The Inkspired Life - Sketching & Painting : Inking Out Loud

Hey everybody, happy Tuesday night, May 11th.

Hope you're having a great, great day today.

Popping on for some inking out loud. Haven't done any sketching today, so I felt like just getting some out of my system. So, here to go live and see what happens.

Hope you guys are having a great day.

Thanks for watching.

I'm just thinking, let's see.

So I have— hey Becky, hey Jeannie, good to see you guys. Hope you're having a great day. So I am having blank paper syndrome right now. Looking at my sheet of paper, I'm like, what do I do? So I'm thinking, I have a couple of things I like to do, a couple exercises.

One is, um, medititation.

So I'm just going to close my eyes for a minute and let the pen wander around the page. I'm actually going to do this on a scrap piece of paper. And that's kind of change my gears.

My brain is in school mode right now, so I need to shift it into creative mode. So I'm going to do a little medititation.

So I'm just going to take a minute and just let my pen wander around and listen to the music and see what happens. Sometimes you got to practice what you preach, right?

Alright, so I'm going to be quiet for a minute.

Alright, 3.

2, 1.

I'm done. Put my pen down. Take a deep breath.

Take a look.

Alright, so I got some scribbles. That's okay. That's good. That's what meditations are for.

Just to get from one frame of mind into a shift into a creative state of mind. I'm feeling different. I feel better.

I feel my head's kind of clear and I'm ready to start creating stuff. Sometimes, as you guys know, I might look for faces on here, spin it around and play with it for another minute just to get some playfulness going. So I hope you're having a great day. Put it in the comments. Let me know how your day is, what you're up to. Did you create anything fun? Did you paint? Did you sketch?

Did you make someone smile?

Did you wave hello to someone?

I'm just being silly, just making some smiley faces. Getting in a smiley mood. Cool.

Alright. Alright, so the warm-up is done. My hands are kind of all stretched out here. Let's do it. I'm feeling creative now, and actually I'm feeling colorful, so I'm going to break out some colors. Um, what do I want to break out?

I'm going to break out some fluorescent pink. I want to do something bright. And we'll just start with this for now. Let me get my water.

So I have some water here from the other night.

I love the color of it. This is my dirty water that I was rinsing my brush off in.

I couldn't— I can't bear to dump it out yet. I love the blue color. So I still have it here.

Maybe I'll work it in somehow. Actually, let me see what it looks like. I'm going to use a 3/4-inch brush.

Let me see if any of this blue is actually going to come out on the page.

No, it's not showing.

That's okay.

Alright, so I have some pink ink.

That rhymed.

Pink ink. I think like pink ink.

Alright.

Oh, I can't get the cap off.

There we go.

I'm actually just going to put some right on the page and brush it around. So I'm going to add some pink on here. I want a colorful background, and when it dries, I'll come and do some ink on top of it. Uh, some Sharpie, I mean. I think I'll break out another color as well. Does anybody have any ideas what color I might use with this fluorescent pink? Put in the comments, let me know.

I have another color right here in mind I want to break out. I kind of want it to be a little darker in places, just a little variation.

So I know on screen it's a little washed out.

Maybe let me turn this light, let me see. It's a little better. Turn this little light off here maybe. I think my camera's light.

Cool. Hey Chris, good to see you. Don, good to see you. Patty. Inklings, yes. Hello, Inklings. Chris, "I'm always sketching." Awesome! Yeah, me too. I know what you're saying, Chris. Love it. I love that. "Did a mixed media painting which turned out pretty well." Jeannie, that's awesome.

"Your loose cartoon character was just okay." Very cool.

I love that bright pink. I do love the bright pink. "Still not a loose painting person. Gotta have that control. Can't let it go." Chris, what you do is amazing. Your style is or styles, everything from your ink, your known characters to your pencil sketches of animals, people, you're all over the place and that's awesome.

Love that.

Hey, Karen, good to see you. Green, huh? Good guess, green. Nope, not green.

It's a great guess though.

Wow, look at all the Inklings tonight. Yeah, it's like a party tonight. You guys are awesome. I love this. This is exciting. "Try to turn the hawk that lives in the backyard into a cartoon character, but he's so intense, hard to make him cute." Paddy, that's awesome.

It's an intense hawk. "I thought hawks lived in nests, not in tents." Haha, you get it?

Hawks don't live in tents, they live in nests. Had to get that out there. Hey, Luan, how are you? Been a while. Hey there, been a while. Yeah, Luan, good to see you. Add fluorescent blue. Hey, Luan, you guessed blue. You got it. Not fluorescent blue, I do have some, but actually, you know what, Luan, just since you said it, I'm gonna break out fluorescent blue. I was gonna do cerulean, but you know what?

Let's go fluorescent blue.

And then we'll throw this down and let it dry and do some kind of sketch on top. Where's my cloth here? Here we go. By the way, you do get brownie points if you laughed at my Hawk Intense joke.

Brownie points your way.

