In this live streaming session, artist Jason Nicholas resumes a New York‑city‑inspired sketch after brief technical difficulties. He narrates his process in real time, explaining how he uses loose, quick lines, varied shading, and intentional ink‑over‑paper‑texture techniques to make key elements—such as Madison Square Garden, Penn Station, and Moynihan Hall—stand out. Jason contrasts this “soulful, emotional” drawing style with the precision required in formal architectural plans, emphasizing that the sketch is meant to capture movement, energy, and feeling rather than exact proportions. He discusses his preference for black‑and‑white work, noting it as his strength and a recurring theme in his recent NYC series. Throughout, he engages with viewers (Linda, Luis), checks streaming platforms (YouTube, Facebook), and shares the audible experience of pen‑on‑paper. The session ends with a final zoom‑out, a brief recap of his black‑and‑white focus, gratitude to the audience, and a sign‑off encouraging creative sketching.
Chapters
Hey, I'm back on. Hope everybody's having a great Saturday night. Take 2. I am— some kind of tech issues going on, so I stopped and restarted, and I think I'm back. Let's see. Linda can see me. Awesome. Okay, you're back, and this time I'm on the not YouTube channel. My words are still not on the yellow box. Alrighty, well, thank you for letting me know. This is cray cray. I don't know what's going on with the tech. I'll have to figure that out. But in the meantime, let me just keep working on this sketch I started before, and we'll deal with the tech gods later. Um, so I'm just still working on this New York City inspi— inspired scene. And I've just been adding some kind of some shading and shadows just to make it a little more interesting, a little more movement to the sketch. New York City has a lot of movement, right? A lot of energy. So I like the shading, trying to capture some of that movement happening. Same thing with the lines. I have really quick, wonky, loose lines. I want to pull out Madison Square our garden here a little bit more. So I'm slowing down and I'm intentionally kind of grinding the pen, the ink down a little bit here because I want MSG to pop out. So a great way for me to do that is if I want to override the texture of the paper— it's kind of a weird way to say it, but to override the texture of paper, I'm just going I'm gonna slow down and really let the ink kind of sink in so the line is a little darker and cleaner. Unlike here, you can see I kind of really loosely went over it and the texture is definitely showing through. Cool. Luis says, "I'll try again, nothing." Hey, no worries, it's all good. Sorry that the screen's not broadcasting the comments on there. I'm not sure what is up with that. But if you're watching, please send me say hello and let me know where you're watching from. And also, I'd love to know if you're watching on Facebook or YouTube, just so I can see if my tech is working. Um, really cool street view here. I'm digging it. So we have Grand Madison Square Garden here, Penn Minor Hall, Minor Hall, Oh my gosh, Mono— how do you say that? Monohoyne Hall. Am I saying it right? Penn Station right in here. I think I'm saying it right. That's a tough one to say. Moynihan. I think that's it. Moynihan. Oh boy. Try saying that 10 times fast. And I just want to pop these columns out a little bit. I know they're loose. They're crazy looking. They don't have the detail of classical columns, but I want the idea of we have these pieces here, these vertical pieces kind of going down our building. And there are some windows up in here as well. So let's just kind of darken an area up just to show we got some windows going on. And then up in here, we do have some horizontal kind of windows happening as well. And notice I didn't draw the rectangles there. I'm just kind of shading it in just to indicate there's some kind of windows happening. I could sit there and I could draw really perfect, precise rectangles. But this isn't— this is not a technical drawing. It's kind of a feeling, emotional drawing. A soulful drawing. I'm just sketching from the soul here. I'm not worrying about details. I'm not worried about proportions. I'm trying to get things relatively to scale. Which is fine, but I'm not gonna freak out if something is definitely bigger or smaller than it should be. Um, that's not what these sketches are about, not for me. Takes the pressure off me. I know I don't have to be perfect, unlike creating an architectural set of plans. Yeah, those definitely have to be precise. So this is kind of my loose sketchy world versus my own architectural blueprint, precise world. Different forms of expression, and I love them both. Cool. I am actually digging this one. I am loving this scene. Awesome. Let me check. I just want to check a setting here. Let me go back on my screen. Just bear with me. Clicking, just clicking some buttons, seeing how it's going. Alright, awesome. So looks like I am on YouTube and Facebook, which is great. Cool. Alright, so I am done. Definitely connected to both. It's looking good, thank you. Yeah, this one's coming up pretty nice, right? Um, I don't know how much more I want to add to it, to be honest with you. Too many windows open now. There we go. I kind of, I kind of liking kind of the shady stuff. Actually, you know what I'm going to do? These are a little more rounded, so, you know, Just give some contour lines to— these are kind of like pilings on the side of the road here, pylons on the side of the sidewalk there. There we go. Maybe just darken a little in here just to bring your eye back in the distance a little bit in here. I do want to— I think I want to pop the edge of this wall out a little bit. So again, I'm going to slow down intentionally because I want to override that texture. This has a little bit of an angle to it, this wall here. So I'm just going to put some slanted or angled lines on it. Just to give it the impression that it's angling a little bit. It's not a flat wall at the top, it has a cap that angles up and angles down the other side. You can't really tell here, it's getting smaller, so you can't really tell there. But if we add some lines here, there you go. So hopefully you can kind of see that this is angled, this wall's angled a little bit just by doing those contour lines on there. Cool. You got some buildings way, way back in here. Shade them in a little bit. I'm gonna stop the music because, uh, let's see, I just like this sound. I'm gonna pick it up with the microphone. Stop the music. I'm actually gonna move my microphone down, so give me a sec. Let's get— let's pick up some of that scratchiness. That was fun. Hopefully you guys could hear some of that scratching going on. Part of the fun with creating these sketches is actually listening to the sounds of the pen against the paper. Awesome. Very cool. Hey guys, so that's gonna be a wrap for me for tonight. Um, let's zoom out, you can see the whole scene. I'd leave it black and white. Yeah, Linda, so I am leaving it black and white. Great call. I've actually been doing that with my recent sketches. I've been enjoying the black and white NYC sketches, and I have to be honest with you, I think black and white is my It's my forte. I'm much better at black and white than adding color. Um, I never actually used to show colored stuff or add color until about— until a few years ago. Um, everything was always in black and white, and I feel like my black and white is definitely a strength. So I love it for these city scenes. Where's the one I did yesterday? Here we go. Or the other day. So here's, uh, this is what I did the other night here. From Hudson Yards. Again, I like this one black and white as well. So, it's really fun to be creating this series of kind of these black and white New York City inspired sketches. So, yeah, so thank you for that comment. I really, really appreciate that. That's awesome. I'm just looking at my screen. I have just posted to Destinations. Hmm, I don't know, something just popped up. So, there is definitely something going on with the software. I got to figure out what it is. Is. Hey, you guys are awesome. Thank you all for watching. Linda, thank you for your comments. Always appreciate you in the house, um, here. And I see you leave comments on my other posts on YouTube, so thank you so much. Thank you for liking and sharing these out there. And you guys are awesome. And rest— and rest— enjoy the rest, or enrest, we'll shorten it— enrest the rest of your weekend. Hey guys, you're amazing. Take care. Um, maybe I'll be on tomorrow night. I'm not sure. We'll see how it goes. Till then, take care. Peace. Live creatively. Remember, if you can scribble, you can sketch architecture. All right guys, take care. See you soon. Looking for that finish button. Gonna hit it. Good night guys, take care.
