The Inkspired Life - Sketching & Painting : Inking Out Loud

Hey everybody, good to see you guys. Hello Jean. Hey Patty, good to see you. Hope you guys are having an awesome, awesome Thursday night. So I'm just popping on quick I just felt like doing some sketching, just kind of feeling lazy today, and then I got a spark of creativity and I just want to break out some pens, break out some water brushes, and just have fun. Hope you guys are enjoying your day. It's always good to see you. So I'm not sketching anything in particular. It's looking to me like maybe, I don't know, some kind of a building facade somewhere. We have some balconies up here, kind of railings. But what I want up here is kind of French doors. We're gonna have these little balconies. There's a mysterious archway right here. Where could this archway come to? I'm not sure. Maybe there's some stonework or brickwork going on in the front of this building. Maybe it's a— a facade somewhere. France, somewhere in Paris.

A lot of people are Ireland.

Hey, Don, good to see you. Good to see you. Hey, music's drowning out my voice. You'd rather hear the music than me? Come on, music's much more exciting. You guys are awesome.

Hello, Rick.

Hey, is that better? I lowered the music. Hopefully you can hear me now. Good to see you. Thanks for letting me know, Patty. I appreciate it.

Let me try this.

Testing 1, 2, 3. Can you guys hear me better now? Does that sound good? Give me a thumbs up or put yes in the chat so I know if you can hear me better. I just tweaked some settings. Patty says way better. Hey, thank you Patty. Thanks for being my tech assistant. I never know how things sound on your end, so I'm glad you guys let me know. Sometimes I crank the music way up because that inspires me and motivates me and keeps me going, gives me energy when I need it, or chills me out when I need it. So thank you for telling me, I appreciate it. Let's start over. Hope you guys are doing well. I am just breaking out my aqua brush. I have a Lamy pen here with some Lamy ink in there. Just creating a little, I don't know, maybe a facade of a building, European building, some kind of wrought iron railings maybe happening here. You guys know I'm inking out loud. Lots of times I don't really know where I'm headed. Especially when I first come on, I just kind of just get into the music and just let the pen go, see what ends up happening. It's kind of the fun. I like the creative process, the journey of— for me, it's not always about Z, the final result, but it's about the journey from A to Z, or C, and what happens in between. Hey, Dawn got her LAMY pen! Awesome! That's so cool, Don. Yeah, Lamy. Did you get the Lamy Safari? Those are awesome pens. The black one and the green one. I probably got them maybe 3 years ago or something. You don't usually see me using them too much. No particular reason. It's because I tend to always start off with a Sharpie. But last night I wanted to play around with some bleeding of the ink. And Sharpies don't bleed. My Pilot pens bleed. I was looking for some dramatic bleeding in these fountain pens. You get really, as you can see, you get really dramatic bleeding happening. Zoom in, you can kind of see a little bit closer.

You can really see the—

how it bleeds in here. It's a lot of fun to play with. Patty, crank some music up too. We've been listening to Chuck Mangione, Chelo Sanchez in the car. Sounds interesting. And what must be that? Stupid questions. Chuck Mangione, did he ever do music for cartoons? I have some reason that name sounds familiar to me in the cartoon world. I could be way off. Jazz, Chuck Mangione, he's kind of jazzy. I think he's done music for some cartoons. I could be way off with that. If I am, I'm sorry. Uh, matte black so no one can see the drawing. I am in stealth mode. Dawn is in stealth mode. I love that. That's so cool. Sometimes it's good to be stealthy, right? Secretive. I like this green. I love this green color. Just something really fun about it. It has a metallic kind of look to it. Probably because it's, I'm guessing, aluminum. So I have two different size aqua brushes here. I have a medium tip, I think I closed it, and a much bigger tip here on this side. I like using the medium one. As my go-to. Find out why— or what— sometimes puts way too much water out at one shot for me. just to create some texture on these walls back here. I'm just lifting the paint right off of here—

not the paint, the ink.

My mind tends to wander off to these really interesting places. I always find myself thinking thinking about European type of cities and spaces and buildings, architecture. And my brain just— I just kind of go with what's in my imagination. I'm kind of like transported to a whole different place. You know, is this accurate? No, this isn't really— I'm not trying to create any specific building or streetscape. I mean, just the feeling of something otherworldly. Hey Donna, good to see you! DB is in the house, awesome!

Very cool.

Just want to put some more lines on here to indicate some kind of a railing. So I'm adding some vertical lines here. Wonky. We're keeping the sketch loose and wonky.

As you can see.

Hey, Linda-san, good to see you. Hope you're having a great day, Linda. Look at all you guys popping in, so fun. You know, I'm gonna pop some yellow in here. I'm gonna use a watercolor brush. This is a Winsor Newton, it's actually a watercolor marker. And I just feel like it's— it's gamboge hue. I know it's a lot of focus. I'm gonna pop some yellow on there. I just feel like it needs a little Pop of color here and there. I'm just gonna put it directly on the paper and see how it looks. So I have to be careful with this brush only because it's gonna— yellow will mix with the black. So I don't want it to be too muddy looking, so it's okay if it bleeds together a little bit. So I'm kind of just popping it down more carefully than I normally would. Actually, let's try this technique. Put some on my canvas— my palette area here. Just lift it off of here, brush it on. I like how this is bleeding here. Actually, a little closer, right up in here. I like the way this is looking in here. The color is kind of bleeding together. Hey, DB, little pops of color. Yeah, let's put a little Pops of color.

Awesome.

Just a little bit of fun on here. Maybe there's a doorway or a window happening down here somewhere.

