The Inkspired Life - Sketching & Painting : Inking Out Loud

Hey Heather, good to see you. Hope all is well. I will not tell anybody that you're at work. Hope you're having an awesome day and happy almost New Year. So hey guys, I'm just popping on today. It's Friday afternoon, 12, almost 1 o'clock PM, December 29th. December 30th. I'm just doing a quick bridge sketch, taking a break. Just was doing some schoolwork today. I just want to take a little downtime and get some sketching in before I run out and do some errands. Yeah, so I hope you're having a great, great day and your holidays are going well. I am sketching a different bridge I've never sketched before. Thanks to Laura for introducing me to this bridge. It's in Budapest. It's called the Liberty Bridge. Again, this is my first attempt ever sketching this. I'm looking at a little perspective view here. And I just want to I want to get something down on paper just to get the feel of it. I already know my proportions are off with the bridge. It's definitely narrower and taller, but it's okay. We're practicing, we're learning, we're having fun, and that is why I'm here. Anyway, enough about me. What are you guys up to? There's cool towers on this bridge here. It's incredible ironwork, so detailed. I just want to capture the overall form and just kind of idea and shapes that are going on here. If you guys have been following me this month, I've been sketching at least one bridge every day for all of December. Different bridges, not the same bridge. And I've actually been loving it. It's been really cool, just a couple different things. One, it's been cool just to see that I can be disciplined and focused when I need to be, because I'm often distracted and go down so many different paths, which is okay. But I'm not one for really being good at keeping— I know what the word is, I want to say schedules, but I have to keep schedules for school and stuff. I guess disciplines, like habits. So this has been a good challenge for me for that. It's also been just a good experience. You know, I love architecture and buildings and structures. It's been really fun to just sketch this subject. It's also been cool because people have been connecting with bridges and locations, which is really interesting for me to see. You know, what people connect to with what I'm sketching. So that's always fun too. Sorry, I'm kind of sketching and talking. Good thing I'm not chewing gum at the same time because that would not go so well. Sketching, talking, and chewing gum. Yeah, that would be a mess. I am not good at multitasking. But anyway, so I'm just sketching this bridge, a lot of shapes, not a lot of shapes, but there's a lot of detail ironwork, which I'm leaving out. Heather says, "Have a good morning." Yes, thank you. Those are awesome pics. I appreciate that, Heather. Thank you for your feedback. So cool. Looks like this tower kind of comes down in here. Tower kind of comes down in here a little bit. Boom. So this is the road edge there. Ooh, see, you're talking about distractions, the squirrels. It's like 50-something degrees, I think, outside. I threw out some Stell pretzels out in the yard, and there's like a squirrel convention outside my window. I'm just, I'm looking at the fleeting of squirrels. How cool is that? I love seeing them out there. So yes, there you go. That's an example of how I'm easily distracted. It's all good though. Who doesn't love nature and watching squirrels eat stale pretzels? It's all good. All right, cool. So, this is interesting. There's a little structure that comes back here. Kind of we have some width to it, some mass going on. And I got a— in the foreground, there's a really big diagonal support. Let's draw the vertical one here. We got some vertical ironwork here, and then off of this there's kind of a big diagonal support that comes away in the foreground here. So I'm just sketching with my Sharpie because, um, I like to start with the Sharpie because I never, never know if I'm going to add ink to these and bleed them later. And if I want to bleed ink, I can come back and just add Lamy ink or something else. Starting with a Sharpie allows me to not worry about adding water and making the image too muddy. So I just like to block things out with a Sharpie first because, you know, they won't bleed with water. Alright, we've got some kind of X some bracing going in here. Boom. I'm just gonna draw them as single lines for now. Alright, I'm thinking a little too much. I kind of like to sketch faster when I'm doing this for the first time. It's all good though. Alright, we have some diagonal X's going on in here. Kind of this brace diagonal support here in the foreground. There's another smaller one back here. There's a bunch of other ones. I'll just kind of allude, allude to it. That's a fancy word for me, allude. Is it elude or allude? I think I'm gonna allude to it. Elude, I think, means I'm trying to escape from it. I'm gonna allude or hint at the idea of this diagonal support back here, another vertical piece back in here. Kind of cool. This bridge is interesting. It has a In the middle of the bridge, it has a, a tram that goes on it. I think they're called trams. It's almost like a cable car without a cable. I'm going to call it a tram. So it has like a tramway on it, which is interesting. But I'm going to kind of sketch the rails here. There's a car lane on here. Cool. Got some vertical stuff happening back there. Hello, Mr. Squirrel.