Alright, so I'm just going to throw this down right on the paper. I'm being brave tonight. I'm also being lazy.

I don't— I didn't take out my mixing stuff.

I could use this. I have a bunch of things right here I could put it in. Ooh, look at that.

One of the things I love when blue overlaps the pink, I love the purpleness. Purplish colors that come out.

You can kind of see it happening up here. I love when the purple—

I'm sorry, the blue overlaps the pink.

Awesome! Hey, oh, now I have a great idea for a hawk sketch.

Thanks, Jason Nicholas Nicholas.

You're welcome. Glad I could help you.

That's so cool.

Hey, if I can share one idea with someone a day, that's awesome. That can make—

my goal in life, guys, is to make at least one person smile every day. Whether it's a wave, or you say hello, tell a silly joke. I'm not a really good joke teller, but if I can make one person laugh every day, I've done my deed. If I can do more than one, that's even better.

I can get a whole class of high school kids laughing and having a good time, I have gone off the charts. Working at it, work hard at it every day. It's tough, it's just tough in this school environment where we're hybrid, where some kids are at home virtually watching, the other kids are in classroom physically. It is a challenging school year for parents, for teachers, and for students.

Administrators, for everybody.

You know what, we're almost through, and I have to say I'm pretty proud of the way things have been going in general.

Not proud of me, but I'm just proud of the way everybody's been handling it.

Alright, so here we go, let's see. Just brushing up some of this, uh, this acrylic ink.

I gotta double-check here.

Yeah, acrylic ink. I'm just brushing it up as it's drying, and I like the brush strokes it's leaving. And I'm sure you guys can guess what I'm going to turn this into. I already know in my brain, I can see it happening, which is pretty fun. It's just transforming. If anybody can guess what I'm going to turn this into, let me know.

Yeah, actually, I'll turn it this way. It might be easier to see. I wish— I'm gonna turn the light off in here and let me see if it looks better. It is so washed out on screen.

I'm gonna paint— ooh, I'm kind of like painting in the dark. Does that look better, guys, with the light off? I only have one light on.

I'm almost painting in the dark. It's weird. So I might look—

my image is probably looking funky on screen with the one light on. Let me know if it looks better this way. Give me a thumbs up or some hearts if it looks better with the light, the big light turned off.

It might make the painting look better too for me because I can't see it.

"Did some gardening, picked some fiddleheads, took a couple walks, helped my kids with projects, now time for art therapy." Hey Becky, what a busy day, holy cow. Wow. You know what, art is therapy.

Art has a magical way of just, for me, just transforming my state of mind, my state of being.

I'm gonna get a little deep, I'm big into personal development, personal growth and all those things.

I don't talk about it so much, but I'm going to start actually applying it more and talking about it and how it applies to what I'm creating because it's part of my mindset. Yeah, but art is definitely very transformative.

Yeah, it's definitely a good day.

Empire State Building. Yeah, Becky, you know, there could definitely be a building in here.

I see a cityscape happening.

Jeannie says, "Light off, water/tree scene." It could be, Chris. Oh, Chris, I totally see that. Water, some trees, pink sky. I see that as well. Yeah, I gotta—

this light is crazy. I'm just messing around with the turning angles. I guess I'm gonna leave it like this, guys, and just paint this way for a while.

You see waters and tree too. Yeah, cool, guys.

I'm glad that you guys are seeing all that stuff. Alright, we'll see, we'll see. I might go skyscraper, maybe trees, maybe just leave it as is. I think I'm going to throw some more pink on here. I just feel like playing with some color tonight. So sometimes I'll set intentions when I'm out. Playing around with creating a painting, I'll have an intention of what I want to do.

Sometimes I don't. Lots—

most of the times I don't. But my intention right now is just be— just want to play around with some colors. I think I'm only going to use these two colors.

I might break out some Sharpie or even some graphite on this too. But I'm not gonna use any other colors other than the pink and the blue.

Ooh, look at that bright splotch, holy cow.

Using a 3/4-inch brush. I like it because it keeps me loose. I don't have to think in detail.

It's wide. Ooh, look at that, it's in shadow. Sorry.

So I saw comments about being loose with your painting. Sometimes a bigger brush will help with that. If you're working with small brushes like this, you tend to think— for me, I tend to think in detail. When I go with a wider brush, less detail.

If I go with an even wider brush like my 1-inch brush here, This is a 1-inch— oh, I'm sorry, I'm lying. This is 2 inches, 2-inch brush.

You know, that's even looser. So maybe that'll—

maybe that's a little tip I can share if you're trying to be a little more loose with painting.

One of the things I like about acrylic ink is it dries fairly quickly. So I like using that. Hey Kim, how are you? Good to see you.

Thanks for—

vertically, oh, Becky, vertically you saw the Empire State Building.

I didn't see that.

That's really awesome that you picked that up. I'll have to go back and take a look at it. Hey, I could, I almost see a skyscraper, Becky.

Maybe you're talking about this area here. Ooh, I'm actually, I'm kind of liking that.

