The INKspired Life - Loose style architectural sketching

In this 45‑minute live‑stream, artist Jason Nicholas takes a brief lunch break to sketch two New England coastal structures—a quick, loose rendering of Pemaquid Point Lighthouse in Maine followed by a whimsical fishing‑shack from Boothbay Harbor. While drawing, Jason narrates his process in a conversational, instructional tone, explaining how he chooses reference photos, sets up his workspace, and applies a range of sketching techniques (continuous‑line rock forms, vertical hatching for shadows, stippling for plaster texture, and selective color washes with fountain‑pen inks and watercolor). He frequently interacts with chat participants (D‑Ray, Laura, Andrea, DB, Rue, etc.), giving shout‑outs, celebrating reaching 400 YouTube subscribers, announcing an upcoming giveaway, and sharing personal updates such as studying for a commercial‑drone certification test that will support his teaching and freelance work. Jason also reflects on the symbolic meaning of lighthouses—guidance, protection, and personal identity—linking the act of sketching to transporting himself to beloved Maine locations when travel isn’t possible. Throughout the stream he discusses his preferred tools (Fabriano 1264 paper, various Sharpies, Lamy, Preppy, and Birmingham “Streetcar” ink, plus a free Etchr fountain pen) and offers practical tips (continuous‑line rock drawing, using a dirty palette, mixing gray from blue and brown). The session ends with a brief wrap‑up, gratitude to the community, and a reminder of the giveaway and future live sketches.
Chapters
Hey, good afternoon. It's 12:13 on Monday, July 10th. Hope you guys are doing well. Had to look at the calendar. I, uh, guess what I don't have here on my table right now? Hey D-Ray, good to see you. Hope all is well. Um, yeah, I don't have a Sharpie, but I have tons of them right here. That's unusual. I usually have one ready to go. I hope you guys are doing well. I am on really quickly only for 10 minutes. 10 quick ones. Um, taking a little lunchtime break, then I have some more work to do, then I have some studying to do for a test I'm taking tomorrow. Anyway, I hope you're doing well. Um, and then, uh, I'm gonna give a special shout out to all of you guys in a couple of minutes. All right, so I'm gonna sketch something I have not sketched in a while, and One of my favorite types of buildings ever are lighthouses. I love lighthouses. At one point in time on my bucket list, maybe it's still on there, I want to visit and travel and visit as many lighthouses as I can. So let me know if the music's loud, by the way. I cranked it up on my end because I love listening to music. If you can't hear me, or the music's too loud, or you'd rather not hear me, just let me know in the comments. D-Ray says, "Test tomorrow?" Yes! I am taking a test tomorrow, um, to get my certification to fly drones commercially. So it's gonna be an interesting test. It's— I've been studying. Um, probably should have studied sooner. It's going to be interesting. I feel like I'll pass it. Um, and once I pass, I will be able to take a drone and I could fly it. And if I want to do, uh, make money, you know, to shoot footage of houses or buildings, I can do that. But more importantly, I can use it in school to teach my students and in the drone to run the drone club as well. So that's where I'm headed tomorrow. All right, let's sketch a lighthouse. I am going to be sketching quick, loose, fast. This is Pemaquid Lighthouse in Maine. Pemaquid is an amazing place, one of our favorite places in Maine whenever we go. I could spend the entire day at this location, more than a day. It's just beautiful. All right, I am talking a lot. Do you really lighthouse in this segment? Yeah. Alright, cool. Alright, I'm gonna do quick, fast, loose, and wonky. And let's just do it. I'm actually gonna move some of these pens out of— off here a little bit. I didn't declutter. I'm left-handed, so I'll just move everything to the right so I get a lot of space here. Am I on screen? That's what I'm trying to figure out. I think so. I think I fit the whole sheet of paper on screen. Alright. Enough chatting. Let's sketch this thing. I am looking at a reference photo. So this is Pemaquid Point Lighthouse. I guess it's considered Midcoast Maine, this area. And this is just a side view of it. There's another view where you can actually see the light housekeeper's cottage, which is attached to the building. But I'm kind of doing the simpler view right now because I wanted to do it quick. Just comes down here. There's actually a fence we got kind of running in here, fence post doing something like this. Boom, boom, boom. There we go. Building actually comes a little lower here. All right, let's sketch the kind of the top And I haven't, I haven't sketched a lighthouse in a while. I used to always sketch them. Sometimes we just go down these creative paths and you don't know where they're gonna