel more tight and constricted. When I'm standing up like I am now, a lot more, uh, I feel more, more freedom. All right, let's do that. By the way, I get a shout out to Chip if you're still on. Chip is, uh, Chip inspired the 'be the light' caption on these torches, so thank you Chip for that. I appreciate that. Matt said he's good. That's great, Matt. I'm so glad you're good. All right, let's just do a practice torch again. I want to try to get 10 of these done the next couple weeks. We'll just shift this over. Let's do it on the back of this sheet. Uh, let me break out a Sharpie so you can see it a little darker. You know what, let's— I'm gonna use a red. We're just gonna grab and go. I hear my laundry is done. It just went off. Um, nothing like Sunday night laundry. All right, here we go. I don't have any music on. That's weird too. Usually I sketch with music. I'm talking a lot. I'm hyper. So you can kind of see the basic cone shape, um, happening there, the base of the torch. And this is kind of loosey-goosey. I'm not even gonna Let's see. Definitely have to work on this. So the more you sketch, the more muscle memory you can develop, meaning you won't really have to look at reference images after a while. This is a tricky one, so I'm not at that point of freedom yet. As you can see, I try— I'm trying to sketch the flame without really looking, but it's kind of wonky looking, but we can just add to it. But there you go. And the fingers are pretty tricky to do on this. Just going to do some hatch lines here to give it— make it look like it's kind of round here. We'll do some contour lines just to wrap it. And make it look like it's curved. Um, I don't have anything to bleed any ink. I could take out a water or aqua brush and bleed some of this red. Do I have it? I might be lying. I might have one here. I do. Aha! Grab-and-go creativity. You know, that's my thing, guys, just grab and go with what's around. And I was fortunate enough to have this right up here. Let's just bleed some red ink on this bad boy. So this is fairly thin paper, it's not meant for extremely wet washes. And also, yeah, so you know what else we're going to break out? All right, I'm excited. All right, the kid's getting hyper, watch out. Um, the kid's getting hyper. All right, I have some— actually have some markers on here. I'll break down— break them out in a sec. Um, I have these markers right next to me. Wasn't sure where to put them. I kind of— I reworked my studio a little bit. There'll be a video in the next week or so, a little time lapse to show you cleaning up my office. Um, so I have these called AD markers. Chrome orange. This is chrome orange. Let's put it on there. Matt feels the opposite. He likes to sit and draw. I think it's because I like to focus on the page, leave my body behind. If I'm standing, it becomes about balance. I totally get that. That makes sense. Another reason I like standing is it helps me to get my— I have an Apple Watch and it has— I do like the exercise rings. So it helps me to get some more exercise, some steps in, because I can move a little bit. And there's actually a ring on there for standing, so it's set for standing at least 10 hours a day, which is— which I usually— which I usually surpass, no problem, especially when I'm, you know, teaching all day at the high school. I never— I never sit down when I'm teaching. I really only sit down at school maybe when I'm eating my lunch. Or maybe doing some grading. I wouldn't say never, but I rarely sit down in class. All right, um, so I'm just grabbing some of these AD markers. Let's throw them on here. It looks like we have some of my— one of my favorite colors. Let's go with Forret Aqua. I love aqua. And is this a green? Forest Green. All right, let's see. I have a bunch here. Uh, warning, if you ever use these markers, make sure— first of all, um, they smell. They can stink. So make sure you're in a ventilated area or you're not allergic to the smell. I know some people don't like the smell of Sharpies. Well, these, these are stronger smelling than the Sharpies. Fortunately, they don't— it doesn't bother me, but they do stink. All right, so I'm just layering some of these markers on top of each other to see what happens. I haven't used them in a long time. Be cool, right? Kind of wish I had a yellow. I don't have one of those colors. I used to have a banana color. It's just— let's see, that's beige. I don't, I don't see it over here. It's all right, and we're just grabbing and going with what's here on my desktop. Dropping stuff. Welcome. Let's just be quiet and let— I'm gonna be quiet for a minute and just sketch here. There we go. Um, so that's a cool little torch. I like the colors. I love— let me zoom in so you can see how this is drying. I hope I didn't just crash. It looks like my computer may have crashed. Am I still on, or my computer went to dark mode? I can't tell what happened. All right, I think I'm still on. All right, let's zoom in. Look at how this is drying. Well, that is one of the cool things I love about using these markers. Is I love how, um, they bleed and blend together, especially on tracing paper. But that's a whole different— we'll save that for another night. Yeah, I haven't done any— I haven't done an Inky Inky night tracing paper marker sketch in a long time. We should do that soon. Yeah, so anyway, so this is drying. Let's look at the other side. So it does bleed through. Through this paper. There you go. That's a cool, uh, cool torch. You're there. Thanks, D-Ray. Appreciate it. Fellow lefty. Yeah, Matt, you're lefty. Awesome. Shout out to the lefties in the house. Love it, love it. Um, oh yeah. All right, see if there's any last questions or comments. I'll check the chat and then I'm going to head out. I do have school tomorrow and I'm supposed to be getting ready for bed soon. I wasn't planning on coming on, but I wanted to say hello. I wanted to chest— test out, not chest out, test out the, um, the microphone and the setup I have going here and just do a quick show and tell from my trip yesterday into YC. Maybe. I don't know if I'm going there this weekend. I might, but the following weekend, uh, Saturday, uh, yeah, one of my— going to one of my most favorite places. So stay tuned. All right, thank you guys for joining. I'm Jason Nicholas Nicholas with the Inkspired Life, where I love sketching architecture and urban sketching and just capturing the world around me. One line at a time. Until next time, keep using your creativity for positivity, and I'll see you real soon.