This is weird. So this is actually a crease or— this lighting is so funky, but this is a crease in the paper. So I don't know, when I bought it, there were some wrinkled sheets inside, but when you put it horizontally, it almost looks like a spire.

If this is the building, this looks like a spire.

I think I'm gonna go with it vertically, Becky. I'm kind of liking the idea of this kind of building rising up.

It's almost like some kind of spire on top.

Interesting. Or I can do it this way and do a whole skyline.

Or trees.

I'm not sure, guys. I see a lot of different things happening with this piece. Thanks to you, uh, thanks for your insights. See, you're helping me to look at things. Being an artist, being creative, you know, learning to see the world differently is really helpful to fuel your creativity. You never know.

So for example, my students just watched a video that was posted by The Urbanist.

I forget the address somewhere in Central—

or sorry, Park Avenue, 432 maybe.

I forget the address. It was in Park Avenue anyway.

This building, this skyscraper, was actually designed after a trash can, a trash can by a famous, I think, industrial designer, or maybe it was architect.

But yeah, they designed a high-rise after a trash can, so You never know where your inspiration is going to come from.

Just be open-minded.

Look at the world around you.

Sometimes when I'm out walking around, I'll kind of—

I'll do a few things. One thing is sometimes I'll just look for colors.

So as I'm taking a walk, the only thing in my brain right now is I want to see colors. So I'm just noticing them. Some other times I'll go out and I'll just listen. So I'm trying to separate my senses sometimes.

So I'll go out, I'll listen, and I'll take in the sounds.

And that could be inspiring.

Sometimes I'll look at just shadows and see how shadows are falling.

Sometimes I'll look at shapes of buildings and the forms of buildings or the forms of nature.

So learning to kind of go out, look at the world, and take things in from different viewpoints and different perspectives using your senses is one way, I think, to keep building your creativity.

You develop a library, kind of an internal library, or if you have a sketchbook, sketch stuff as you see it as well. But you have a library of resources you could tap into to keep your creativity flowing.

Does that make sense? I'll do nature walks.

Where I'll just have a sketchbook, a pen, and I'll look at the shadows. I'll take shadows of grasses or leaves just cast onto the paper and I'll trace those shadows. So it's kind of a study with nature, with shapes and shadow. Cool.

So I'm not sure, actually I'm not sure, I'm not going to force this painting.

I don't know which direction I want it to go in.

If any.

So I'm just going to keep playing with some colors on it and we'll see what happens.

We'll throw some more blue on it. Hey, if you guys are getting some meds, let me know. Jimmy da Silva, hey Jimmy, how are you?

Good to see you.

I know, Harley Quinn.

Jimmy, I know, I owe you a Harley Quinn to go with the Joker you have.

I'll get there, maybe this summer. We'll talk.

We'll talk.

Send me a—

we'll talk.

I'll send you a text soon. Definitely this summer I'll have time to work on it.

Jimmy is awesome.

Jimmy is a— Jimmy does some artwork too. He does comic book art.

So it's nice to see you out there.

You see math in art and in inspirations for my art. Ooh, Jimmy, that's awesome. I love that. "Patty, I like it this way, reflections of buildings in the water." Yeah. I feel a sneeze coming on, guys, so that's why I'm talking weird.

"This looks like Harley Quinn," Jimmy says.

Really? Maybe. I can see the colors of Harley. I love that you're seeing Harley Quinn in this. Let's throw some blue on. You guys are awesome. Thank you for all the comments and thumbs up and all that great stuff. I really appreciate it. I might have to turn one of the lights back on.

I'm in the dark over here.

Although some people like that.

They say I look better in the dark.

Guys, I have a Spotify playlist going called the Inspired Life Playlist. Next time I'm on, I'm going to have to post it for you. I only have Tom Petty on it right now. I'm adding to it. That way you can listen along on Spotify.

Spot a fly? Hey, I just spotted a fly. It's right there on my painting.

That way you can follow along on the Spotify playlist if you want to listen to what I'm listening to.

We don't violate any copyright issues.

So let me know if you're interested in me posting a Spotify—

I can't say it. I keep saying Spot-a-fly. Is there such a thing as a spotted fly? If so, we should do a sketch of it. A Spotify playlist.

Must be after 8.

My brain, it's 9 o'clock. My brain likes to shut off around 8 o'clock.

What's really interesting about this piece for me with the colors, I hope this is showing, this is the first layer of blue I put down. Oops, I just dropped Bob. Bob Ross is in the house, guys! Say hi to Bob Ross.

He just— I just knocked him over.

The first layer I put is blue, very light.

Obviously the more I'm adding, it's getting darker.

But I like— I like how it's changing from this light blue to darker blue.

Then it gets into the purpley areas. You know, it's kind of pinkish and purplish in here. And here's that crease in the paper. You can see it.

But this is an interesting line that happened right across here. So I could definitely see this being the shoreline or reflections here in the buildings above it. I can exaggerate it by just going over it if I want.