send you, and it's fun just to branch out and try different things. We have our glass area up top here. It's really cool, I've seen White Houses that have been converted into regular houses. Really interesting. You gotta like climbing stairs. Although I think I saw one they put, um, they attached an elevator to it. There's kind of the top of the lighthouse. We have a window here along the staircase. This has a really cool spiral staircase. One time, one night, I'll come on longer and I'll show you guys some pictures of this, and I'll do another sketch, another view perhaps of it. But yeah, again, this is just quick, fast, and fun. Hey, Andrea, good to see you! Yay, I made it to the live! Good to see you. I haven't seen you in a while. Hope all is well. Thanks for joining. Laura, I haven't seen you either. Hope you're doing well. This is so cool. Taking a break from watercolor exercise from the fodder challenge. Nice to see you live. Yeah, Laura, it's been a while. Laura, you've been, uh, making some really cool, um, art. I always love seeing your artwork. So cool. Love this. So while you guys are here, I want to give a special shout out to you guys watching and to anybody that's watching the replay. Um, I want to thank you. You guys have helped me to achieve a milestone, a goal I set, and that was to get 400 subscribers on YouTube, and I hit that mark I think Sunday or yesterday. Wait, today's Monday. Yesterday was Sunday. Saturday or Sunday. So thank you guys for liking these, um, live streams, the videos. Thank you for, you know, subscribing to my YouTube, um, or following me here on Facebook. I really appreciate that. So thank you guys so much. And I'm gonna do a giveaway during this week, during one of my live streams at night. I'm going to give away a sketch because I'm just so— I'm excited and happy, and I couldn't do without you guys. Thank you so much. I, I really appreciate all you guys. I know you spend time here, and you're always so positive in the comments, and it's just so much fun for me to keep coming on live and just sketching. So thank you guys so, so much. Next up, 1,000. I could hit 1,000. I'm not trying to be greedy. So for me, it really isn't— it's more about the quality of the person following and watching, and you guys are top-notch. Um, it is just fun to see those numbers grow, and I feel like when they grow, I can just share more of this fun and positive attitude and creativity with more people. And that's kind of my mission, is just positivity through creativity, right? We don't have to be incredible, amazing artists, and, and I'm not. My goal is just to have fun with what I'm doing, and I do, and I am having fun thanks to you guys. So thank you. All right, so this is actually made out of stacked stonework here. I'm gonna— I'm sketching some contour lines on here. Contour lines are these curved lines to give it the illusion of being curved. You can see it's plastered or painted over stone. You can kind of see these blocks of stonework here along the facade of the tower. Um, and our fence here. Got some kind of landscape happening. Again, this is really quick. I'm not even going to add color to this today. I just wanted to pop on for a couple minutes. Oh, I grabbed some Starbucks too. I was out measuring a, uh, I'm helping with a fire-damaged structure. So I was out this morning doing some surveying and taking pictures and stopped at Starbucks on the way back. Yeah, cool. Um, D-Ray says, welcome to the lighthouse sketching, Laura. Love that. I love how you guys are all polite with each other. Wow, Andreas says, I've been with you since day one, love your channel. Thank you so, so much. Shout out I really appreciate that. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah, you guys here, I mean, you guys are here now. You have been with me for so long and following, so it means so much. It really does. So thank you. I wouldn't— I don't know if I'd be doing these live streams if no one was watching. Be kind of weird, maybe. So here's one. Typically— let's do it. So I like to show shadow, a shadow line on here to make it look curved. And since we're gonna keep this black and white, we're gonna do a shadow coming this way. So I just do that line, but here's— I'm gonna hatch it. I'm gonna hatch it with vertical lines, and you'll see what happens. Again, this is just— these hatch lines are just to give the illusion that this tower is curving, in fact. So you can kind of see, right, that shadow. Notice how it's curving here. Whoosh. It's helping to make this tower look rounded. And just for fun, we're going to keep this black and white, let's just show some shadows on this side of the building too. And I'm just going to use the hatching technique. I'm hatching up a plan. We have some shadows under this overhang, so we're going to do the same thing. So yeah, we'll just make all our hatch lines vertical. So you can see by doing that, it's just creating the idea of an overhang here. Giving