All right.

D-Ray, good to see you. Hope all is good with you, D-Ray. Hope— I hope the weather is warming up for you. I know I've been seeing some really cold temperatures posted up in Alaska. I guess you're up, I guess from New Jersey you could consider up, right? Alaska is up from here. It's always so cool just to see, see you tuning in from Alaska. I love that. But I hope you're keeping warm and you're Health is doing well.

Cool.

So this is some ironwork going back here on these towers. I am, I'm just going to kind of hint at it with just some diagonal cross-hatching going on in here. And in the background, we have some buildings kind of going on back in here. I'm going to just gently Kind of silhouette them in here a little bit. Don't want to draw too much attention. Just want to hint that there's something in a distance beyond here. There is so much detail on this, not my sketch, but the real one. All right. I think I'm going to— I like that as a start. I might throw down some ink and bleed a little bit of it. And I need some water. I didn't bring water, but I have some cold coffee, I think, here. So happy almost New Year! Hope you guys are, um, rejuvenating or starting to think a little bit about the new year. Maybe— I don't know if you do resolutions or things like that. I'm not really one for making resolutions. Typically what I do is I come up with 3, 1 to 3 words I like to focus on during the year rather than resolutions. So, you know, the words, I'm not sure what 2023 will bring, but You know, creativity is always one of my words, so I like to focus on creativity. Collaboration, I think, is a great word in collaborating, working together with people. Community is also another great word as well, building community. So it's fun for me to think of the new year in terms of keywords. There's a structure here. I kind of got this line here. I'm going to add some Lamy ink. It will bleed some of this. Kind of want this arch to pop a little bit, so I'm going to add some Lamy ink. I'm only putting the Lamy where I want to bleed the ink. Let's pop out some of these diagonal bracings a little bit. Uh, let's see, just kind of rotate that. I think I'm gonna put some on there. Um, maybe back here as well. I kind of like this shape happening here. Kind of interesting little focal point. Alright, let's bleed some of that. And I am just gonna have some water. I actually changed my water, so it's not so dirty. I do have dirty water here though, if I wanted to use it. This is a cleaner one. Just wet this a little bit. Alright, so I just dipped this in some water and let's just kind of bleed this a little bit. I want to pull this out here. Uh, what else do I want to pull out? Maybe it's kind of— maybe just underside of this piece will just darken a little bit. I'm gonna pull this down. I just— I'm only darkening here because I want to kind of show this framed area a little bit. Actually pull this down here to just gray it up a little bit, because now this really is popping as like a focal point. That's one of the cool things about sketching bridges and perspectives, and you have some kind of focal point in the distance. I'm gonna kind of do the same thing here a little bit, just so we're popping out this shape. And here's what I like to do, actually, let's bleed some ink. There's actually a little curb area, let's try this, let's darken this. Start, kind of pull back a little curb. Boom. And here's, I want to bleed this, give some gray to the road surface. So we're gonna just add water like that, and I'm just gonna pull it across. I might throw down a little bit more. So this is just a Lamy pen with black Lamy ink. I've been enjoying doing these kind of black and white, gray sketches lately. And I seem to get the most positive feedback when I actually do black and white sketches. So it's interesting for me to see that. Pull this out a little bit here. Pull that out. Just kind of gray this a little bit. I'm just literally lifting the ink off of here and kind of throwing it down over here.

Cool.

Looking pretty awesome. Uh, D-Ray says the mystery— oh, Heather said the mystery wash. Yes, it's like Scooby-Doo has the mystery van, I have the mystery wash. And, um, I guess I'm not really solving any crimes or running around in creepy zombie costumes. Why I'm comparing what I'm doing to Scooby-Doo, I have no idea. Um, let's see. Creativity. Yeah. D-Ray. Creativity, collaboration, community, keywords. Awesome. Love that. Dirty water gives it character. It does.

Yeah.

