The Inkspired Life - Architectural Sketching

Hey everybody, hope you're having an awesome, um, Wednesday night. I'm just doing this, uh, sketch here based on the infamous water tower you see in New York City all over the rooftops. So I thought it'd be fun to try to capture the idea of a rooftop water tower. So you can see I've been using my Lamy pen here with some black Lamy ink in it. I actually started off with a Pilot Kakuno pen, um, not— didn't really like it. I just opened it today, just put some ink in it. I think the point is too fine on here for me. I like a thicker point on my nib part here, um, and it wasn't really sketching too well on the paper, so that's why I switched to my Lamy pen, which has a little wider tip, and I like the way it sketches. Um, so I switched to that. Then I used some different ink colors and brought out some watercolor, and now I'm just— I want to sketch the idea that there's some brick on this building. So I'm just kind of throwing in these vertical marks here and there, just randomly, just to give the idea this is a brick building. And I'm trying to create like an industrial kind of grungy vibe, uh, with the colors. It's kind of cool. I, I got brave and threw some red on here. So here's the red. I just, I popped some on. You can see it. We'll zoom in. You can kind of see where the red is happening up in here, and I really like it. And I really like the colors happening up here in the water tower, especially this area is coming out really cool, kind of rusty-ish. Let me see if I can move that over. Anyway, if you're watching, I appreciate you. Thank you for giving me thumbs up and likes and sharing and subscribing and all that fun YouTube and Facebook stuff, feel free to say hello in the chat so I can say hello back to you. I know there's a couple people out there watching.

Don't be shy.

Always feel free to say hello in the comments. Yeah, it's just a fun quick sketch. Um, let's see, what else do I want to do? Kind of waiting for it to dry a little bit. I want to come back and throw some more ink lines on top of this. You know what I didn't do? I didn't splatter. I like to splatter paint on here, just create some kind of energy. So let's go back, grab some, some turquoise paint here, my watercolor palette, and let's just kind of splatter some on there. There. There you go. It just creates a sense of energy and fun. Don't want to overdo it. Hey Jethro, Merry Christmas! Hope you're doing well. Always great to see you in the chat, and, um, I always appreciate your support and your kind words. So thank you so much for joining, really cool. Um, I want to add some brightness to this. I so One of the ways I like to do that is just take— I don't know the color. I think it's— I call it lemon yellow. So I'm going to grab some of this lemon yellow paint, watercolor paint. I'm going to throw it down pretty thick on here. Let me move this over. Maybe you can kind of see me digging in here. So I'm going to lay it— lay the paint on really, really thick, and I'm just going to pop some yellow in. This yellow is just going to add a little bit of freshness to the sketch. Think of like a zest, the zest of a lemon when you're cooking, right? That little— the zest adds a kind of like a brightness or a pop to your— whatever you're eating, right? So I think of that— this lemon yellow paint doing the same thing, just adding some pops here and there. And honestly, I'm just kind of randomly throwing it down, no rhyme or reason. Um, yeah, I kind of like it. I don't want to overdo it. Maybe we'll just leave it at that for now. Man says as he adds a little more.

All right, cool.

There we go. So we have some pop, that lemon yellowy stuff going on, the color. And we're going to splatter on some of that lemon yellow too, diluting the brush, adding more water so it spreads, um, splatters easier on here. Oh, perfect. Leave it, leave it there for now. Yeah, I kind of— I'm liking the way it's drying. It's pretty interesting. I definitely want to come in and add some vertical lines to the water tank to make it look more curved. You see how these, these contour lines kind of curving around here, right? I have this, but you want to curve it more. That gives it kind of the feeling down this way. But I can't add those other lines till this dries. That would be it for now until this dries, and I can come back, add some ink. I'm going to push this to the side, and I'm going to try, uh, using this Kakuno pen again. And I was going to— I have some scrap paper, so this is actually— this is 4x8-inch watercolor paper. This is what it is right here if you want to know, if you're interested. 1264 Fabriano hot— I'm not hot press, this is cold press, 140-pound watercolor paper. I love this size format, really, really cool. This is just a pad of scrap paper here. Yeah, let's see if I can do some sketching with this pen. It's smooth, kind of computer paper, nothing fancy about it. Sometimes when you get a new pen, you got to just break it in a little bit, get that ink flowing. And this is working much better on the smooth paper compared to the rough paper. So let's actually do something fun on and just sketch a water tower on here, see how it comes out. This is drying, it's really quick.

There you go.

Yeah, so this pen definitely does work better for me on a smoother, slicker paper. Jason Nicholas. Uh, here's a trick of how I can make this look curved. First tip is to do these curved contour lines. Then we're gonna add some vertical lines. I'm gonna kind of— you'll see the spacing is gonna change. I'm gonna do these hatch lines here. Paper is really thin, so it's easy to tear through. I I gotta be careful, but— So you can see I do it with the vertical lines here, just to give it that curved look. I should have spaced these lines maybe a little further. That's okay, it works. Kind of the further here and the closer I go to the right, closer these lines get together and it gets kind of darker. So it's almost like this is a shadow and the light is kind of hitting that way. We could do the same thing with the roof. Yeah, this pen is going through the paper, so I gotta be careful. Just the same idea, I'm gonna make this edge darker here. I don't think this paper is gonna hold up to any kind of color, but let's try it. Let's just grab some— grab some red. Maybe it might take a light wash. Yeah, so you can see how it's, how it's bleeding through. Again, this is really, really thin paper, not really meant for this kind of work. There you go. This is a quick little water tower sketch. Back to this, this is drying and it's not dry enough yet for me to add any me. So I'm gonna leave it. All right guys, thank you so much for watching. I appreciate you and your time, and, um, happy holidays everybody. Just want to send the best of health and happiness. I am off of school next week, which is awesome because we all need a break, um, but that is also awesome because I can be on more sketching. I'll pop on during the week, maybe during the daytime, and just keep doing some sketching. Hey guys, you're awesome. Thank you again. Take care. Have an awesome rest of your evening. And yeah, I appreciate y'all. Peace. And be creative— creatively, and keep paying it forward with your creativity. All right guys, I'll be back. See you later. Thank you, Jethro. It was great seeing in the chat. Thank you so much, I appreciate that. Have a great, great night, guys. Perfect timing, the song's ending and I'm hitting the end button. See you guys.