Cool. I'm going to add some more pink.

I'm just going back and forth with the pink and the purple. I definitely, I think I'm gonna turn it into a skyline. No surprise there.

That's what I usually go to.

Hey, yeah, Tom Petty. Chris, I know Chris, you did some awesome Tom Petty sketches. Chris, you're inspiring me to wanna maybe try some portraits. I have a Bob, do you guys wanna see a Bob Dylan I did like last year or something? It's not great.

It's kinda cartoonish but.

I'll show it to you. I'll be brave. Let me put a little bit of light on the subject here. Alright, a little bit more light. So I'll let this dry. Here's a— I'll find a sketchbook. I have a Bob Dylan sketch I'll show you guys. Trees are gone and buildings are appearing. Yeah, Jeannie, the Lorax would not be happy with me. The Lorax is not on my side. The trees are gone and now they're buildings. I am a nature lover, so any time I could save a tree, I definitely would. That's a good point. Jimmy, I like to listen to Weezer, F.I., Nine Inch Nails, and Tool. Hey, yeah, Jimmy, that's good stuff. I listen to everything from Tom Petty to Neil Diamond to Metallica to Nirvana to Shinedown.

Everything pretty much except country. I'm not really a country person.

Where is this buddy Deadpool? Bob Ross? Yes, so I have a Deadpool Bob Ross. No, he's here somewhere.

He's here somewhere.

Yeah, I love the Bob Ross thing. Cool, yeah, this is Bob Ross. He is in the studio. You can see he's been around for a while. He's got some paint on his head. He's a Funko Pop figure. So I have my icons here, Bob Ross and Jim Henson and Mr.

Rogers figures. And Jimmy was kind enough to give me a Bob Ross Deadpool figure as well. Cool.

Alright guys, so I'll break it up to Bob Dylan. Hope you're having a great night. Actually, this is a really cool sketch. I'm gonna— you guys know I like to flip through sketchbooks sometimes, so I just found this sketchbook in one of my boxes. I was cleaning a room out the other day. This sketchbook looks like it's from I don't have it here, do I? So I love this. In my sketchbooks, I always put a funny note or in the COVID So this one says, if I happen to lose this, right, and someone opens it, they're gonna read it. It says, "If found and you decide to keep, please be inspired by the enclosed pages. And once inspired, please pass this on to another to be inspired." and so forth and so on and so forth. So, you know, never know if I lose this anywhere and I don't know what the chances are to get it back, but pay it forward. I'm always saying pay it forward with your creativity. So if they find it, I hope they enjoy the sketches and give it to someone else. So I'm not going to go through everything in here. Yeah, so I do have some sheep, some cartoonish sheep in here. Here's a little sheepy.

So the sheep look like the ones from, what's that, oh, what's that guy's name? The Wallace and Gromit, I forget the sheep character. If you guys know that sheep I'm talking about, let me know, I forgot his name. But it kinda looks like him. Some guy doing a weird funky dance.

I don't know. Here's, I sketched some cups. Anyway, let's see, I saw a cool building I wanted to show you, then I'll show you Bob Dylan. I think he's in this book. Here's actually, this is a cool little Frank Lloyd Wright building sketch I did.

This is a University of Wisconsin boathouse building. There's a little perspective. Here's a little marker, quick marker landscape thingy.

Sean the Sheep, thank you, Kimit. Sean the Sheep, yeah. I forgot his name. Becky, thank you.

Sean.

You love Bob Ross, those happy trees and Terry Madden, you can do this. I love that. Yeah, you know Bob Ross?

I grew up watching PBS.

Huge Bob Ross fan. Mr. Rogers, Sesame Street, Jim Henson, This Old House.

I grew up watching This Old House, the PBS show.

A lot of those things combined and I think that's how I got to kind of be where I am today.

There's a little perspective. Oh, here's a sketch I want to show you guys.

This is— I'm not really good at French, so pardon my French. Domaine—

I can read English too.

Domaine de Marie Antoinette. Domaine de—

let me try French here.

Oui, oui, Domaine de Marie Antoinette.

So I think I found this in a book, this building, and I just did a sketch of it.

So this is a good example of quick, loose architectural sketching, loose style. So you can see there's no color, it's just pen. This was a probably— it's probably either my Uni-ball pen or my Pilot Precise.

It's probably my Pilot Precise pen. That's usually my first one I go to.

And what I like about this is you can see texture and materials.

You can see the stonework, right? You can see I have some stucco going on for the timber, in between the timber frames. It's a really cool building. So in our workshop, for you guys that are in the workshop on Saturday, we're going to be starting to talk about adding materials and details.

And oh my God, you guys, some of the sketches you turned in for the workshop, I'm gonna kick back on Saturday and I'm gonna let you guys do this class because holy cow.

Some of you guys, you took the barn and I don't even wanna say it right now, I'm speechless.

You guys, amazing stuff. Becky did another attempt at her building, holy cow.

