The Inkspired Life - Architectural Sketching - The Hagia Sophia

Hey everybody! Hey Linda, hope you're doing well. Happy, um, Saturday. I'm just on for just a few minutes. I want to just do a quick sketch here. Of— this is the Hagia Sophia Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey. And I just want to do a quick sketch of it. It's actually a homework assignment that my students have this week, and I wanted to sketch along with them, so I'm giving it a try here. But I hope you guys are doing well. My Sharpie is, uh, running out of ink. We'll see how far we can stretch it here. This is a really, really cool building. Got an awesome arch happening. Let's see, there's kind of a bridge thing here. We get this huge arch. Right in there somewhere. Cool. Hopefully you guys can hear me okay. My, uh, my other mic is not working, so I'm using a different mic right now. I don't know if what the sound level is or anything. I'm just winging it. But yeah, let me know if you can hear me or not hear me, and maybe you're better off not hearing me. It's more fun that way. Just kidding. There we go, got some arches happening here, some kind of windows up in here it looks like. Cool, awesome. Linda says, hey, all good here, finally stopped raining, sun was out a bit. That is awesome. Yeah, we had the sun poke out for, I don't know, a half hour here. I think the rest of the week is going to be sunny and in the 70s here in New Jersey, so I'm looking forward to that. Well, I have to be honest with you, I do like rainy days, so it's all good with me. I just hope, um, everybody was safe with all the rain, flash floodings, and things going on. All right, cool. Get this kind of roof thing happening here. Got another— I love the domes on this building. There's actually another dome like right, right in here. There we go. It's not as domey as I like, but we'll, we'll make it work. My ink is definitely running out, but we're going to play around with it and, uh, Sometimes I like the way sketches look when the ink is drying out because it looks even sketchier and looser because it kind of is— it just lays down in certain places. It's not happening everywhere, so it makes the lines look even more broken up than usual, which could add a really cool effect. These towers, these kind of, uh I guess these are called minarets, maybe prayer towers happening. A bunch of them around this building. It's got one right here kind of poking up. Cool. There's one over here. It kind of comes down here like this. This is our dome. We have a building here. I mean, it's all the same building, but this is the front of the building. There's actually another dome here, a bunch of trees in the front. This is looking cool. I'm actually liking it. It's just kind of the outline or the overall shape of it. Hey KD, hi, hearing you loud and clear. Thank you KD, I appreciate it. Like I said, I'm using a different mic right now, so I have no idea. But thank you, so nice of you to join us. You guys are awesome. I do appreciate you guys watching and hanging out for a few minutes. It's always fun to be on and sketch when there's people watching. Cool. All right, so we have a basic outline of the, uh, the mosque here. So this has become a— I think this was built around 537. It's undergone a lot of different uses, everything from a cathedral to a museum to— I think it's currently a mosque right now. So it's had an interesting history. We got some little tiny kind of window things happening. In here. I'm going to see if I can get these domes to look a little more domey. They have, uh, you do some contour lines on here, kind of like this, just by adding these contour. And actually, in the actual building, these are these are roof tiles on here. And then if we kind of curve our lines this way— yeah, my pen, pen ink is definitely running out. I'll end up coming back to this and darkening some of it up, some of it up for sure. There's a cool shadow happening in here because this arch has a— this wall behind the arch is recessed. So I'm just going to do some hatch. I like to use hatch lines to get the depth going here. So we're just going to hatch this in, create kind of a shadowy thing happening here. Awesome, this is fun. Uh, Katie says, thank you, recently found the channel. That is awesome, I'm so glad you found it. I love your sketches. Thank you, that's— thank you for the awesome feedback. I'm glad you found the channel, that's amazing. We're slowly growing the channel, and I thank everybody that watches. We're just over 500 subscribers, which is really cool, so I do appreciate you guys watching and commenting and keeping the spirit out there positive. It's so fun. This is a curved piece here as well, so I'm just curving these lines to give it that curved feel. This I'm drawing right now is a straight wall here, and then I am looking at a very small reference image on here. This— I'm not sketching this from memory for sure. I probably could, you know, if I sketch this thing, this building, I don't know, I would say 10 times, I could probably start sketching it from memory after looking at a picture 10 times. I should try that. I'll try that sometime and see if that works. Cool. Yeah, this is looking good. I'm