Down here we have a, uh, Actually, you know what, this is some kind of—

there's a gate, kind of a gated entry here. Now here we go, some windows happening. I'll pop some yellow in here as well. Just want to add a little detail. Notice in a lot of old European architecture, these diamond-shaped grilles in the windows. Grille patterns, or also known as light patterns, or muntin grilles. Patterns, mutton bars, what you call architecture. Pop some more yellow on here. So you can see the window in these— the window— well, you can see the window, you can see the yellow in the window happening here. Easy for me to say. That might be it for this one for now. I don't want to get too muddy. I think I'll let it dry for a little bit. DB, saw your message about 30, uh, 30 days workshop once a week Zoom meeting. Great idea. Hey, thanks DB. Yes, so what I'd like to do for the next workshop is I want to do a sketch journaling workshop. It's going to be a 30-day workshop. There'll be a topic— I'll provide the topics, and then we'll meet once a week and we'll just take a look at everybody's sketch journals. If you want to share, we can talk about them and give each other feedback. So it's kind of— I'm working on an outline right now. I do have a survey that you guys can take if you want to help give me some feedback or input. About the design of the next workshop, that would be awesome. And I could post the link to the survey. It's only, I think, 4 questions. So if you're interested in filling that survey out, let me know. I have 3 different ideas in mind of where I can head with. One idea is the journal might focus on architecture, um, slash landscape, and it's going to be a journal about capturing a place the feeling, the memory of a place. Another one is seeing the world through a wondrous set of eyes, almost like a child. So it would be a sketch journal that kind of explores 30 days of looking at the world in a wondrous kind of way. There's a third option. What was the third option? I can't remember the third option right now. I had another idea. Oh boy, I can't remember it. Drawing a blank. But I did have another idea. Of where I might go with the 30 days. So cool. Yeah, I'd love for you guys to give me feedback and I'd love to have you in the workshop. Thank you for mentioning that, DB. Alright, so I'm gonna let this dry. I'm gonna put it aside. And we'll do another sketch. I restocked on my favorite go-to quick watercolor pad here, my Canson XL, 7x10 size. I got a couple of these. They were buy one, get one 50% off. And these are just my go-to watercolor pads. Wonky Places. Wonky Places. Thank you, Dean.

Wonky Places.

This is kind of— I'm just looking at this. It's kind of a fun— has some energy, some movement to it. I do like the pops of yellow on here. I think after it dries, I'm gonna add a little bit more yellow, almost as reflections on here. So there's more of a kind of a glowing that's happening around the window areas. So that'll be the next thing I do when I come back to this. Cool. All right, let's bring something else out. Do one more sketch here. Just looking around. So one of the things I was going to tackle, I don't know if I'm gonna do it today, tonight is I want to recreate— let me show you guys. Boom. I want to do an updated version of my Once Upon a Time sketch right here. So this was done back in 2002. This is the original right here. And I kind of want to do an updated version of it. Actually, it's going to be an updated version and possibly offer it as a piece in Rue's upcoming auction at the end of August for David's Table. So I'm not going to tackle this tonight, but I'm just kind of thinking about it in my brain as I'm working here. You know, I don't want to do an exact copy of it, but kind of modify it, tweak it. You know, what I like about this here. Actually, let's just switch these. Let's do it this way.

You can see it better. Turn this camera off.

Boom. This is probably one of my favorite pieces I've ever done. It is really pretty simple. There's not a lot happening. Um, we have the castle turret here, tower, some hills, village in the background. You guys have seen this, I'm sure, sunset, right? But I like the colors, they're very soft. It's basically a very light wash. So my goal is kind of maybe to replicate this. So I just have it set over here for inspiration, so we'll see what happens. Hey, thank you, DB, that was Third category, I appreciate it. Sometimes, as you guys know, my brain turns off sometimes after 8 o'clock. The memory part of my brain. The creative part of my brain is on. It's always on. The memory part of the brain has its daily hours of operation. It's usually from after 8 o'clock, it just shuts down. It's really weird. Yes, love your Once Upon a Time sketch. Thank you, Patty. You drew it along with you. Yeah. Oh cool, your first Thinking Out Loud session. That's good to know. Thank you. I appreciate that. Let's do another sketch.

I'm gonna change the music up a little bit.

I love this music, but I kind of want— I feel a little drama right now. I want a little dramatic music. I'm going to play my hero track. Patty, you'd be happy to do it again. Awesome. That's good to know. Once upon a time. Cool. Um, yeah, you know, maybe we'll play around with it now. Just completed the survey. Oh, thanks Dawn. Hey, I'm glad the start button was there. Maybe it was just a tech glitch. Thank you, Dawn, for doing the survey. I appreciate it. Always, you guys, I love your feedback from you guys.

Let's—

what the heck, let's play around. Let's just— I'm not gonna try to recreate this, but I'll keep it up here for inspo. You guys are sketching along, or you want to sketch along, go for it. I'm gonna just open it in a different camera here, so I'll keep it on screen. So you guys can see. Just gonna kind of move some things around here. You can get a good sense of it. Sweet. Alright, let's keep it like that. Yeah, let's just play around sketching with this. So my exercise— so lots of times I'll set intentions of what I'm going to be creating. So my intention right now is I just— to be playful with what I'm looking at on screen here and not to replicate it. We'll see where it goes. You guys want to play along and sketch along, go for it. You're more than welcome to sketch my image. But for this, I want to mix it up. I gotta play the, uh, Hero Trek music. It gets me more in the mindset of castle-type music. I think I'm also going to keep it loose. When I sketched the original, that was sketched with— it was probably sketched with a Precise pen like this. 2002, I was pretty, pretty sure I was using the Pilot Precise pens back then. If not, it was some kind of a Uni-ball pen. These are my two go-to sketch pens. So play around with that. I also have my Sharpie here as well. So I'm not sure what we'll use that. Kind of stammering here. I'm not sure what I'll use. Whatever I grab, I grab. Let's go for it. Alright, let's put some music on. It's 8:38. I'm only gonna be on till like 9:00, then I'm gonna log off. So we got 20 more minutes. And if you guys are sketching along and you want to share your images of your castle, I'm more than happy to see them if you want to share them on my Facebook page, or you guys in the workshop group, you can post them there as well. Ooh, you got your Pilot Precise Pens out, Patty. Awesome. Yeah, so this is the V7. I use a V5 and V7. I only have V7s right now, which is fine. And I think that's the millimeter of the point size, V7 and V5. Hey, Janice, good to see you. Hope you're having an awesome day. Janice is in the house. All right, so let's, uh, let's create some kind of— let's see what happens. I don't want to pre-plan it in my head. I just want to go for it. Just kind of feeling it out a little bit, my pen moving, just loosening up. And again, I'm really not even looking at the Once Upon a Time sketch, and I'm not trying to recreate it, but you're more than welcome to recreate it if if you want. It's totally up to you. So this is kind of sketch ideas for a future legit sketch. So one of the things I liked about the original image here is I do like there's a setting, there's hills, there's a mountainside, there's a sun. So I really like that. I don't have that captured on my sketch here right now. There's a setting for the castle. It's just right now it's a kind of a building that's in your face. So just thinking out loud and it's kind of what's going through my head as I'm sketching this, but I'm not, not really pre-planning. So maybe I can do some kind of landscape or something back here in the distance. Through an archway. There's some kind of a church or something beyond. So maybe you're looking through an arch here, church or something beyond in the distance. This hill kind of is here. See it continuing kind of behind the castle.