Becky, I can't believe how much your sketch has changed from the first one to the second one. You guys are on fire.

I love that.

You guys are amazing. I'm sorry, I'm digressing. Ah, it's all right. It's what it's about, right?

So these are just some, I was playing around with some architectural ideas and sketches here. I love lifeguard buildings on beaches.

I love them so much that I would love to design a house in it. Like a really funky lifeguard tower. So that's where this concept came from.

I hope the Bob Dylan things— yeah, here's Bob. Alright, here's Bob Dylan. If someone could just write down a lyric from a Bob Dylan song in the comments, I'll show you my Bob Dylan sketch. But you have to remember, I don't sketch people. And if I do, it's kind of my own style.

So write down a Bob lyric, Bob Dylan lyric in the comments and I'll show you the sketch.

This is—

we're having participation time.

Great minds, thank you. It's a great sketch. Thank you. I like that you share your sketchbook. Oh, thanks, Cat.

I appreciate that.

Yeah, I hope it's not boring. I just like to show you, you know, you might get ideas looking through it. I get ideas looking through it of things I've done in the past. It's just fun to look through, so I'm glad you like that. "You certainly can mail those building sketches." Thank you. Oh, Kim, I can definitely mail them. Yeah, I can pay some postage and ship out some building sketches. Hey, any sketches you ever see me do are for sale. Let me know if you're ever interested. I'm more than happy to sell these and mail them out for sure. I love that. That's so funny. Wonderful sketch, love the seagulls. Oh yeah, in that building there are birds on there.

Those are not birds.

Hard rain's gonna fall. Ooh, all right, I see some Bob Lyric Dylan's coming up. Where's that sketch?

Yeah, let's just look at this for a sec.

Yeah, so those are very, very— I'm glad you could tell they're birds because they're very abstract birds.

I tend to do lots of letter M's when I'm trying to show birds or seagulls flying. You'll see the M there.

M's or V's. So I look at birds as shapes when they're small in the sky.

So M's or V's tend to show up a lot. Sometimes you'll see X's. So just like I talk about breaking buildings into shapes, you can break down, you know, birds into letters. M's, V's, X's.

"Girl from the North Country," Bob Duet with Johnny Cash. Oh, really? That's awesome. I didn't hear that.

I have to listen to that song.

Alright, here's a picture of someone dabbing.

Yes, that's someone dabbing. I did that for my son, actually.

Here I was playing around with some markers. Little marker sketches from 2016.

12/16, December 2016. There's like a little tree and maybe funky bird's nest and eggs. So I was messing around with some color. I must have got some color markers and I wanted to play around with them.

This is a, again, 2016. Just an imagination type place in my brain. You guys see me do that a lot. I love this, I love this scene here.

I like this almost church-like building, cathedral. Or some kind of public building and this little kind of cottage here with the smoke coming out. This is making me smile looking at this. Sorry guys, this is fun. I love this stuff.

So back in 2016, I was thinking about Inkspired Life.

This Inkspired Life did not really come to life until last year, I think, is when I started the website and everything. So I've been thinking about this for a long time. I just never got around to it.

Here's kind of a fun— this is just different colored pens I was messing around with. I must have had maybe one of those pens that you— do you guys know those pens you push the buttons and different colors come out?

I think it was one of those types of pens and I was playing around with it.

Yeah, keep the Bob Dylan things. I'm getting there. You guys are awesome.

I'm kind of procrastinating because I'm almost afraid to show you my Bob Dylan sketch.

Ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.

I love that song. What else do I have?

I'm getting to Bob Dylan, I promise. Here's like a little scene.

Some sailboats, lighthouse. This is not any real place, just kind of made it up. Sometimes I'll do sketches, they'll go from one page and transfer onto the next page. I don't know if you guys do that as well. It just continues on.

Oh, this is cool. This is a— I was trying to work— I was working on this like Western character and his horse.

So this is like a wonky Western scene, I'd call it.

Here's my wonky cowboy.

He's got a big handlebar mustache going.

Here's his wonky horse.

You can see some cactus, a cactus there. You can see like a little Western town happening. I'm not sure where the flag fits in here. I almost would stop it here. And I love to do these spiral suns. That's my whimsical way of making suns.

You love the mustache. Anything you want, you got it. Traveling Wilburys, yeah, Cat. Oh, I am, I love the Wilburys so much. You love that, look at that mustache, isn't that cool? So, That's a fun sketch.

This I was trying to design.

Oh, I wanted to do a mural for my son.

I never got to do it. Downstairs on the—

we have a chimney downstairs.

I was going to paint a mural on there for him. Where's Bob Dylan? I still have blank pages in here. I passed him.

Alright, let me go back to Bob Dylan. Hey, if you guys are liking this, give me thumbs up so I know. Hopefully you're still with me. "I'd show you Dylan and I'll post my Janis Joplin." Cool, please. Alright, here's my Dylan, guys. Here's Bobby D.

How can I do this in the camera so you can see him?