You guys know I love using dirty water, right? It's so much fun to sketch with, do some ink washing with dirty water. I kind of like where this is headed. I don't even know if I want to do much more to it. Just softening that a little bit there. Maybe, maybe I'm going to pull out this edge a little bit here. I'm going to throw into my Lamy ink. On here. Pull out the structure a little bit. Sometimes things will get lost when you start adding water. You can always come back and— typically I'll wait for it to dry and I'll come back with a Sharpie or my Pilot pen and then add some detail, pull some detail out. I think that one might be good for now. Let's see. Blackman is very becoming to me interesting results, I think. Oh, dear, that's so cool. I'm really liking the black and white sketching. The only thing I— one of the things I do want to work on with black and white and gray sketching is kind of making things pop out a little more without putting a wash in the background. Making the structure pop out. I can do that with darkening lines, I guess. But I still, you know, I'm definitely going to still add colors here and there. Like right now I'm imagining adding a sepia background on here. I think it'd be kind of cool to put a sepia wash and let this pop. I might actually do that when it dries. So maybe black and gray with just a little pop of color here and there. I kind of feel like that's where my strength is. Simple, simple color wash. I think one of my— I think one of my words for 2023 is going to be— I'm going to write it down. I think it's simplify. So one of my keywords, something I want to practice in 2023, is simplify. And that applies to pretty much everything from my artwork to the stuff I own to my schedule, you know, kind of cutting some things out of my schedule that I overload myself way too much. I'm learning as I get older, it's okay to say no. It's always okay to say no before you say yes, right? I typically have been a yes person for most of my life, but that I started changing about a year or so ago. And I'm starting to say no to more things, which actually, believe it or not, opens up more doors to things I'd rather focus on. So I think simplify. If I pick only one word for me in 2023, it's going to be simplify. I think actually another word— I have two words. Another one's coming to mind. This will be the year of the S words. Hope you guys don't mind this. I know we're supposed to be sketching, which is S word, but I'm thinking about next year. Simplify, um, what was the other word? System. It's not an exciting word. Systematize. It's not a very exciting, beautiful word, but systematize, if that's the right way to spell it. I want to start having systems in place. For example, when I do Facebook or Instagram and posting things. I need to have— I want to have a system, a scheduled system where I can kind of load it up and let things post certain times, certain days, kind of systematize slash it's like automate kind of things, kind of like autopilot. That sounds more fun. So systematize slash autopilot. Hey, you guys are getting a sneak peek of my 2023 words. Thank you for sharing and being along for the journey. It's 115, but one pop color adds more. Yeah, maybe I will add some. You know, I think I am going to throw some sepia on this, guys. Let's use— hmm, use our sepia brush marker. I was thinking about Walnut Ink, but that's going to be, I think, too dark for right now. So I'll pull out— grab my marker. Here we go. That is not the right one. Let's grab my sepia. I think this is my sepia one.

Yes.

Alright, cool. Alright, so there's some sepia on here. Um, so what we're going to do is we're going to just— I don't like to take my watercolor brushes, or markers rather, and put them right on the paper. I like to set the color down on a palette area, so I'm going to kind of put it down here, and then I'm going to lift it off the palette. And let's throw— let's just throw some sepia on here. Why not? Let's see what it does, right? We got to have fun. Always have fun when you're doing this. Otherwise, for me, there's no point in being on here if it's— if I can't have fun with it. Just throwing down some water. All right, let's lift some of that sepia color, just kind of splash it on here. I'm not really splashing it, I guess I'm kind of painting it on here, dabbing it. Squirrels are fleeing out, fleeing by me, it's like Bob Ross, talking about squirrels here. Squirrels are fleeing past my window. Love it. Love seeing them outside on a nice warmish, warmish winter day. It's a very warm winter day here in New Jersey. So good for them. So here's an example of why I use the Sharpie, because throwing down this ink wash and it's not bleeding the black ink. If it was, this would be a big mud pile right here.

That's cool.

I like the way it's looking. I'm leaving white space. I'm not purposely filling everything in. I do want to add a little more. Where's my marker? So this is a Winsor Newton Sepia brush marker— watercolor brush— watercolor marker. Hello, Winsor Newton. Sorry, I don't know what I'm calling your product. Whatever it is, I'm liking it and love using it. I'm going to throw some of that sepia on here too, on the road. I do want to be a little darker in the back here. I could touch some down here, a little darker back there, so it just helps create— add to that depth I'm trying to create with a perspective. So it's darker there. Paper is buckling. I don't know if you can see that, but it is— it is buckling big time.