Maybe it comes through over here or Thank you.

Zoom in a little bit so you can see kind of the detail, I'm kind of sketching. I'm just sketching some kind of buildings on the hillside here, or just suggestion. Something's happening over here. There's one steep hills coming down. I'm just gonna sketch some lines here just to give an indication of maybe the hills are sloping this way. Those are kind of the two contour lines, just to give some shape. These are going opposite way here. So just by adding these curved lines, kind of gives you an idea which way things are sloping. I can feel a little This one maybe is kind of rounding, slipping this way. And I think this is gonna just continue down off the page here. So, our building comes down in the foreground. Of course you want some kind of flag up here. Cool. Hey guys, so Dawn's gotta go do some work for a class tomorrow. Dawn, thanks for tuning in. Awesome. Have a great night. It's always good to see you in the house. I appreciate you. Hey, Jeannie, good to see you. Welcome. Susie, good to see you. Good to see you as well. Thanks for tuning in. Susie loves the sketch. Hey, thank you, Susie. So if you guys are just joining me, I appreciate you all so much. So what I'm trying to do is that this is a sketch here I did on the right back in 2002, 2002, right here. And I'm kind of feeling like I want to do an updated version of it. Not a duplicate, not a Xerox copy, but something that's being inspired or informed from the original sketch. So I'm just keeping it loose and playing around with ideas right now. You know, maybe it'll come to fruition, maybe I'll toss them, I don't know. I won't toss the sketch out, but I'll just put the idea aside. But it's just getting things out of my head and onto paper, and that's what I really try to do in sketch. Sketching things is getting my imagination out onto paper and expressing it somehow. So this is the castle here. I'm going to add some colors to it or something, add a shade of— let's see, you know what I'm going to break out? I think just some sepia. Maybe sepia or— I'm thinking, I'm thinking— you know what, I might just use my graphite stick. So if you guys haven't seen, this is my cool little ArtBin case. I had this since college. It actually looks pretty new. It's been around since at least 1994. I love keeping my pens and pencils and leads in here. My ink refills. I have some lead holder here with different lead colors. And I like the top part, is pretty cool because if I open it like this, I have other things right in the top and the lid. So I think I'm gonna break out my graphite stick, play around with that on here a little bit. So I'm just going to add some graphite. I want to keep it loose. I just want to block out some shading in places here, kind of block out— the idea is we're looking maybe through an arch. You can see a townscape or something in the background. So what I like about these graphite sticks is they're water-soluble. So once I put the graphite down, take my Aqua Brush, I could just kind of paint on top of it, add the water, watch it bleed. So you can either do that, or you can, you know, put it— after you put the water down, you can put the graphite stick on top as well. See how it's kind of leaning there? It's just fun to— it's really fun to play with. I love graphite sticks. So the purpose of this sketch is really to be quick, loose, just to come up with layout ideas for a future painting. Hey, awesome! You guys are incredible. Thank you for your comments in the chat saying hello. Let me know if some of you guys are sketching along. I know Patty said she broke out her pens. Feel free to, like I said, if you want to use the original image and try to recreate it, go for it. Or you could just— I'm just using it as kind of inspo right now. All right, let's throw down some colors. I'm gonna use my watercolor markers. This is sap green. I'm just gonna throw some down on the hills here. Just to give an indication of some landscape. This is perfect music for drawing castles with. It's got that epic sound to it.

Love it.

As I'm throwing down color, you can kind of see how I'm envisioning this now. I can actually kind of see how I'm envisioning it. I can see the castle shapes being pulled out a little bit. So, I want to give a shout out to, um, you guys watching, you guys in there doing the workshop right now, Castle and Cottage Workshop Art. There's sketches and paintings and drawings are— you guys are— they're so incredible. I am blown away every time I see you guys post stuff. So thank you for sharing your artwork. I just love seeing what you're doing.

There you go.

So I just want to keep it kind of loose just to indicate there's some kind of land happening there. I'm gonna throw down some cerulean blue. I like to put colors in the background so it helps the buildings pop. So let's just throw down some blue around there just quickly. So this is another watercolor marker. Yeah, I'm just kind of throwing that wash. Might be a little bit of green mixed in there. That's okay.

Okay, here we go.