It's going to be a little crooked. This is my Bobby D sketch. So I think I was looking at a photograph and I just kind of tried to make my style of a Bob Dylan interpretation. And you guys, be honest in the chat. Does it look like Bob Dylan or not? Would you be able to tell if I didn't tell you? I'd love to know. Again, I don't really do people, so if I do, they're kind of this style.

His fingers are a little funky.

I tried to get some of the scraggly hair going on there. He wears those like, what do you call those, like necktie things here. Oh good, you guys are getting Dylan out of it. I love that. That's so cool that you guys see Dylan. Yay, that's good news. Hey, that's really good news. Thanks for telling me. Glad you like it.

Alright, I can sing like Dylan, I won't do it.

Oh good, I'm glad you guys pick up Dylan on it. Thank you for that reaffirm— Hey Linda! That reaffirmation. Cool. So there's Mr. D, Mr. Dylan.

I don't—

Is there anything else I want to show you in this book?

I don't even know what else. This is a funky marker sketch. Some funky red buildings.

So I guess one of the things that I'm getting out of looking through this book is, you know, pens. I really like to play around with different kinds of pens, different colors, markers. Don't be afraid to try different colors. Sometimes we go right to black pens.

We always pick up the black one, right? You think of black and white. I mean, pens come in so many different colors. So don't be afraid to try different colors.

Oh, this is like a little homage to C-3PO.

Not that great. Just trying to do like a little Star Wars thing. Ah, this is interesting. I'm not sure, this is some kind of— I don't even know what that is. Some kind of sky, ancient civilization skyline or something.

These are interior sketches, interior design sketches for a 2016.

This may have been from my old house we were in.

Maybe I was like, we were thinking about redoing the kitchen.

So I think I was messing around with some interior elevation sketches of a kitchen layout. Some more interior sketches. You can see some cabinets happening. Oops.

There's a little scene up here with like a schoolhouse.

This is very small perspective going on.

Alright guys, should I move on? Let's go back to doing some artwork. It's 9:18. I'm gonna wrap up at 9:30.

The latest because I have some Ben Jerry's waiting.

Alright, cool guys, I hope you enjoyed that little sketchbook journey. I could get lost looking at these books. Alright, so let's go back to this and add some more color. Yeah, Dylan, thank you guys. Kat, enjoy dinner. Ooh, you love the red. I do red work embroidery. Oh, that's so cool, Linda.

Awesome.

I think a lot of my better sketching "Is things not planned." Yeah, Chris, I agree with you. I agree with you. I am— I like to— I agree with you.

What am I trying to say? I'm like stuck, like a broken record. Just sketching, just let it happen. I totally agree.

Alright, let's throw down some more pink on here and then I'm gonna break out either pen or graphite and we'll add some on top of it and we'll call this a day on this. Hey guys, let me know if you have any questions. Thank you for all your comments in the chat.

I appreciate it.

Good, good stuff as always. I am going to change my playlist.

Cat Stevens came on. I like Cat Stevens. I want something a little peppy right now. Oh, it's playing out loud. I don't want Facebook to shut me down. This is a really good song, Wild World. I like it a lot, but I just need a little peppiness.

I've been listening to Latin jazz music.

I love the energy. I'm gonna put on some Latin jazz music and see what happens. All right, here we go.

I'm just gonna throw some pink down here with the eyedropper.

That's a lot of pink. We'll work with it.

Got my brush.

See what happens. I just have a scrap piece of paper.

I like to sometimes brush my brush off on it. Alright, cool. I think that's enough color on there. Hey, Luan, where can I find a schedule of your upcoming workshops? Hey, good question, Luan.

If you go to my website, theinkspiredlife.com, it's right here in the lower right of my screen.

Go to theinkspiredlife.com, and on the first page there's a place where you can sign up if you want to get on a mailing list. I'll email you for my next upcoming workshops. So I have one going right now that we're halfway through. I'm gonna do one in June as well, and I don't know the topic. I might do two in June when school ends. One might focus on different architectural buildings, so we'll do like four sessions. One might be Craftsman-style buildings, one might be Art Deco, might—

one might be I don't know, industrial buildings, one might be farmhouses. So that might be one workshop I do in the summer and another one, I'm not sure, will just be more loose style sketching.

Hopefully that answered your question. Alright, Chris, nice seeing you. Have a great night. Keep up the awesome, awesome creativity. I love it. Guys, you know what I wanna do actually? I'm gonna let this dry. I do want to do some ink sketching.

I like to always try to do two things.

So I'm gonna let this dry and we're just gonna break out a pen and do some, uh, I think I want to do some kind of cottage sketch tonight.

I haven't done one in a while. Where's my paper? My 6x6 paper.

Here we go.

So I'm just using 6x6 tiles here, artist tiles. It's Strathmore's 140-pound paper. You know, it's probably cheaper if I just buy bigger sheets and cut them. I'm kind of lazy sometimes, so I'm just going to grab one of these. And I've been doing a series of cottage sketches that some of you guys have probably seen.

