The INKspired Life - architectural sketching.

Happy Thursday, April 4th. It's weird for me to be on at 1:08 PM, but I'm on spring break and yeah, having a little bit of lunch and I figured I'd do some sketching. So hopefully, uh, you're having an awesome day today. Let's sketch. I'm going to be sketching a picture I took at the steam plant in Spokane, Washington. Really, really cool building, um, an old steam plant that's been converted into restaurant, pub, office spaces. Really awesome facility. So it'd be fun to do a quick perspective type of sketch based on the photograph there, uh, very loose, very quick. Let me know where you're watching from. And I'm actually going to change the playlist. We're going to go a little lunchtime peppy. This. Why the heck not? All right, let's do some sketching. Let's see, should I zoom in? You'll zoom in a little bit. Actually, I'm going to keep it zoomed out because I don't know Let's see. Let's go get closer that way.

I think that helps. Cool.

So I'm just looking at the ceiling. I see some angled lines coming down here, some angled lines coming down there. Just to get it kind of a starting spot. If you look on the left-hand side, we have this steel column coming down in here. I'm going to grab a different Sharpie. This one's running out a little bit. So we have a steel column coming down here, beam going across, another column kind of coming down here, kind of pops up there a little bit. I will throw, we'll throw down some color on this as well. There's this cool pipe thing happening, kind of I will just throw it, throw it in here. Just gonna start with the circle, this old pipe. What I love about the architecture here is that they kept a lot of the old infrastructure, these old pipes and vents and gadgets and gizmos, um, anything you might associate with kind of an industrial factory. They kept a lot of that here. Here and are showcasing it as part of the aesthetic for the, the revamped design, which is really so cool. I love this vibe. We got something happening back in here. We have some seats. Looks like a couch, some kind of couch happening maybe in this area. So I'm looking at lines. I'm looking at lines that are angles. I'm looking at lines that are kind of parallel and vertical to the sheet of paper. It just says a guide, a guide of where to sketch, how to sketch this thing. And also in my brain, I'm not trying to be realistic. I'm not trying to copy this. It's just inspiration. So that allows me to have a lot of freedom. And not worry about, oh my gosh, does this look like a photograph that I'm sketching? No, I don't want it to. I just want to have a vibe to it. So a lot of artistic license, and that for me is one of the reasons I love doing these loose, wonky sketches. There's so much freedom. This is a really awesome— they have this kind of piping up here. With light fixtures attached to it. This is so awesome. This is a building I could spend hours and hours and hours and weeks looking at. There's just so much to see every time you look. Fortunately, I was able to spend a few days in this building, a few hours each day, but I didn't look around as much as I should have. Hey, I see Mickey Perkins out there on Facebook. Hey, how are you? Great to see you. So cool to see you in the chat. So again, this is the Steam Plant building in Spokane, Washington. My very fast, loose, wonky take on it. All right, I think I have enough ink, enough Sharpie down. Let's just go and throw some Throw some ink on here, some— let the colors kind of just be playful.

Cool.

Let me just sketch this kind of box frame out on the ceiling here.

All right, cool.