a little depth to this. The windows here, I'm only going to maybe color a few of them in black just to give the idea there's window panes of glass happening. It's looking cool. It's a two-way street. You have inspired us more than you know. Hey, Laura, that is so kind. Thank you so much. It means a lot. I'm appreciative. We are the ones that love and enjoy your interaction. Oh, D-Ray, you're awesome. You guys are amazing. Thank you. Like I said, it's about the quality of the person watching, and you guys are good peeps. Cool. All right, let's see, what else do I want to do on this? I think it's pretty cool. I like its simplicity. I'm gonna pull out maybe this a little more here. Um, the color— just some of these lighthouse panes in a little bit, glass area there. And let's just throw some, maybe some shadows on this fence. We'll kind of hatch in maybe this part of the fence is in shadow, so let's give it a little depth. Like this. And then you guys know I like to do my growies, so I got my— whether they're flowers or some kind of weeds growing up here, usually they're little scrubby vegetative things. I know you guys, you guys are much better at your plants and flower knowledge than me, for sure. And I minored in landscape architecture, but I learned about palm trees, a lot of palm trees and hibiscus. I remember hibiscuses and palm trees. Um, wow, what kind of trees were those? Oh my gosh, the most— they're like the most incredible trees. I can't think of the name of them. They're twisty, they're gnarly. They have them in— they have them in Florida. Oh my gosh, banyan trees. I think they're banyan, B-A-N-Y-A-N, banyan trees. They are incredible. There we go. That's a cool, funky, quick lighthouse. DB's in the house. DB, great to see you as well. And Rue, hey, Rue's in the house. Great to see you as well. I appreciate you guys. So you guys just joining, I wanted to thank everybody. I'm up to 400 subscribers on YouTube thanks to you guys. I appreciate it so, so much. So let me talk about lighthouses for a second and why I love them so much. Um, I love lighthouses for their symbolism, right? Um, they're protective, they're warning, they, um, they provide guidance in the midst of storms, right? I mean, they're very, very functional buildings, but you could take their functional, you know, meanings and interpret them in such so many different ways. Um, you know, I always envision— and it's gonna sound kind of weird, but sometimes I imagine that, you know, I'm kind of like a lighthouse. I like to guide people, help people, give them direction. Um, and I feel like sometimes if I was a building This is kind of a weird conversation. If I was a building, if I was a building, I think I would be a lighthouse. I feel like I identify with their meaning and their purpose. It's kind of weird, I know. Just think about it. If you guys could be a building, what building would you be? You know, some of us may be barns. Barns are very, Utilitarian structures, right? They serve a function, a basic purpose. They're kind of simplistic in form but serve a purpose. Some of us are like that in life. I agree, keep this simple. Make, make the lighthouse just make up a name you love. Awesome, Ruth, thank you so much. I love that. I love the feedback. D-Ray says, now I paid my bill, but my internet is breaking up here and there through this video. Oh no, D-Ray, I am sorry. Hang in there, the replay will always be up for sure. Um, so guys, I think this one is done. I kind of like where it is. I don't, I don't know, should I add background color? I kind of like the black and white version of this. So again, this is Pemaquid Point Lighthouse, Midcoast Maine. I've been here A lot of times, a lot of good memories. Incredible rock outcroppings here. I could spend the entire day here. I have memories of my son and, you know, my wife just hanging out here. Just so cool. And I can't go to Maine this year. So since I can't go, I'm going to bring Maine to me. You may have noticed, right, that I sketched this last night. This is inspired by a boatyard in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. Colors are not the colors that are there, but the form and shape of the building is inspired by Boothbay Harbor boatyard. So by me being able to sketch these buildings and locations, I can kind of bring that place to me and relive some special memories. That's one of the reasons I love sketching architecture. So it's really cool. Uh, D-Ray says, oh, add rocks, add rocks to this one. I could, I should. So the view I'm looking at is kind of the side view of the lighthouse. Um, the rocks and everything are happening off screen, but what the heck, we're going to interpret this. I like your idea. So I'll show you guys how I like to sketch rocks. I'm going to zoom in. So let's add some rocks. So I like to do my rocks as continuous lines. So this is— notice I haven't really picked my pen off the page yet. And for me, this is just a quick way to get