going to leave this white down here. I'm not even going to finish it. I'm going to leave blank space. There's actually a bunch of trees here. This dome isn't— it's a little too steep, so, but we'll make it work. Again, that's why I like the loose wonky style, because I'm not going for perfection. It allows a lot of freedom. And I'm not stressing about everything looking precise. My goal is just to capture the character and the feel of buildings. You guys know that it even comes down to color. When I add color to these, it's really— it's not often the same color that's on the building. I'll just kind of use my own colors. Whatever I'm just feeling in the moment. And it just makes it more fun for me, keep it loose. Cool. I have some windows happening in here as well. Just going to darken in these arched windows here and I will— like I said before, I'll come back and darken these up, um, with a different pen. I don't think I'm going to add color to this one. I think we're just going to keep it black and white. It's kind of in shadow on this side, so we'll just hatch in some shadow lines there. This actually comes back in here a little bit. Another one of those prayer towers. That's actually looking kind of cool. I like it. Linda says, welcome, Katie, glad you did. Thanks, Linda. Yeah, I love when you guys are being positive. That is so fun. Thanks, guys. Cheer each other on. And we have some more, um, of the towers over here. They got really wonky with these lines. It's going to add some vertical, kind of flares out a little bit like that. I'm gonna add some hatching or some shading on here so these look kind of round. Yeah, I'm really having to press this, this Sharpie pretty hard against the paper to get the ink to come out, so it might be time to move on. Grab a new one. Um, actually, you know what, let's add some shadows here. Cool. So I thought I'd do the sketch for, you know, since my— I did assign this to my architecture students this week to sketch this one, and I thought it would be cool to practice what I'm preaching so I can turn in my homework along with theirs. So it'll be awesome. And let me tell you, I have some really incredible artists, um, in the class. The idea— we're not really looking for beautiful, amazing artwork. Again, the idea is just to capture the character of the building. And that's what I— that's what I always tell them. Just make it your own style and just capture the character. And the other important thing is, don't— I tell them not to compare their drawings to their classmates. Just compare your drawings to your own and just get a little bit better every weak. That's all I'm looking for. And sometimes it's easier said than done. I really try not to compare my sketching to other architectural sketchers. It's okay to look and, you know, seek inspiration, but sometimes we fall into the comparison trap, and that could paralyze— that could paralyze you if you're always comparing your work to others. And you're putting your work down. Or even if you think your work is much better than other people's, that's just as bad because it doesn't really challenge you and stretch you to grow and be better. Because you're like, oh yeah, I'm better than— I'm better than that person, my artwork is amazing. It's okay to like your artwork, but always challenge yourself to be better or different. I hope that makes sense. Cool. I, I'm actually digging this one, kind of liking it. All right guys, I'm going to wrap in a couple minutes here. Let me know if you have any final questions or thoughts. Um, thank you for liking this, guys. Thank you for sharing it and giving me a thumbs up on YouTube if you're watching on YouTube. Is so helpful to spread the word. So I'd appreciate it, give me a thumbs up out there. And if you haven't subscribed, it'd be so cool if you subscribe to my channel and make sure you turn on the notifications so you know when I'm online, because it's kind of random when I pop on, as, as a lot of you know. All right, cool. I think I'm gonna leave this one here. I'm just coloring— not really coloring, I'm just dotting in some kind of windows happening here. All right, cool. There we go. So that's it, guys. That is the, uh, quick sketch of the Hagia Sophia, um, major cultural center and mosque in Istanbul, Turkey. Pretty cool building. And I like it. Got them showing the domes here, got the towers going on, and I think I captured just enough of it to, um, convey what building it is without a lot of detail. So that's kind of my goal. I'm trying to simplify and capture feelings. Guys, you're awesome! Thank you so much for watching. Appreciate you all. Have an amazing rest of your Saturday. I have, uh, real homework I have to do. So it's good, a little break here for me. But take care, guys. I hope to be on again sometime this weekend. So take care, have an awesome, awesome day. Keep paying it forward. I like to say, use your creativity for positivity. Alright guys, peace and live creatively. I'll see you soon. I gotta do— I gotta work on some kind of better exit than just waving and staring at the camera. We'll come up with something. All right guys, take care. I am looking for the finish button. There it is. Boom, got it. See you guys.