I think that's enough to get— throw down some color for now. Yeah, so here's what I have. Let's— I just want to grab— well, grab what's in front of me. I like to do grab and go. If I have to go search for stuff in here, I'll lose my creative flow. So I try to keep what I need here on my desk, and if it's not here, I'll just work with whatever is here. Part of the adventure, the fun. All right, so I'm going to use this ink. It's called Rusted Rivet. Love that name, really appropriate for an industrial building. Um, and also I have some Winsor Newton watercolors. I'll set those here so you can see that in the screen. Let me move this, shake this up. I have some dirty water. Ta-da! Love the dirt, love using dirty water. All right. And I have a paper towel I can wipe that off. All right, perfect. All right, let's just have some fun and throw down colors. If you're wondering what paper I'm using, so first of all, I'm actually sketching in my, my Lockbee journal. Say it all the time, love, love, love my Lockbee products, especially my field journal. This is probably my favorite tool by Lockbee. Really good stuff. A lot of pockets. Got my planner in there. I got sketching paper. So this is the— this is paper that Block B sells. It's, uh, I think it's Tomoe. What is it called? Right here. It's by Tomoe River. I forget the exact name. I apologize. But you can see what it is there. And it's, it's a thin paper, um, but you can do very light washes. So if you look at this sketch. There's color, watercolor and ink on there, and it did bleed through a little bit. So you can do light washes on here, which I like. All right, let's throw down some color. Hey, D-Ray's in the house. D-Ray, great to see you. Hopefully I'm not as tired as last night. And if you're watching over there on Instagram, I appreciate it. Everybody who's out there. Natalie tries to draw. I see. Might be on Insta. If you are, hey Natalie, great to see you. I am dipping in. I'm literally just dipping into the ink. I am a messy artist. Like, look at my palette. I don't clean enough. I just kind of dip, grab, go, mix colors. Not only here, I'll mix colors here. It's just kind of what I do. All right. So again, let's just throw down some of this I'm not trying to replicate the photo at all, but one thing I do want to do is I'm going to tilt this up. I like when my water and ink all run down the page. So for those of you guys have seen me before, I might be hearing some different type of music, just mixing it up a little today. It's kind of fun. So the main thing I'm trying to capture with this is just the idea of industrial grunginess of architecture, probably my most favorite aesthetic in building. D-Ray says, um, is it snowing there? Hey, no, great question. We did have— I actually woke up at 4 this morning, it was snowing. It's all melted now. We had— we did have a little snow. How's the weather where you're at? Hey, Deborah's in the house. Great to see you, Deborah. All's well with you. Love when you guys pop in. This is so fun. All right, so we have some ink. I'm going to grab my Winsor Newton watercolors and we're going to grab some turquoise. This is actually Cheap Joe's turquoise I have in here and also a red color from Cheap Joe's. Everything else is Winsor Newton. I'm going to put that off camera because I don't want to put my palm in it when I'm painting. All right. So honestly, guys, I'm not even looking at the photograph. I looked at it quickly just to throw down some lines. The rest of this is all just coming from my imagination. And I intentionally— I'm intentionally not looking at any photos because I don't want to be tempted to say, oh my gosh, there's red here, there's pink here, oh, I gotta make this aqua. Um, no, I just— I just want to have fun. That was a fun tune. Oh my gosh, sounds like Transformers or something, some kind of robot robotic music. This is kind of fun. It's like a rope, it's like a synthesized, synthesized version of the Miami Vice theme or something. I'm gonna grab, um, I want some purple on here, so I'm gonna grab a purple preppy pen, pal. I just have to grab it out of my container. Here it is. Yeah, I feel like, I feel like purple would go well with this. So I'm going to grab— I'm sorry, I'm using my Pilot Varsity pen, not a Preppy. So I'm going to throw down some purple. I think I want some here. Actually, you'll see the purpliness when I bleed the ink. It's fun being on lunchtime. So you can see the purple now that I'm adding the water to it, right? It's like magic. We'll zoom in. That's cool. I really love what's happening right in here. That is so fun. Check out those colors. I see Retro. Retro, yeah, Retro the pup. Where's Retro? Or robotic dog. That's so cool. I'm not sure where you're seeing that, but I love it. Take a close look. Yeah, check this out. Really awesome colors. All right, we got some purple going on there. Next, I'm going to throw down some yellow. I need a— I always like to say I like to add some freshness or a little bit of zestiness to these sketches. For me, lemon yellow does that. It's got the zesty-ness going on. I got some lemon yellow. Oh, if Linda S was on, she would be loving this green. I just made like a lime green color here. That's really cool. Love it, love it. I lime it.

I really like it.

I'm loving this one. Um, it's a little bit more, a little bit more lemon on here. This is only round 1. I'll add more stuff after this dries, some more color and definitely some ink details. Cool. I'm gonna have a— since it is sketching and sustenance time, or sandwich time, I don't have a sandwich, but I have a nice bowl of— check this out— chicken broth. It's a really cool bowl, it's like dog prints and stuff on it. I'm just going to grab a sip of this.

Oh, it tastes really good. All right, cool.

Um, he surprised me using the purple. Purple line just went through the dog's— what I'm seeing as a dog's face. Hmm. Yellow bottom jaw. Guessing in here somewhere. I am not seeing a dog's face yet. I'll keep looking. I'll keep looking. I love that you guys see things in these loose, wonky sketches. That's part of the fun for me. I'm going to grab and go. I want some dark blue. I'm going to grab Got some kind of a dark blue in here. Have to replace this pan, it's almost empty.