Here we got some more bluish. So you can see as I'm adding this blue, you see the castle towers, the spires are kind of just— you could have more of a presence, right? They're not just against the white background. You can see their shapes better. And I love just doing quick washes, ink washes or watercolor washes. Just quick. It's a quick way to do some studies. It's just kind of fun. You know, when I went to architecture school, I had to learn to sketch really, really fast. I was competing, you know, with other kids or students in the class for our professor's attention. We have a professor walking around to our studio giving us critiques. One professor to maybe 20 or 30 students, and everybody's competing for his or her attention. And we had to sketch our ideas quick if we wanted to have a chance to get feedback. So that's why you guys would see me sketching really fast sometimes. It probably started back in college, I'm guessing. We started architecture program, we started with, I think, boy, I'm trying to remember the number. I could be way off, but I want to say it was around 300 students, and I think we ended up with about half that, 150 or maybe less. So it's a pretty rigorous 5-year intense program, and you either make it or break it the first year. So I really didn't have any artistic background. I, you know, used to draw Starting at 5 years old, 7 years old, I would draw on my own. I never took art classes and when I got to college, I was kind of forced, in a good way, forced to sketch architecture quick. I don't know if you guys can see that blue coming through, it might be a little faint. I'm gonna crank up the saturation a little bit. It might be washed out. I have a lot of lights on here. It might look better if I turn this one off. Let's see. Maybe. There is blue on here. It might be washed out a little bit. But I'm gonna add some in the archway. So, if you look at the archway, let me zoom in. I'm gonna add some cerulean blue in here and just watch how the shapes pop out just by adding a wash. I may put a little dark on there just so you can see it. So yeah, so architecture school really helped me to become a fast, fast sketcher, fast brain sketcher. Taught me to really learn how to really love music in architecture school and be influenced by it, inspired And also architecture school was great for collaborating. I met, you know, I had so many great friends in there and we would collaborate, exchange ideas, and it was just a real good environment. And there were some knuckleheads too. I had this one guy who, during a presentation, he bashed my— we called them pinups, we'd pin our drawings up on the wall. On a wall for everybody to look at and give critiques on. This kid slammed me in front of everybody. He bashed me. He was using profanity to describe my drawings and sketches and my abilities as a student. This guy thought he was the best in the class. Won't mention any names. He was really harsh. So, I had professors like that. As well, some really harsh teachers and professors. Did I like it? No. Did it hurt me? Yeah, it hurt big time. But you know what? I walked away realizing, um, you know, you can't let people get to you. You really can't. Oftentimes like that, they're just expressing their own frustrations and they're taking it out on other people. That's kind of my big takeaway from that. Don't be afraid to put your artwork and creativity out there. You're gonna have a thousand, a million different opinions on what you're putting out there. Just value yourself, value what you do. Have fun with what you're doing. Let the critics be critics. Move, keep moving forward. That's what I say. So you can kind of see I added a little bit of wash back in here and popped the silhouettes out. Hey, that castle does pop to the foreground now. Hey, thank you, Susie. Appreciate you saying that. Yeah, it's actually better in person. It's Uh, do the colors get washed out on screen? The lights in here? You can kind of see in here how the turrets and towers are popping. DB loves this. Hey, thank you, DB, I appreciate that. DB says it's a natural talent. You know what, DB, we all have our own natural talents, that's for sure. DB showed an amazing, amazing watercolor painting the other day that was incredible. DB is my go-to pencil guru. So, thank you for sharing your knowledge and your pencil and your sketches. We all each have our own creativity and our own unique voices, right? That's what makes this fun. So, I kind of— I like this. Concept. I love the idea, or like the idea, of having maybe something, a part of the castle that's arched and frames the view beyond. So if I take something moving forward from this quick sketch here, might be that concept. I'm gonna go to the final painting. I usually call them sketch paintings, right? When I say painting, to me it sounds like more of a formal you know, Michelangelo painting or something. That's what I think when I hear the word painting. So I like to call these just sketches or ink sketches, sketch ink washes. But again, this is just maybe some concepts for what I could do moving forward. We do need to pop the flag out, put a little bit of color on there. I found these in my bag the other day. I haven't used them in a long time. These are Liquitex paint markers. Um, I don't even know if this still works, to be honest with you. Let's try some red, maybe for flag. Little pop up there. I don't even know how old these are, guys. It's water-based acrylic paint marker. It says permanent. Supposed to shake it, mix up the paint. We'll see if it still works. I just like that sound. Hey, Jeannie says awesome castle. Thank you, Jeannie, appreciate that. All right, you guys think this is gonna work? Grab a scrap piece of paper over here and see. I honestly haven't used these in a long time. So they have a tip on them. You have to kind of depress it to get the ink started. Scrap piece of paper. Hey, look, I got some color coming out, guys. Let's try it. Zoom in on this flag. I like the— where is it? I like the chisel point on there. Chisel points are cool. You can get really broad strokes or really narrow strokes on. It's almost like a kind of magenta-y, which I love magenta. I got a little pop of red on there. Maybe actually, you know what, we're gonna play with these. We're gonna do a quick sketch with some of these next.

Woo!

Estinkta! Alright, there you go, got a little pop of red on there. So this was just a quick concept sketch for a final piece I'm going to be working on this week. Um, it'll be— the final piece is going to be in this spirit with this kind of idea of the black ink and a quick watercolor wash on it. This paper is awesome. I don't know what it is. I wish I did. It has such a nice texture on it. So I'm gonna have to hunt this down, maybe go look at some paper this week. I love the texture on it. And again, this is from 2000. 2. And it's not really that big of a piece. Awesome. Alright guys. Alright, we're gonna play around. If you guys wanna stick around, that'd be cool. I'll stick around for another 15 minutes. And let's play with these paint markers I just pulled out of my bag and see what we can do with them. So we'll put our little castle quick sketch away. Actually, oops. I don't want to put it away quite yet. I'm going to add a— I just want to add some more sketchy lines to it before I do it. Sometimes I do that. I'll get ready to put something away and then I'm like, "No, I need to add another thing here." I'm thinking about it. I didn't really put any texture in the roof spires here, so let me just add some texture. There we go. I didn't draw any stones. I like to draw stones on my castles. Stones on this wall here. Let's just pop some details on. This is called a, um, this is like a little cantilever overhang piece here. Brackets holding it up. There's a roof in here that does this. This is a roof area back here. I like this kind of gothic— pointy window. Add some shadows under here, just to give a little depth. Hope you guys can see this. Okay, hope my camera's staying in focus. I feel like it's going out of focus a little bit. I'm not sure why.