the idea of rock outcroppings. All right, I did pick it up there. It doesn't have to be 100% continuous, but this way allows me to kind of be loose with it. If I was to sit here and do this, if I were to draw stones like this, let's just do an example. Let's just make— let's pretend we have a stone wall here. If I was sitting here and draw stones like this, kind of separately— see, by habit I connected those, but let's say I want to do them separately. I have to think really hard about where I'm putting those stones, and it's kind of slowing down the quick looseness. Whereas if I just kind of do this— oops— the continuous line, I'm not really thinking as much, and it's quicker and it's looser. So that's why I like to do my stones this way and not individually. Hopefully that makes sense. Pro tip number 1 for today. Well, I'm not a pro, so sketching tip number 1. Yeah, so D-Ray said a small layer. I agree, D-Ray. I like the idea of the stones in the foreground. It's helping give this place a sense of setting and location. So it was a cool idea. And then let's just throw some hatching on here just to give some depth to our stones, make them a little more interesting. I'll zoom in so you can see it better. Boom. You know, I could even color in some of the spaces between the rocks if I wanted to, a little darker, and it just creates another level of interest. This building, I think, is plastered, so it's smooth. That's why I didn't throw any siding on it. But a cool architectural way to show plaster— actually, it kind of looks like here, but it's just a stipple. So stippling is just adding these. This is good therapy, by the way. If you guys need to chill out, stipple something. Let's get a piece of paper and make dots. It's really It's very soothing. But this is a one way architects like to show plaster on buildings, or parging. So you just kind of show some stippling on here, just give it some texture. And I do want to give a little bit of texture to the shingles here. So I have my horizontal lines, and just to show shingles, I'm not measuring, I'm just kind of following the angle of the roof very loosely. And just throwing these down here gives that sense of texture or some kind of asphalt shingle roof on there. Say that fast. Asphalt shingle roof. Ash-vault shingle roof. It's a hard one to say fast. And there you go. This one's cool. I'm putting down the pen. Let me know if you guys have any questions or comments about this one. Again, this is Pamiquid Point. So, um, thanks to Roo and his encouragement, and I appreciate you so much as a mentor, and you've inspired me on so many levels. One thing you have said to me many times that I don't always do, what I'm going to do here is write down where this is. Where's the location, right? I actually did that on here. On here last night. I went through and I figured out where the latitude and longitude were so people know exactly where kind of the sketch is. So I'll go through and I'll do the same thing here. I'm going to do— I want to figure out a nicer, more artistic way to do it on the sketch itself, but I love that idea of just being able to pinpoint where these sketches are. Hey, Jason's in the house! Jason, good to see you. By the way, I love your name, as you know. Great to see you, Jason Nicholas Nicholas Nicholas. Cool. If you guys are up for it, let me know in the chat. I'll stay on and do another quick sketch. Maybe we'll do a little fishing shack quick. So this was done on a 4x8 sheet of paper. It's this paper right here, Fabriano 1264. I first bought it when I went to Montreat for a watercolor workshop in April. I think it was April. Uh, love this format, easy to carry. I love the proportions. It worked out really great for this lighthouse, right? The vertical. And then this, if we compare to this one here, this is an 8x8 square, but we're gonna just do a small building. Laura says, I'm liking Fishing Shacks. All right, let's do it, Laura, since you're in the house live. Bam! But let's, um, I'm gonna grab a sip of Starbucks. I have it right here. Sorry. So my go-to Starbucks— we interrupt this message for a commercial by Starbucks. Not a commercial. Caramel Frappuccino all the way. Thank you very much. I need some caffeine and sugar. All right. Oh yeah, that hit the spot. All right, cool. All right, let's do a fishing shack again. I'm gonna— I'm just— I have some photos here open on my desk. I'm gonna scroll through. I'm gonna find a main one, um, just as a reference, as inspo. This one's actually very Simple. I'll pull this image on screen if you want to see it. Actually, do you guys want to— if you want to see Pemaquid, let me pull some images up. So here is— where's— I closed it. Where's the photo I just sketched? Give me a sec. Here we are. So here's the photo I just used as a reference. This is Pemaquid Point Lighthouse, again, Midcoast Maine. That's the reference I was looking at. Here's my sketch. Right? Is it exactly the same? Nope. And that's