I want to be—

I want to be a little more intense, so I'm going to really try to layer on the blue. Blue on the brush, but I could just come back and add layers too.

You got some blue there.

Sometimes I like to think in layers, right? So what am I going to be putting on top of either, either the black ink or another color. I'm kind of liking this. I don't know, I think a lot of this will start— it'll pull together more when I come back and add some more, um, Sharpie on top. I think as a base, it's good. Looking pretty good. I mean, so if you're looking at the photograph and you're look— I'll make the photograph bigger so you can see it again. This was just my basic loose inspo to start with, and I'm not even really looking at it anymore, which is which is intentional.

All right, cool.

What else do I want to throw on here? So I think I want something here. So my fingers are kind of like going back into perspective. Do I have— I can grab and go with here.

Um, All right, I'm just gonna—

I'm gonna just grab from the palette here. What are we gonna do?

I don't know, let's see.

Let's see what we're gonna mix up. You guys liking this different playlist? I'm kind of liking it. So I'm just mixing up some brown. Um, actually, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to make a little bit of gray. Just throw some gray on there, I think. I'm going to mix up some brown, and then I'm going to take some of that blue. I'm going to mix some, and you can see I'm getting a grayish color happening in there. And I just want to do kind of a wash in here. Oh, that's cool. I like, I like how this is bleeding down. That looks really awesome. I call that bridging when I throw down some water and just let the colors kind of connect together. Bridge. That was really awesome. And that's one of the fun things about these mixed media sketches, or I guess watercolors in general, or inks, um, the magic that happens. And I just want to continue down here a little bit. All right, cool. I think that gray just kind of gives a little bit of a more of a depth. Um, this is a picture on the wall here, so maybe I'll do a little sketch in there with ink, a little something in that picture. And let's just throw some of this here as well, just dull down some of that white a little bit. And then the ceiling. I want to do something here. I feel like I want to do a— I know what color. I'm going to go grab some ink here. I'm going to grab some Apple Snail ink, which is my— probably my top 3 favorite ink colors. It's definitely in the top 3. They don't make it anymore, so I'm really protective of using it. And I'm going to grab this one called Railroad Worm, which is like a yellow. We're not going to use that now. We're going to throw down some Apple Snail ink. Hey, Becky's in the house. Becky, great to see you. What's going on? His snout is squarish. D-Rays, he's the dog. I am. I'm going to study it later. I promise I'm going to find that dog. Retro is hiding in the picture. Becky, it's great to see you. Hope you're having an awesome day. All right, I'm going to throw it on some apple snail. That's pretty light. I want to intensify it. I want to ink, ink-tensify it. Intensifying this a little bit here. It's okay if these blend together and kind of run into each other. I don't mind. Just want to create a ceiling up here. Oops.

Then It's just kind of—

there we go. So the paper really is buckling. I have it pretty wet. It is— it's thin like I showed you before, but it can handle light washes. I may have gone a little too heavy, but I don't mind. I don't mind if it's wrinkling and buckling because it adds character.

Cool.

All right, I think that's enough for that. Another winter storm happening. Oh no. Wow, we had, we had a dusting of snow early this morning, but it's gone already. Uh, that stinks. Stay warm out there in Vermont.

Holy moly, that's crazy.

Uh, your painting is now with the yellow ink. It's— I'm guessing it's here. Let me zoom in. D-Ray, we— is it somewhere in this area? Somewhere in here. It's either here or here. Guessing somewhere in one of those areas. All right, this needs to dry before I add anything else, otherwise it's going to turn into a muddy mess, and we definitely don't want a muddy mess. Up our temp drop, up, up, up here. Let me get my square While it's drying, let's play Find the Pup. Let me get my frame here. Where the heck is my frame? First, let's play Find the Frame. It is in one of my drawers. Oh, the music, the list ran out. Let's, uh, let's go to this one, I guess. Oh, this is the one I usually play. It's all good. All right, holy moly, I don't know where my frame went. I just had it last night.

Isn't that crazy?