What I'd like to do with the arch next time is maybe make it—

I'm gonna add a nice keystone up here or something at the top of the arch. Keystone up there. This really could pop out a little bit more. I want this tower to pop out a little bit more as well. So this is inking out loud. I hope you don't mind me talking out loud and kind of what my thought process is and what I'm doing. It's kind of fun just to express what I'm thinking as a creating so you guys can see where, you know, where I'm headed and why I'm doing some things. And if it's annoying, I could crank up the music because that's more fun. Oh, you guys are awesome. Yes, a red flag, Susie says. Yes, gotta have a red flag or yellow or some color. Can I create a piece of artwork using your art idea of looking through the arch? Hey, DB, of course. "DB, you can only do it if you show me what you make." Of course, yeah, go for it, DB. I'd love to see what you create. "Love the movement in the flag." Hey, Linda, thanks. I love sketching flags. This one really didn't come out that great. Thank you. Flags are fun to do. My other go-to flag is this shape right here. It's simple. There's an architect I really loved in college. His name was Aldo Rossi, an Italian architect. He would do flags very simple like that on his buildings. Aldo Rossi created this incredible design, this really incredible floating theater called El Teatro del Mundo, Theater of the World. And they would take this theater, and it was on a barge, They'd bring it to different locations, they'd bring it out to Venice. Um, so it was meant to be like a temporary exhibit or function. It was a functioning building. And I remember, I remember that building I think had a flag like this on it. Aldo Rossi. I've been wanting to do just like architectural kind of, not lectures, but maybe talk about an architect or building on Inking Out Loud and just sketching it as we're talking about the building architect. Would that be fun, guys? You know, if we picked a Chrysler building, we could sketch it and talk about it. Frank Lloyd Wright building. Frank Gehry, who does really crazy designs. So that could be something fun to do on Inking Out Loud. All right, so this one I think is good for now. Hey, DB Linda, I will post it when complete. All right, that's cool, DB. All right, awesome guys, so let's play around with those markers. So this was the first sketch we worked on. This was done with the Lamy pen, just to remind you, and we just were bleeding the Lamy pen. Playing around with bleeding and added some yellow to pop some colors out. Could be a European building somewhere. In France, it has kind of the wrought iron work. Maybe these French doors going on. So I'm going to use the back side of this sheet, page, and I just want to play around with these watercolor markers, or I'd rather say they're acrylic markers. See what we can do with them. We're going to switch up the tunes one other time. We're going to put on our international mix. I will leave this up. Does anybody— well, I will leave the image of the castle up if you guys would like to look at it. Anybody is sketching. Oh, Liv loves to color with the Lamy pen. Yeah. I don't remember what the green is called, to be honest with you. God, you know why I got these colors? I wouldn't lose it, so I could always find it. Um, alright, let's play around with these markers. We're gonna shake them all up. We got yellow. I don't know if they're all gonna work, because they've been sitting around for a long time. Black. Red we shook up, red worked. We've got some blue. Let's try to see if there's color names on here. Yes, this is Phthalocyanine Blue, Green Shade it says. This is Quinacridone Crimson. "K" sounds dangerous. Carbon black, an easy one to say. Yellow medium, "Asso." I'm shaking up some maracas here. Alright, alright, we're just gonna— this— the intention here now is just to play with these markers, play with the color and have fun. Even if we just throw down some stripes, I'm going to try to recreate anything. We'll see what happens. Yellow's getting a little dried out. I'm going to take out my 3/4-inch brush. So I like to use 3/4-inch flat brushes. That one actually needs to be replaced. Let's see if I can brush these colors around a little bit. I don't know if I can or not. Once they're down, they might be down.

There we go.

So these are— it's a depress the tips. You got to really— you got to press it down and then the paint will come out. You can see how it's coming out now.

In fact, I really don't know if you can see it. I could do that, I could brush them around a little bit before they dry.

This is a really nice bright color, I like it a lot. Those markers, they stink a little bit. Precast in this blue.

See if I can mix these.

Well, they, they're not really mixing, but it's overlapping, so Blue over yellow, green. So there's some kind of greenish hues coming out. Let me know, has anybody actually used anything like these, these Liquitex paint markers?

Just curious, kind of, kind of new at this.

Like I said, these have been sitting around for a long time. I'm surprised they're working. I know the red we know works because we used it before.

Sketch like a lighthouse or something happening here.

I like the red when it goes over the yellow. I like the orange, orangey color it Sweetie. See if I can mix them together while they're wet. Yeah, kind of. You gotta get it— they dry really quick, really, really fast. Play my pants to this song. Right, I'm way out of rhythm, but cool. These dry really quick. Ah, I didn't use black yet.

Black is—

I don't know if it's working. It's kind of dried out, I think.

There we go.

Just needs some time to kick in. Ooh, that's fun.

Let's make a sailboat here.

So one of the artists I like is Peter Max. I love Peter Max's sailboats. These are kind of inspired by him.

Of course we need a flag on here too.

We have some good cello happening. Oops. I'm gonna turn off actually this window. If anybody needs the castle back on, let me know. I just turned it off. Say, "Castle please." I'll put the camera back on. I love the yellow and red together. That looks sick. What's cool about this is I like how the colors are just kind of showing through. Kind of sketching with the black on top of the colors and the colors— I like the way it's just looking. It's pretty awesome. Hey, I love the color of your Lambie pen. Oh wait, we talked about that. Peter Max is awesome. I have one of his Umbrella Man prints. Ooh, genie, that's awesome. I love Peter Max's Umbrella Man. So cool. Yeah, I have, um, I don't have an Umbrella Man, but I have a sage print. I love Peter Max's sages. I have one, I think it's called the Cosmic Sage.

It's—

let's try to see if I have it out here.

I have it out here.