Cool.

I think that's enough of the sepia. Um, after it dries, I will come back in and just pull out some more of these lines of the bridge structure a little bit with A. I probably will use my Pilot pen to do that.

Cool.

Let's see, any more questions or comments? We're going to head out in about a couple minutes here. Keywords simplify, placement art schedules, fun, blah blah blah. D-Ray, I thank you so much. I love when you paraphrase what I'm saying. It's so— it is so helpful to me. Um, thank you so much for doing that because I don't know what I say. Maybe, maybe it's a good thing, but it's good, it's good to go back and take a look. So thank you so much. Yeah, this is cool. So this is my first attempt at sketching The Liberty Bridge in Budapest crosses over the Danube River, I believe. Danube? Am I saying it right? Danube? Danube River. And thanks to Laura for sharing, you know, some images of this bridge, which kind of— which got me interested in trying to sketch it. You'll be seeing more sketches of this for sure. This was a quick sketch. I already know my proportions are off. I kind of— this should be narrower and taller. So remember guys, when you, when you do your artwork, your painting, your sketching, always try to have two takeaways. One, it's okay to self-critique, but don't put yourself down. When you self-critique, use it as a lesson. What you can change, not as, oh, this is a horrible sketch, I never want to show it, it looks worse than Frankie's sketch. Don't compare what you're doing to other artists. So my takeaway, my self-critique on this, um, this really, proportion has to change here, has to be narrower and taller. So next time I sketch it, I'll know that, my brain, make it narrower, a little bit taller. Even though I'm not trying to create a replica of what I'm seeing, proportionally I do want it to be a little bit closer. So that's one takeaway. The other takeaway is, you know, take away something else from the process, something fun. What did you enjoy about this? Did you learn something that was exciting? So what did I learn about this? What was the fun part? I think the fun part for me today is Um, I'm— it's a challenge, but I'm trying to figure out how to simplify what I'm seeing into fewer lines, like not a lot of detail. So I always think that's a fun challenge. It's back to my 2023 word, simplify. How can I simplify but get the same idea across? Um, so that's— that was also fun. That was my fun takeaway. Cool. Sharpie, yes, cool. Sometimes we can use all the help we can get. We can all use a little help and positivity no matter what it's for. Alright guys, thank you so much for watching. I hope you appreciated this. I want to thank everybody who's watching this live or the replay. Whether you're on Facebook or YouTube. I appreciate it. Appreciate the comments. I appreciate you guys sharing this. I've been so lucky. My likes on my Facebook page have really gone up a lot. Almost close to 1,000 people following, which, which is cool. I was setting a goal for 1,000 end of this year, so I'm very close. I'm like 980 980 followers. I think I need 20 more to hit that 1,000 mark before January 1st. If it doesn't happen, it's cool, but it's just fun to see more people engaging and watching. So I think I'm doing something, putting something positive out there. And thank you guys, because some of you guys are regulars and you're always commenting and supporting. So thank you so much. I really, really appreciate you. I'm just thinking ahead, so today's Friday. I'm gonna livestream sometime New Year's Eve. I know people are out doing things, partying or whatever. I'll be home chilling with my family, but I do want to do some kind of a livestream, so I'll be on at some point. I guess it's tomorrow night, New Year's Eve, doing some sketching. We'll see what happens. I was gonna do a sketch-a-thon where I was going to sketch for hours and hours straight as a fundraiser. I didn't promote that soon enough, so I don't think that's going to happen. But maybe I'll try tomorrow. We'll see. Thank you guys. Take care. D-Ray, thank you for watching. I hope you're doing well. Thank you for taking notes for me. Heather, thank you for tuning in. I know you were watching. I appreciate that. Hey, Jennifer's in the house. Jennifer, good to see you. Hope you're doing well and you're feeling better. So positive thoughts to Jennifer. Hope you're feeling better. Adire, you as well. Adire, hope you're feeling better. Yeah, I hope you guys are doing— just sending positive thoughts your way, positive thoughts about your health. I want to just wish everybody positive health, coming up in 2023. You guys are awesome. Thank you so much. Maybe I'll be on tonight. We'll see how the rest of the day goes. If not, have an awesome, awesome rest of your day. Um, you're amazing. Thank you, guys. Peace and live creatively. Have an awesome rest of your day. Take care.