Yeah, I don't know where my little square cutout frame is. That's bizarro. So anyway, I think maybe up in this area here. One good thing about snow days is more time for artsy projects. Yes, it's one of the reasons I love rainy days. I am a huge rainy day fan. I, I— it's kind of weird, but I thrive on rainy days. More so than sunny days a lot of the time. I'm just going to zoom in so you guys can see how this is drying, and then, um, I'm going to wrap up in about 2 minutes. But you can kind of see— I'm going to pan up. I'm going to put the cap on this ink bottle before I spill it. But I really love what's happening down here. These colors are fun. Actually, this Oh, I found the frame. It's right here in front of me. I like the colors that are happening in here. I also like the colors happening in here. And then I like— actually, here's that lime green. I think that was a kind of a cool color right in here. This has a lot of interesting colors going on. I like, I like this too. This is gonna be a lot of fun to come back and add, uh, some details on top of. And for that, I will definitely be using a Sharpie and probably my Pilot Precise Pen right here to wrap this one up. Hey Jethro, how are you? Yeah, the New York snow, right? It's crazy. Found some artwork that reminds me of your intentions. That's awesome, I'll have to see that. The bridge, cool. I would, um, Yeah, I'll have to check that out, maybe if you post it. Guys, let me know if you have any final questions or comments or thoughts before I wrap up. Great, thank you. You're welcome. It's good to see you on the chat. Yeah, this is fun doing a little lunchtime chat set. Sketch and chat. Sketch and sandwich, although my sandwich has turned into chicken broth. And just look, check out this cool cup. Put in the camera. Yeah, I don't know how much it holds. 16 ounces? I don't know, 12 ounces. Delicious. All right, I can throw in, I think, some ink lines here. This is kind of dry. Yeah, this is a steel beam here. This is a steel beam here. Actually using— they're using it as a steel column vertically. Yeah, a lot of this is still too wet, so I'm going to have to Come back on that one. I'll zoom out so you guys can see. Ta-da! So that's where we're at. This is a continuing series in the, uh, steam plant in Spokane, Washington. This was the very, very first sketch from the steam plant. And then here's the second one. This one was really kind of more clean, right? The lines are more clean here. And then this one, I'm like, okay, very, very, very loose. But I can't wait to show you guys this after I finish and add some more lines to it. It'll really pull together nicely. Oh, bridging. Yes, when colors mingle. Yeah, yeah, I love using that. I love to bridge colors. Guys, thank you so much for watching. I appreciate it. Um, quick announcement: I have a workshop on October— not October— workshop on April 20th. Um, yeah, where we're going to be sketching just some New York City inspired buildings. Uh, it'll be fun. 2-hour online workshop. I think, uh, some of you may have registered for it, so that's awesome. Uh, there's still more spaces, so if anybody's interested, there's a link at the bottom of the screen here, or go to my Facebook page, you'll see it there, or YouTube, or anywhere I could plug this thing. Um, it'll be fun. So it's only open to 20 people, and we'll be doing it via Zoom so we can get feedback and show each other what we're doing. It'll be fun. So that's April 20th, and yeah, that's it. Also, I do have a Lockbee discount code posted. If you go to Lockbee, you like their stuff— I love their stuff, like the journal I'm using right here, the Field Journal. I actually have a Quattro here. Um, yeah, if you use my discount code, you can get, I think, 10% off up on up to 5 items. So that's so cool. And Lockbee is is sponsoring part of— they're donating two products to my workshop that I can give away. So I'll have two random drawings during the workshop of Loppy products. So shout out to them for, uh, for sponsoring that. Good stuff, guys. Thank you so much, it was great seeing you. D-Ray, always a pleasure. Jet Throw, always a pleasure as well. Becky, stay warm. And Becky's been making some really cool collage stuff that's really inspiring. So love seeing your collaging. Uh, who else do we have? I think Deborah popped in for a little bit, right? I'm just going through the names here. Who am I missing? There was one other person who posted. Mickey. Mickey was in the house. And over on Insta, I did see Natalia Tries to Draw was over there. Thank you guys so, so much. Have an awesome rest of your day. Um, I might be on tomorrow. It's Friday, one more day of spring break, and Saturday is a New York City day for me. All right guys, take care. Keep using your creativity for positivity, and you too can also sketch architecture. If you guys can draw lines, you can sketch architecture. Take care, see you soon. I need a cool like out phrase. If anyone has suggestions, like what's something cool I could end the show with saying? Like, I don't know, sometimes I say peace out or live creatively. I don't know, let me know. I need, I need some taglines. Maybe I say something a lot that would be a good tagline. Who knows? All right guys, thank you so much. I appreciate y'all. Have a great, great day.