the point. I don't need it to be exactly the same. I have the photograph. One of the reasons I don't show photographs a lot that I'm sketching, because I've had people say, hey, in the comments too, they're like, hey, your lighthouse you're sketching does not look like the picture. Kind of annoyed me a little bit, so I stopped showing pictures. But the point is, I don't want it to look like the picture. That's why we take pictures. This has my vibe, my energy, my style, my feel to it. And that's, I think, something we should all be doing when we're creating artwork. Make it yours. And that's what's fun. It might sound selfish, but if you're not liking what you're doing, why do it? Here's the one I'm gonna sketch now. Let me pull it on screen. By the way, do let me know if my music is loud. I feel like it's loud for some reason. I love music, but I don't want to drown me out. Although I know some students that would want to drown my voice out. I do miss school. I can't wait for it to start up. All right, let me pull the image on here, look in the comments, and we're gonna sketch one last thing here before I wrap up. If I can find it. I just saw it on here. Where'd it go? Womp womp womp. By the way, there's a really cool little art gallery here at Pemaquid Point, right across from the lighthouse. It's a minute walk from the lighthouse. I think I have a picture of the gallery. Sorry guys, so this is live impromptu. I didn't prepare my slide presentation. I'm just winging it. I don't— I'm not finding a picture of the gallery, but I'll post it sometime. I have like— I have over— I have almost 3,000 pictures of Meme. All right, here's the one I'm going to sketch for now. So you guys want to see it? This will be our reference. Again, I'll just keep it on for a minute. Really simple, basic structure. This again, this is Boothbay Harbor, Maine. So we're going to sketch this. I've sketched it before. Um, I love these simple buildings. This one is a little wonky. I usually like them a little wonkier. And, uh, I love wonky buildings because it shows the age and the character, right? That's a really cool thing about architecture along the water. Especially, is the way they weather. I mean, the weathering really, it tells a story, um, on the building. You know, how is this building holding up to the winds, the moisture content, right? How's it holding up to the tides rising? All these impact the structure and it reflects on the building. So the buildings are able to kind of tell a cool story about that. Uh, Jason Nicholas Nicholas says he gets better every time I log on. Jason, that is That's really kind of you to say. Thank you so much, man. That means a lot. Um, D-Ray, always keep going with another one. Alright. Andrea, I know I say your name like so many different ways. Andrea, Andrea. So forgive me. Um, I have a new vice principal at school and that's her first name and I think I say it wrong a lot. Um, but love the size of the paper. Fishing Shack, yes. Do you raise like caffeine and sugar? You got it. Um, Laura says, but that's your skill, you can make it wonkier. That's true. All right guys, so that's the reference picture. I am turning it off so you can't see it. Haha. Because I don't want anybody saying, hey, that does not look like the picture. Maybe it's just the courage part of me that's kind of making it— let me turn it off. Not courage, that's not the right word. It's the part of my brain that's just— I don't know what the word is. Let's sketch. I talk too much. All right, here we go. I kind of am going to do this in the vertical format. And I might not even sketch the whole building in it. Sometimes we feel like when we sketch architecture, we need to do the entire building. Which is not true. So you could focus on just pieces of it. So I might kind of do a little close-up of just part of it here. You know, sometimes I'll just sketch a door or a window detail. That's— that could be really fun. I hear Olivia, my pup, outside growling at me. She's like, "Hurry up, come out here." It's kind of like a playful growl. Or a yawn, I can't tell. Anyway, yeah, you don't always have to— that's why I think sometimes people shy away from sketching buildings and architecture, is they feel like they have to sketch the entire building. I don't feel that way. Just pick a part of it you like. It can even just be a— anything, a doorknob, it doesn't matter. So I purposely set this kind of low. I wanted this close to the base because I wanted a big sky up there. You have a ramp kind of happening here, and on the ramp we have a railing that's going down at an angle. Again, this, this is super quick, guys. So Laura said that's my skill, making things wonky. So I appreciate that. And here's, uh, one of the ways I like to kind of make things wonky is if you look at the lines here, my lines aren't always the cleanest and neatest unless it's a technical, precise drawing. But you could see I'm kind of— I'm going to exaggerate here, but