I'll grab it if you guys want to see it. Let me know if you want to see the Peter Max Peter. Let's see if I can pull it out. Yeah, that's so cool. I love his Umbrella Man character. Awesome. I actually got to meet Peter Max 3, maybe 4 years ago. I went to a gallery where he was doing signings. I had been saving up for a long, long a long, long time to buy a painting, a Peter Max painting. So I went to this gallery where he was showing and signing, and I got a— it's not an original painting, how do I describe it? It's a heart that is kind of a remarked painting where it was a print that he did a painting on top of, and he signed it, and I got a book that he signed. I got my picture with Peter Max. It was like so awesome. I did the stupidest thing. I did. So I'm like getting goosebumps thinking about it. So I'm meeting this guy I've idolized for so many years. Can you guess? What do you think I asked or said to Peter Max? Man, I've been waiting to meet for 20 years. Oh my God, I I get up to the guy, you know, I get up to the guy and I got my picture taken with him, which was awesome. And I think I said something really stupid like, "Keep creating awesome art. Keep creating awesome art." That's all I could say to this iconic artist. Like he needed this nobody guy to tell him to keep creating awesome art. I felt so embarrassed, but I didn't know what to say. I was starstruck, really starstruck to meet Peter Max. I believe he is still painting. I unfortunately think Peter Max has dementia now, so I'm not sure how much painting he is doing these days. He's definitely had an influence on me, and his colors are what originally drew me to him, were his amazing colors. So that is my quick Peter Max story. I told him to keep creating awesome art. Oh boy. I really didn't know what to say to the guy. But you know what? It's all good. It was an honor meeting him. So remember we were talking about Peter Maxi, he used very vibrant colors, just like we're doing here. I've done some Peter Max-inspired art pieces. They're on my— if you go to JasonFineArt.com, you might see some of the pieces on there. Cool. I keep seeing Larry Pen. Larry, Larry Pen. Larry Penn sounds like a children's book. There was Larry Cucumber from the VeggieTales children's series. So now I'm thinking of Larry Cucumber, but Larry Penn, that's so funny, Beck. Yes, yes, I was— I asked if I could pull out that Peter Ricks print. Yeah, it was awesome. I could meet him. Yeah, it was definitely a highlight. I have no idea, maybe Maybe Peter had a down moment and needed— maybe that's true, Linda. Maybe you need to hear some young whippersnapper say that. He didn't kick me out, that's good. I'll post a picture sometime. It's not a very flattering picture of me, but it's not about me, it's about capturing the moment. I bet what you said was one of the best things he heard all day. Ah, you're too nice, Jeanie. You are too nice. I think Peter Max had— was very tired that day. Um, yeah, I think it was one of his busy weekends going to different galleries, and I think I definitely caught him on one of his tired days. That's okay. This is something I will always remember. All right, cool. What is awesome about this— let me zoom in, guys— this is actually What I'm having fun with these markers is really just layering colors. I like what's happening— let me get down closer— I like what's happening right in this area here. Just look at the different colors kind of overlapping and overlaying. So if you're looking for a medium that dries really quick, acrylic dries fairly quickly. So there's really not a lot of time if you want to brush these around like watercolors, it's not going to really happen unless you put the ink down and brush it right away. Cool. You like the eye in the sun? Yeah, you know, I always like to sketch suns like this. I always do my kind of swirly suns.

See if I can pull that print out.

I know it's here because it's not— it's not off the— Do it another day.

I'm gonna straighten up my shelf right there.

Gonna organize my room. Here's the book. I haven't seen the print. So here's the book I got at the signing, Peter Max. And, uh, so it was 2017 when I met him, so 5, about 4 years ago. For Jason, love Max, and I got his awesome signature in his book. This is a really cool book, The Universe of Peter Max. So this is kind of the copy I keep closed. I have another copy that I've thumbed through. But, um, if you don't know Peter Max, here's kind of the back cover. Very psychedelic images. I'm sure you all know who Peter Max is, or you've seen his iconic artwork on everything from clothing to airplanes to cruise ships. If you get a chance, Google Peter Max cruise ship or Peter Max airplane, and you can see some of the airplanes and cruise ships that he has painted his artwork on. Really amazing stuff. Huge, huge fan. Yeah, I was just giving it one last look. Looking at my drawers. One of my to-dos is to go through all my art drawers this summer. I got so much stuff in here. Pardon me, uh, drawers opening and closing them. I'll break it out another time. You guys are awesome. Alright, so it's 9:25, I'm gonna wrap up soon. I am using Larry from now on. Linda, you're liking your Larry pen, that's so cool. I'd love to see what you're making with your Larry pen. I'm gonna break out mine and we'll do some color washing and then we'll wrap up with our cowboy whistling cowboy outro song. So I love coming back in over watercolor washes or background color washes. I love coming in with my ink and just drawing on top of it. So let's play with our lamb. Let's add some details. I'm gonna zoom in. Let's do some sketching. See what I'm doing here? Do some sketching, kind of like how—

Yeah, this is fun.

Just adding this ink on top adds so much depth. You can add textures, right? Just by adding these lines creates texture and movement. I don't want to cover up too much of that color up in the background. So I'm gonna kind of smother the ink everywhere. Now maybe he has a little lighthouse here. Maybe there's a little person up here or something. There's something standing up here. It's our cowboy guy with his hat. So it's our Don Quixote Guy that we need to come up with a name for. He's kind of standing on the shore here with his, uh, let's see, his little partner here. So this is a little horse guy. If you notice, if you ever see the horse I drew, it's very kind of pointy lines. It does not look like a horse. His horse friend is kind of standing over there with a Background. There we go.

That's kind of fun.

Sometimes I'll just pull out the swirls in the sun. I'll kind of just go around.

Do a little tail on it.

Add some lines in the landscaping here. Yeah, this is fun. I love the— I'm loving the colors on this. I'm loving the colors on these guys. Just some jaggedy lines, some kind of water happening here. So what I like to do along the shoreline when I have like an island or land coming out to the water, I'll sketch a line across here. That's where the water hits the land. And then, uh, I'm gonna have to zoom in for this. Sorry I keep zooming in and out, guys. What I like to do is draw hatching lines, vertical hatching lines, just to give some height to where the land is coming out of the water. So you might see that in some of a lot of my sketches, these vertical lines there. It just kind of defines where the water is hitting the land. So it's just a kind of an abstract way to do that. Or shorthand. Dawn was talking about shorthand the other night. Dawn, that's my shorthand for shoreline, just to do this kind of vertical line. Of course we need some kind of birds, right? These are my little kind of seagull guys. Just kind of happening up top there. Yeah, this is a fun little quick piece. Hey Chris, good to see you. Yes, the mysterious mustache man has made an appearance way beyond the background. School starting soon? Yeah, so my school starts September 7th or 8th. Somewhere around there. I have to go back earlier before the kids, so yeah, we are getting closer to school starting. And New Jersey, we were just informed on Friday that masks are now mandatory in schools for everyone— students, teachers, staff, vaccinated or not. We all need to be wearing masks in school. This isn't going to be a political statement and this I know this show isn't about that, but personally, I'm just gonna shake my head. That's all I'm gonna do. I am having flashbacks to last school year, and it was a nightmare. It was a nightmare. For teachers, for parents, for kids, it was just— we made it through, we had fun, I did the best I could, the kids did the best we could, but we don't need to go in that direction. There's no way. And I hopefully— I was not in my classroom last year. They wouldn't let me in my classroom because I don't have windows there. It's a whole nother story. So I was traveling between 4 different classrooms, 5 classrooms. We didn't have access to our computers or 3D printers or laser cutters. My classes, my kids were robbed of using their technology. I tried to make it as fun as I could. So guys, fingers crossed things get back on track and go in a good direction. Again, it's not— this is nothing political. I don't talk politics. I'm not into politics. Or this is not a health conversation. It's just me as a teacher and a parent conversation that things need to change somehow.