Let's see if I can grab some in my drawer here.

There's one.

There's another one. Bunch here.

So these are my inky— I call them Inky Wonky Cottages, or is it Wonky Inky? I think it's Inky Wonky Cottages.

Um, these—

so the goal with these is to make an appearance in a calendar for the 2022 year.

So I'm going to try to have a calendar, uh, with Inky Wonky Cottages. On there.

So that's kind of my goal with these little pieces.

I love this one. This actually looks really cool with the pink background.

I love the wonkiness and the fairy tale character of this. So let's do a cottage sketch.

Where's the sepia brush? I'm gonna use the sepia brush for these. I'm gonna see if I can find my sepia brush.

Russian.

We'll use that.

Bob Ross approves.

He says yes.

Hey, love the wonky cactus. Thank you, Jeannie. Luan got it. You're welcome, Luan. Luan, if you ever have any questions, let me know. I'd love to have you join us in a workshop. A bunch of the Inklings on tonight are in the current workshop. So feel free, if you have any questions, put them in the chat, or you can ask for a review.

And I know they'll be honest, so ask them if they are enjoying the workshop or not. I hope they are.

I hope you guys are enjoying the workshop. I have a feeling you are, otherwise you wouldn't be here tonight watching this. I'm just looking for my sepia brush.

It is in here, I think.

Somewhere.

Oh my gosh. Oh wait, no, it should be in here. Here it is.

So this is a sepia brush pen.

I think, uh, I forget the company that makes it.

Pentel.

It's Pentel.

So that's what I've been using to do these cottages.

So let's just play around with it.

I'm going to zoom down a little bit, I think.

9:25. All right, let's see what kind of cottage we can do in 5 minutes here. Let me just get the pen started.

I haven't used it in a while, so maybe it's dry.

It's not.

All right, I'm just, uh, I gotta put some more peppy on. So I am fueled fueled by music with my creativity. So, I need to have the right type of music on here otherwise— This is beautiful bass music but it's woof. It's kind of too quiet right now for me.

My library. Let's go. Yeah, let's do this. All right.

Here we go.

Very cool. Alright, here comes a cottage.

So I don't know what it's going to be yet, but we'll see what happens.

That's why these are fun. So this paper does have a rough side and a smoother side.

Two different textures. I'm actually going to use the rougher side, I think. I have an idea, I think. Let's see. All right, I don't have an idea, but I have a shape in my brain. I have a picture, and you'll see.

So I like using a sepia brush. The lighter you drag it, the finer the lines.

The more you push down, you can see it gets darker.

So you'll notice my lines aren't always continuous.

I have to kind of start, stop, start, and stop. I call these mystery lines. They leave a little mystery for the viewer to kind of fill in with their imagination. I pictured a really tall, like, chimney-ish kind of structure here. Hmm, I can make it wonkier. It's not really quite as wonky, so I'm going to add some stone, kind of build out the bottom. So it's not so rectangular. It helps to make it a little wonky looking.

Some kind of roof area in here.

I like showing these kind of thatched roofs, like grasses growing on them. So that's what this texture is here. Let's see. Uh, yeah, we're gonna do it. We're gonna add another piece on the side. I always usually take my watch off.

I feel like I'm constricted with my watch because I like to move.

I feel like my watch is kind of dragging on the board.

So it's kind of one of my tips sometimes is just to feel, be more free.

I like to take my watch off, but I'm too lazy to do it. It broke, so I have like Velcro on here holding it together.

I know, TMI, I'm getting into TMI land there.

It's like, we don't care about your watch band, just sketch.

That's what's going through my brain, guys. I'm inking out loud. I am literally inking out loud. It's 9:30, so I'm gonna just go in high gear and see what happens.

I'm thinking too much about it instead of just doing it.

You know, the Sepia brush is taking a while to get the hang of, but the more I use it, the more I like it.

I love sepia color. I like the brush on here. It works really well. You just have to get a feel for the pressure and how hard you want to push down on it to get the lines you want. You know what, I'm going to do some kind of siding here. Let's do— I like wavy board siding. It has a very cottagey feel to it. So we have some stonework, we have some wavy boards going on, trying to get a cottage— cottage-ish—

it's hard to say—

cottage-ish feel to it. Actually, we'll make the stone across here, and then the stone actually continues down the bottom. One of the things you can do with this, and I should have done it before, is— where's my water brush? Oh, here it is. You know, this paint, this will bleed, this ink will bleed before it dries too much, so I can come back and just kind of go over some of the ink areas and let it bleed a little bit.

It adds some interest, you can add shadows.

I like to sometimes highlight some different stones just to pull them out.

Window areas, I'll color in sometimes some of the window glass.

You can draw with it, so kind of just drawing with the wet ink a little bit. Here's a door hidden on here. There we go.

I like to do the ground too, make the ground bleed a little bit.

That sounded kind of weird.