I can go over these lines and really make them dip and curve and do whatever I want just to make it wonkier. You know, is this building really— I'm exaggerating with this a little bit. Maybe this roof bellies out like that, but you can come back, and especially if you start lighter, even with a pencil, you can come back over lines and make them wonky. I'm just in the habit of usually starting with a Sharpie. One of the things I do love about these structures is the piers going into the water, the poor pilings. And you got these reinforcement bracings going on, these diagonal bracings that they add on over time, maybe replace them, and then this becomes like a patchwork of structure to hold the building up. Um, so this just has regular clabbered siding or clapboard, which is just horizontal siding. Lots of times I'll do like this, like this building here, I did a cedar shingle siding. This one we're just going to leave horizontal. The roof is a shingle roof, but I'm going to make this a metal roof. I just like old kind of rusty metal roofs on buildings. Right, so we have a rusty roof on there. Sounds like the name of an inn or a pub. There's got to be a pub somewhere in England called The Rusty Roof. I should Google that. Um, there's a stone wall that kind of comes along the side here. Okay, we're gonna keep this quick. Um, one of the things I do like to add— I'm gonna add— there's a telephone pole or some kind of pole kind of happening in here for power, and there's a guy wire that comes back onto the roof. Sometimes it's really cool to show these wires. It's kind of like that. This pole kind of does something like that, and then we're just gonna This one I might do a little wash. You know what, let's do, um, I'm gonna add a little color to this. Actually, I'm gonna use a color that I haven't used yet, but I put it in here. Jason Nicholas says, isn't wonky whimsical? Yes, wonky is whimsical. You got that right, wonky is whimsical. Um, This was a freebie pen. They say it was free that I got from Etchr when I bought— they had like a deal. If you got— if you bought, I think, 3 of these accordion books, which I haven't done anything with this one yet, they gave you 2 free fountain pens. So I haven't used them yet, but I did put ink in this one thanks to Angel, who was on YouTube the other night. Angel like I opened it up for the first time, there was no cartridges, so I couldn't use it. This isn't the one. The Angels, like, they're— it has a refillable— let me show you. It has a built-in plunger to refill the pen, which is kind of cool. So if you can see the inner workings here, you see the plunger moving. So you actually Basically, you take your pen, dip it into ink, make sure that— we gotta make sure the plunger's down all the way, dip into ink, and then you turn the cap, and then the plunger just sucks ink up into the pen, into the barrel. Pretty cool. I didn't know that, Angel. Thank you. I'm so glad that, uh, that, um, they pointed it out to me. That was so cool. All right, here we go. So here's one. I put red ink in here. It's called Let me tell you the name of this. It has a cool name. Here, this is, um, this is from the Birmingham Pen Company. I love their products, love their ink. Uh, this is called Streetcar. Isn't that such a cool name? And it's a red color. I think it's based on maybe, uh, you know, the old cable cars that had red colors. And they're, they're based in Pennsylvania, so I went in Pittsburgh. So I think Pittsburgh actually had it, or still has a cable car. And that's what Fred Rogers, if you guys know Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, you know, he had a trolley, right? Um, and he, I think, was from Pittsburgh or the Pittsburgh area. So this company is in Pittsburgh as well, so maybe it's a Hark to that cable car, so I don't have to fill it up. I don't want to open the cap. Let's try this fountain pen. I don't know how it works or how well it works. It— let's see. Oh, well, there we go. We got some red out. We know it works, which is kind of fun, and I'm going to take that as a happy accident, and we're going to use it. I'm just going to take our brush here and we're going to just kind of spread that around. So it's looking kind of an orangey red color. Let me zoom out, I think I'm too close. There we go. So it's an orangey red color. Which is fun. I'm going to leave that kind of white there. Again, that's that Streetcar color. I'm going to take some out of the bottle, actually. And sometimes when you take inks right out of the bottle, the color is more vibrant. And I'm just curious to see what it looks like right out of the bottle. So this is kind of— put some here. It's a little more richer. And I'm just gonna tap some down here, maybe make it a little darker under the roof area. And that's enough. A little bit of ink goes a long way. Unless you spill it on your table. That was close. Oh man. Hey, Cameron's in the house! Cameron, great to see you! Excuse me. Hope