Somewhat.

I feel bad, my son was a freshman last year and he was robbed of his freshman year experience. And he goes to school I teach in, so it's a tough year. Anyway, we made the best of it. Enough of that. Oh wow, yours starts Wednesday, cool. Well, good luck to you guys, Jeannie, and your schools and your school system. Hope everything works out, hope the kids have a great, great first day back at school, first month back at school. Fingers crossed for them. Really, I'm sending out positive vibes to everybody. Hey, thank you, I appreciate that. You guys are all amazing. Cool, so the whistling guy is on, Cowboy Guy, so we're gonna replay the song in a minute. We'll do our outro sketch. So again, let's just, uh, we'll So let's kind of wrap up with what we talked about. We'll do a little ending here. So these were just Liquitex paint markers. I know Chris just joined us, so Chris, I don't know if you saw what we were doing. I pulled these out of my bag here. I hadn't used them in a long, long time, so I thought it'd be cool to play with them. So I do like using them. They're kind of fun for layering colors. They dry quickly, so you can't really blend them together. You can layer the colors over each other to get the effects you want, unless you blend them right after you put them on the paper. You gotta blend it immediately. But they're kind of cool to play with, and apparently they last a long time. I have to say, these are probably at least 2 to maybe 3 years they've been sitting in the in my bag here, so that's a testament to the product that it's lasted that long. Oh, actually, I'm gonna put them here in my rubber band. Yeah, so these are Liquitex paint markers. These are acrylic. It's kind of out of focus, sorry about that. Yeah, so they're water-based acrylic, lightfast, and they are permanent as well. Hey, give them a try, Chris. They are fun to play with. They do have a little odor to them. Some people I know are allergic or can't deal with the smells of things, or allergies, or asthma. So make sure you always read the labels of the mediums you buy before you actually buy them.

Cool.

Yeah, so that was fun. Let's take a look at our first— this is the warm-up sketch we did playing around with our Lamy pen and just bleeding ink. Then I added some watercolor marker. These are Winsor Newton watercolor markers. And these are the colors I always keep on hand: cerulean blue, gamboge yellow, sap green, and of course, everyone knows my favorite, seafoam. I'm a huge sepia fan. This came out kind of cool. This is just fun to play with. A lot of kind of movement. I like the energy you get, the sense of movement you can get with just the washes, right?

Pretty neat.

And then we, uh, this was the castle. We were just playing around with a quick castle idea for a painting I'm gonna work on this week. Sketch painting. Ink wash painting. Um, so trying to get an idea maybe of a composition. I am liking— actually, you know what I'm going to do? Let's break this out for a second. I got the black. I'm just looking at the arch here on screen. I'm going to try to emphasize it. I'm going to give it a detail maybe. So I like the idea of having this archway. It's a frame of view. So that'll somehow probably make its way into the final piece. Just gonna pop out some colors with this black marker here. Pop out the roof lines. Right, so you can see as I'm adding the black, it's kind of— it's almost like a piece of toast. So we now have a toast-shaped arch opening looking beyond, framing a church in the background. So if anybody has any cinnamon— I love cinnamon and butter on toast. So we have a toast-shaped arch opening. Interesting. You never know, you never know what's We're gonna go on Inking Out Loud. We talk about everything from college to toast. That's what makes it fun. It's actually you guys that make this fun for me to do, so I appreciate it.

Cool.

All right, so this is our little castle sketch we worked on, and it'll be interesting to see what the final piece looks like. So today's Monday, I'll probably be working on, uh, maybe Wednesday. Hey, you guys are awesome. Hey, Becky's in the house. Becky, good to see you. Awesome. Hope you're having a good trip. Cool. And this was all sketched on, by the way, the Canson XL watercolor paper, 7x10 sheets, 140-pound. This is my go-to. Sketchbooks, my watercolor sketchbooks, for just laying down quick thoughts and ideas.

Cool.

All right guys, we're going to play some cowboy outro whistling music. If you want to hear the cowboy music, let me know. Give me some hearts, put some thumbs up, share the love, and we'll do one last sketch as we head out for the night.

Is there anything else?

Did I have any other shows? I think I had them. Sometimes I plan show and tell, sometimes I just go and grab things. These are laying around. This, I'm still trying to figure out what to do with this. This is just, this is a little board, art board. This is copper-colored acrylic paint on here, and it's been sitting around for a long time. I love the way this color, copper, contrasts with the blue of the Aqua, of the watercolor pad. But I'm still not sure what I'm going to be putting on this. So I keep it out. So maybe next time on Inking Aloud, we'll grab this and play around with it, see what you end up doing. So there you go. Sometimes I like to— actually, I was thinking about this. I just want to hold this over. I'm just trying to look at the colors together. This is a scrap piece of paper here. I actually really like the color combination too of the copper with the This is almost a fluorescent kind of green. I know it's not looking like that on the screen. We have like a fluorescent or yellow or whatever here, which looks kind of interesting against the copper. So sometimes it's fun, guys, just take different colors and hold them next to each other, right? It's like swatching.

Interesting.