That's a weird sentence to say, make the ground bleed. This is a Friendly, peaceful show. I didn't mean it in any harm to our fescue friends, the grasses. But you can see the ink bleeding down at the base, right?

Creates just a nice little ground area. And I'm not going to color everything in, just hitting some spots here and there. Cool.

So we got this little wonky cottage going here. Got it, I love the wonky. Yeah, May Workshop rocks. Whoops, I meant May Workshop rocks. Yes, it's all in the exclamation point versus question mark. Becky's like, May Workshop rocks?

What? Huh?

So awesome. I like the exclamation point. So thank you, Becky. I'm glad you're enjoying it, Becky. Becky's awesome in the workshop.

You should see her sketches.

She's working on this building. It's not an easy building to draw, to sketch. It's not a drawing.

For me, drawing is more formal, more precise.

So it's a sketching class, loose, quick sketches. So your buildings are looking really good.

Everybody in the workshop is really amazing.

I'm so lucky to have some—

you guys are great. I'm learning so much from you guys.

Alright, let's wonk it up a little more.

I'm a little over, but that's okay. I'm having fun.

Hope you guys are cool with it. I want to do something on this side.

So what do I want to do here?

This is going to be a—

maybe stucco over here. So I have wood, stone, and stucco going on here. To show stucco, I just kind of do stippling.

Stippling is just adding dots.

That's a fancy word I learned in college when I was drawing architectural buildings.

We would stipple, especially going to school in Miami.

We did a lot of stucco, kind of inspired Mediterranean-inspired designs, so we had a lot of stippling on our drawings.

I just like saying it.

It's fun.

Say it at home with me. 1, 2, 3.

Stippling.

Cool.

No, I think I want— I want to wonk it up just a little more.

We're gonna have some kind of a roof vent or something coming out of here.

I feel like I need a little detail.

What am I picturing? What am I picturing? Some kind of roof vent up here? I don't know, just gonna sketch it. I want it to be really kind of sneaky, like—

maybe there's some kind of vent pipe or something coming out here.

I just feel like I need a little more wonky detail on the side.

So some kind of a vent pipe, maybe. Maybe got some smoke or something coming out of it.

So I'm always trying to think of who would live in these cottages.

I don't know, who is this cottage?

This cottage was— usually write on the back. Ah no, oh wait, this was a cool builder.

Back of that one. Maybe I don't write on the back.

Some of them I have like the Kite Keeper's Cottage, the Tea Maker's Cottage.

Who would this cottage be for? Guys, any ideas who might live in this building? Some steps coming out of this building here. See, cool.

Alright guys, I think that's a wrap on that one.

Mm-hmm.

Ooh, there we go. Got some nice dark ink. Yeah, I love that. I'm just really pulling out the sepia here. Just the ground, I want it a little bit darker. Oh, that looks awesome.

I'll hold it up closer, then we're gonna— I'll wrap up.

Mm-hmm.

Is there homework? Oh, Kim. Yes, but they are very reasonable. Oh, I got lost somewhere in the chat, guys. Um, no worries. Yep. So, that's alright. I'm not following all the comments, but that's okay. You guys got it. You're handling it.

You got it taken care of in there.

If there's something I can help you with, let me know.

I love seeing your chat going on there.

So here's a close-up of the cottage. So I think I wonkified it. To make it wonky, a couple of things I like to do, I have crooked doorways. Buildings that are irregular in shape, details that are kind of curvy, sneaky, playful, whimsical windows like the curved window.

Yeah, and that's just how I kind of make them wonky.

Cool.

All right guys, with that one I am going to wrap up for the night.

This is drying, so I'm going to let it be for now.

So, let's see, you guys are awesome.

I want to say thank you so much for watching and tuning in and supporting me and commenting. You guys are always amazing.

I always like to wrap up and say a couple things. One thing is, just keep paying it forward with your creativity.

You never know who you're going to touch, who you're going to make smile, who you're going to just make feel good, right, with your artwork and your creativity.

So keep paying it forward with your creativity and keep inspiring each other. You guys are amazing.

You inspire me every day, so thank you so much.

Have a great, great night. Enjoy your Wednesday.

Peace and live creatively. I will see you guys soon.

I typically am on Wednesday nights, so I'll be back tomorrow night.

7:45-ish.

Take care, guys. Have a great, great night. Luan, thank you for, uh, good seeing you in the chat, and Becky, and Kim, and Jeannie. Who am I missing? Chris, Kat, you were here, awesome. Hopefully I didn't miss anybody. If I did, I apologize, but I— Jimmy, yeah, Jimmy was cool seeing you as well. Patty, it's like Romper Room. I'm gonna go through a name, everybody.

Do you guys remember Opera Room? She would look through her magic mirror and say hello to everybody. Or goodbye.

Alright guys, take care. I'm outta here.

Peace and live creatively. Bob Ross says peace out. There he is. I know I have inanimate objects here, but you know what? It's what they mean that counts. Take care guys, we'll see ya.