all's well. Oh, because of you, I magically received my yellow preppy pen the other day. Hey, awesome, you got a yellow Preppy. Yeah, right, right here. Boom. I love this color. I love this Preppy yellow right out of the cartridge, more so than added here. Again, this is one of those— I always talk about this when I show the Preppy— is they crack easily. The barrel's cracked, you can hear it. So be careful when you get Preppies. But, um, that's a great color, Laura. I hope you, hope you like that yellow. All right, what else should we throw on this? I got my, uh, watercolors. Let's just throw some watercolor. No, actually, let's stick with pen. We're gonna stick with pen on this for now. I'm gonna pull it. I have a Varsity kind of turquoise color. Let's just throw some of that up here on the roof. I used to say roof, and then I went to school in Miami down in Florida, and ever since then I say roof instead of roof, which is really weird. So I think I confused my— I might confuse my pup when I'm talking about roofs on buildings. But here's what's really cool. If you look at what happened here, I kind of threw that turquoise on that orangey-red color, and I like the color of patina or aged, um, copper. So you're getting that kind of aged look here with those, those colors bleeding together. And I'm just diluting this and get— just going to throw some color on these posts here. And I only have 2 colors on here, uh, 3 if you include the black. And I'm just working with the color palette you see, just kind of mixing them right on the page. Jason Nicholas says, I went to the art store up here in Syracuse the other day and I was given a free Lamy pen. Ooh, Jason! I'm so jealous. That's awesome. Love it. Lammies are— you know how I feel about lammies. That's awesome. So cool, man. Can't wait to see what you, uh, sketch with it. Here we go. I'm liking the colors on this. One of the things I do like about the Preppy Varsity— so I do that all the time. These are the Varsity pens. One thing I like about Varsity pens is I like to just blot them in wet areas, and the ink tends to come out fairly well. So it's really a cool way of just mixing the ink colors together. Kind of going on top of each other like that. Of course, you guys know what color I am going to add to this before we wrap up. I have to wrap up at 1:00 the latest. Um, let me know in the comments, what color do you think I'm going to add to this? Andrea says, "Love my Lamy pen too." I made this cool video called "A Man and His Pen." I don't know if you guys have seen it. I could play it here if I could find it. It's just short, like 2 minutes. I used to use it as the intro to my sketching shows and it's just me and my me and my Lambie. It's a really— it's a fun video. I could pull it up sometime if you guys ever want to see it. All right, what are the color— I feel like we need bluish purple, pink. So Laura, you got it. So pink is what I'm thinking. So we'll definitely add the neon pink. But Jason says bluish purple. Jason, I'm actually— I like that. I like that, and I'm gonna do that for some shadow lines. So good suggestion. So I'm gonna just mix up— I do have purple ink here, but I'm gonna— I like to mix up my own. So let's mix up some here quick. You can see my palette here, it's well used. Um, let's just make some purple and we'll throw some on. And that's a great way to make some shadows. We'll add some to the roof, maybe this under the overhang here, and maybe on some of these, uh, cross bracings and piers. So you can see I do mix purple. There's some right here actually kind of ready to go. So let's just kind of throw that on. Uh, I want it a little more intense. I think I threw down a little too much water, so let's just kind of bring out some of this. There we go. I know this is going to sound weird, but I just— I kind of love working out of a dirty palette. I said it. I admitted that right here, live, for no extra cost. But there you go. So as I'm sketching this, you know, I am thinking about just being here and in Maine right now and taking a walk here along the harbor, being just nerding out on the architecture, smelling the salt air, listening to the seagulls, the boats going by. Right. Just a whole— the whole image is from this one sketch. It's just triggering. I just— I can transport myself there by sketching this, and I— it's really cool, really fun. That's, that's why I love sketching architecture so much. This is looking cool, Jason. Good suggestion. So it is looking— the purple's turning kind of black mixed with the orange. But I do like it, so I think that's pretty awesome. So thank you again. And I don't want to overdo it. I do have this kind of pole here. What do I want to— I'm gonna— I have some gray. I like to mix up gray, so I usually take blue and brown. I know DB loves her— the paint, her Payne's Gray. But I'm going to just mix up some gray here. I already have some kind of on the palette, and I think I just want to throw in