I see an elephant. I see an elephant on this card here, or some kind of animal. I think it's a giraffe. Maybe it's a bull. I'm not sure. I see an animal here, guys. This is kind of the snout. You guys see this? Or maybe, maybe I just need a vacation. No, no, no, this is the creative mind at work, all right? This is what I'm seeing on this, guys. I'm not gonna sketch it. I'll point it out. This is kind of almost maybe a zebra. This is kind of the snout area here. I see an eye. I see another eye. This could be a horn here. But then the body kind of contours around, wraps around this way. So it's almost like the face of the animal is looking at I see his body kind of contorted. I'll have to play around with this. I think we can pull some kind of animal. I'm shaking my head because you know me and animals. I'm really bad at animal stuff, drawing. But I see an animal face in there.

Interesting. Hmm.

We'll see. We'll see. All right, guys. Oh, you see an elephant? You guys see the elephant too, right? Could definitely be an elephant. The first animal I saw was an elephant on here. Kind of the trunk area, face, his body, just kind of his leg here, tail coming back here. Choices. Mmm, Linda says, too many choices. There's a great book out there, it's called The Paradox of Choice. I forget the author. It's called The Paradox of Choice, and basically talks about, you know, the fact that when we go to the cereal aisle in our supermarket, we have like 1,000— exaggerating— 1,000 different cereals we can pick from. In our society, we have overloaded with so many different choices of simple things that we can make. Choices of cereals. Years ago I read, it's called The Paradox of Choice. It was an interesting read. Even think about artwork, right? All the supplies and the colors, the papers, methods, right? There's so many choices. That, I guess the key is don't let the choices be a roadblock. Don't let them be speed bumps in the way, right? Don't let the conflict or the too many options paralyze you from creating. Grab and go. If you can't decide, grab and go. If you look at here on my desk, I'll zoom out. I have I have things over here piled up. I have things in a bag over here piled up. I have paintbrushes. I have so many things over here behind me. Um, that's why a lot of the times I'm inking out loud in the show, I just kind of grab and go with what I'm feeling. If I sat there and was trying to think about what should I use now, or How could I do this? What's gonna be the perfect color? I think I would just freeze like a deer in the headlights. I'd be like, "Did you get that? Do a close-up." So for me to get past that fear, being paralyzed, I try to work on the habit of just grabbing and going. Sometimes it's the music that inspires me, sometimes Sometimes it's just a feeling inside. Sometimes it's something I'm looking at. Maybe something in conversation. Cowboys whistling. You know what? Grab and go. Grab and go. Grab, go, and create. What if we should add that? Grab, go, and create. Kind of like that. Grab, go, and create. So it's a little insight to everything from my point of view. All right guys, so Let's look at the comments here, and then we're gonna come back to this song and we'll do our outro sketch of the cowboy. Becky pared down her choices for her trip. That sounds awesome. So you're loaded up with whatever you need, the basics. Exciting, exciting. I can't wait to see what you create, the photographs your daughter takes. It's gonna be awesome. Can you show the castle you created tonight one more time, please? Yeah, Patty, I can definitely do that. If anybody was sketching along, I could, I could take a picture and post it on my page if you want. Here's the castle we were sketching. Becky did not buy any pens at Walmart today. That must This must have been so hard for you to do. Kudos. Awesome job, Becky. That's so funny. The Toast Castle. Yes, this is the Toast Castle. We have officially named it the Toast Castle in the land of toast. That was not good. Where would Toast Castle be? In the land of butter? It could be big mounds of like butter. Ooh, wait, hold on a second. Hey guys, I'm all over the map. You guys always inspire me. Alright, I gotta put something happy on. I don't know, just, let's play this. This is happy. Alright. You said toast, right? What if we made these toast? What if I just added some yellow? What if these like mounds of butter back here Toast Castle in the land of— Toast Castle is located in the Butter Hills. My name is Becky and I am a Pennaholic. That's awesome. Alright, there we go. So now we have some butter mountains in the background. Alright, so here's the Once Upon a Time. We were looking at this earlier, the original sketch, 2002. This will go back up here on the shelf.

Keep it safe.

Safe, safe from splattering paint on it. Where's my cowboy sketchbook? I need to get— re-up my, uh, beginner sketchbook here. So this was the last sketch we did. Oh, I just dropped it. This was the last sketch we we did, um, the outro cowboy whistling song. Let's see what we can make tonight. "I've only started sketching with a pen after discovering Jason in the room." Ooh, awesome! Well, I'm glad to be part of your pen history. Your pen history. Awesome. Patty, if you needed a picture of that, let me know. I don't know if you were trying to sketch it. I can take a picture and post it on, uh, the Facebook page later. Hey guys, you're awesome! So before I head out, I want to say a couple things, then we'll put on the cowboy music. Thank you for being here and watching and commenting. Appreciate it so much. You guys taking some of your time out. Even if you watched and you didn't comment and say hi, I still appreciate you too. It's cool to be a lurker and hang out in the background, as long as you're not creepy lurking. Lurking creepily. Appreciate you as well. And what else was I gonna say? Oh yeah, so thank you so much. Thank you for, Dawn, I know you did the survey for the workshop, so thank you. And I think DB maybe brought up the workshop I'm planning in September, the 30-day sketch journal workshop. So I'm still working on it. There is a survey, if you guys didn't hear me say, I have a survey you can take. 4 questions, I'm looking for input and maybe feedback or ideas to help design the 30-day workshop. The link is on my Facebook group or the, uh, Inspire Life Facebook page. Feel free to take that, that would be cool. I could value your feedback com, the workshop. And other than that, you know, keep being awesome, keep paying it forward with creativity, you know, um, just keep being positive in general. And you know, if you see someone, you walk by, you know, give them a nod, hello, or smile, or a wave. Um, just be positive out there. We need it, uh, more than ever. So that I appreciate you guys. Positivity, creativity for positivity, right? All right, so I have my tools here. Maybe we'll use these for the sketch, I don't know. We're gonna do our outro song, the Whistling Cowboy. So thank you guys so much. Peace, live creatively. See you guys real soon.

This is interesting. Good night, guys.

See you soon. Take care. Peace and live creatively.