just a little splash of it here just to show that there's some kind of structure happening there. And then I want to throw some down on the, um, rocks too. And these— I think this gray is going to help balance out the brightness of the streetcar color, which is— it's drying really nicely. I'll show you guys a close-up of it as I wrap up. I have another minute. All right, that looks cool. No more color other than our pink. So you guys know I like to use that. The neon pink has become almost like a signature. Um, let's see, I'm going to pop some here. Not going to go just like— I like to put little pops of it in. Again, it goes back to keeping these things kind of wonky and whimsical. So we got some here, maybe a little bit on the railing there. I usually like to have it in 3 places. I feel like I just need a pop of it somewhere, kind of. I think up in here, just a little pop on the roof. There we go. That's all I want to do, just 3 places. And there is one last color I do want to add, and that's going to be the colored pencil, uh, my favorite colored pencil color right here, Light Aqua. As you can tell, here's a, here's a kind of a, a tip for you guys. So I'll often sharpen both ends of my colored pencils. So when I have them out in the field with me and I don't have a sharpener, I'll have at least another end that's ready to go. So you'll sometimes notice I have both ends sharpened. This light aqua is going to be really cool and it's a little— it's a little wet. So when it dries, I'm going to come back and throw some kind of on the roof there. All right, yeah, when it dries I'm going to add a little bit on top of there. All right guys, there we go. Bam! Pink, yellow, Sally Ann Smith's in the house! Sally Ann Smith, how are you? Yeah, a pop of yellow would be cool. How are you doing? Great to see you. You guys are awesome. This is so fun. All right, we got our— we got our pops of yellow on here. That is another color I like to throw on. This looks cool. Um, Jason says, I really like that for shadows. Thanks, Jason. Yeah, I appreciate the suggestion. Yeah, that looks nice. I'm going to have to look for this paper. Yeah, it's cool paper. So here again, this is what it is. I have been using the Fabriano more than the— so much more than the other paper. I forgot the name. Oh my God. Canson. I don't know. That's wrong. Like, I've used— I used to use Canson for everything. I still like it, but I've grown to like the Fabriano better. I like the texture on it. Better. I hope that helps. Darius is looking great. Thank you, D-Ray. I did my hair today. I appreciate that. Oh wait, you mean the sketch? Darn. I'm just kidding. You guys are awesome. Hey guys, it's after 1. I gotta head out. I'll head here, but off. Take 2. Hey guys, it's after 1. I need to get some work done. I have to do some studying. 2 o'clock, I have a review session with my friend who's also taking the test tomorrow. We're gonna go through and do a practice test together. One thing I did not do in here is I didn't splatter any— see, I got so into it. I usually will splatter some color on here. That's okay. Here we go. Looks like a little— this looks like a little sun in the distance, doesn't it? Or a fried egg. We'll keep that there. That was another one of those little happy accidents. We'll actually make it into a— maybe a sun off in the distance. "Notice!" That's so funny. "I use Fluid Watercolor Paper Block. It's good stuff." Oh, Jason Nicholas Nicholas, that's awesome! I think I have some Fluid hot press here. I think it's hot press. So that's so cool. I'm glad you use it. I may have to revisit it. All right, guys. Thank you again for tuning in. I appreciate y'all so much. This was a lot of fun. It was a great lunchtime break. And again, thank you guys for helping me reach 400 subscribers on YouTube. I appreciate that. And I know Andrea is on YouTube right now watching, which is fantastic. So thank you so much. Um, we always appreciate you guys liking and subscribing and sharing the videos out. That's it, guys. It's a wrap for me for now. I will this week, one night I'm going to be doing a giveaway for a sketch. I don't know which sketch yet. Maybe, maybe we'll do the Pemaquid. I'm not sure. Maybe we'll do this or maybe something else. We'll figure that out. We'll do a giveaway in celebration of 400 YouTube subscribers. Thank you guys so much. I appreciate you. Keep paying it forward with your creativity and positivity. And that's a wrap for now. Peace. Live creatively. I'll see you guys soon. Take care. I can't hit the button till D-Ray says to hit the button, so I'm gonna wait until D-Ray puts in the comments. He's going to be so hyped. Starbucks. Yeah, the caffeine. Hatching for the shadowing. Hatching up a plan, he says. Did I— what did I say that? I'm way back in the comments. Jason Nicholas says, I also— I still have 18 by 25 for me on paper. Oh, that's awesome, that's awesome. Splatter, go ahead. Take care, guys, have a great day.










