The Inkspired Life - Sketching & Painting : Inking Out Loud

Hello, if you're watching, hope you're having a great, great, great late Friday night here in New Jersey. Hey, Heather and Becky, good to see you guys. "No, I did not try Coke and coffee, although I really want to. It sounds really interesting, and I'm going to be looking for it next time I'm out at the supermarket. Good stuff." "Did you say too many chocolate chip— oatmeal chocolate chip cookies?" Yeah, I just had 2 bags of— small bags of Doritos. It was a lot of fun. It was great seeing you guys in there. Good, good stuff tonight. What a great way, right, to spend the night. It's good to see you guys. Trying Coke and coffee would make my head explode. You know, it doesn't, it just sounds incredibly sweet, caffeinated. I gotta give it a try. I just, I gotta try it. It sounds, it's intriguing me. Good stuff. Thanks for watching, guys. I know it's late. I wanted to come back on and I just felt like drawing some castle spires type of stuff. I have a little bit of energy going tonight, so I just want to burn it off doing some sketching. So I appreciate you chilling. I know it's late. Yeah, but that was a lot of fun. Good, good stuff. So I'm just kind of working on some castle sketches, playing around with the— well, I guess with the castle theme. That's so funny. Hey Maxine, how the heck are you? Awesome to see you. I hope everything's well with you, you and your family. That's so awesome. Nice of you to tune in. So cool. Becky, I do not like coffee unless it is ice cream. Yeah, coffee ice cream is awesome. I didn't like coffee until about, I don't know, not too many years ago. I was never a coffee drinker, but I am loving it. The Keurig has become very dangerous. It's easy to go push the button. I know some people say that's not real coffee, but it's working for me. It's good stuff. You hate Oreos? What? Heather hates Oreos? Oreos, what the heck? Actually, I'm not a huge Oreo fan either, I agree with you. You saw it in the grocery store? Oh, the coffee Coke? I get it. Or is it Coke coffee, or is it coffee Coke? I think it's Coke coffee, right? New flavor out there. Hey, Jean, I'm glad you're loving the castle. That's so cool, thank you. Yeah, this is a fun, uh, Little piece, I'm not gonna add too much to it. I might just do a little ink wash with it. I think I'm gonna keep it black and white for now with a little bit of wash, maybe gray or black on it. You guys are all amazing, good stuff. Oh, 8, not hate. Oh. Heather, yeah, it's only 11:18. I misread that, my bad.

Woof!

I am up past my bedtime. That's so funny. That's so funny. Yeah, let's blame the time on that one. I bought Duncan Mocha Latte cereal? What? I didn't know— Patty, I didn't know Dunkin' had cereal. That's interesting. I have a student who works at Dunkin'. I'll have to pick his brain about that. That's interesting. I didn't know they made that. See, it was worth coming on like after 11 o'clock tonight. Learning all these fun facts. Let's just talk snacks the rest of the day. Why not? Who doesn't like a good snack? By the way, I have some music playing finally. I have some copyright-free music, or I guess I paid to use it, like a monthly membership fee, but it's kind of fun to have the music playing. A little bit of jazzy kind of stuff. So I'm using my One of my two favorite pens, the Pilot Precise V7. I like the Pilot, I can add some water, which we're gonna do, kinda let it bleed a little bit. I don't think I'm gonna get crazy and add pink or anything tonight. I kinda wanna keep this kinda, kind of subdued. I think it's looking really nice the way it is actually. You guys can see it, let me focus, focus, focus, focus. Cool castle towers, thank you Patty. Yeah, Becky, way past your bedtime. I'm with you. Yeah, I'm up late tonight. Well, thanks for watching. You guys are awesome. I totally get it if it's late and you need to go to bed. No worries. I'm not going to be on too late. Maybe until 11:30 and we'll call it. 10 more minutes. Of course, you know I say that and 10 minutes turns into like 10 hours, but I'll try to keep it good tonight. I do have some things to do in the morning, a lot of schoolwork, college work to do tomorrow. Gotta really buckle down and get this stuff done. So I'm just adding just some water on top of the ink here. Again, I'm not going to get too crazy. I did— so I was working on this piece earlier. I was actually working on it while I was watching Rue tonight. So this came out kind of cool. This is a— I'm showing this because it's very different than this piece. This is a very mixed media piece. There's a lot going on. Got the grungy-ish look going. It is definitely not a purist castle. Like Becky said, that's a purist castle. I love that. This is a grungiest building. I think I forget what I called it. Something like Mixed Media Midtown Monumental Megalith or something. It was kind of the title I was giving it. I'm picturing like a city, you know, that time maybe has forgotten. So that's a theme. I love the urban stuff, the grunge stuff, you know that. So I'm trying to combine that together. This was acrylic ink, acrylic, I'm sorry, it was watercolor ink, acrylic paint. Oh, and acrylic ink, graphite, and I figured out how to play around more with this— where is it? I lost it. Where the heck did it go? Oh, here it is. It's right in front of me. Duh. I was messing around again. You maybe saw me working with this not too long ago, this watercolor stick. So I was playing around with this. I was diluting it in water, putting it on here, and that's all the The black you see on here is from this watercolor stick. So I think it came out kind of interesting. I like this aesthetic and it's something I'm working on and practicing. But it's very different than this, right? Cool. Um, you have a Facebook group called Happy Rooftop Inspire Wednesday. "Vilpas Photos of Spires and Interesting Rooftops." What? "I think of your sketches now when Wednesdays go by." Haha, that's awesome, Patty, that's so cool. Sounds like a really, really interesting Facebook group. Yeah, I love rooftops and I love spires, so really cool. Thank you, Becky, you like that mixed media piece, thank you. "The black and white piece is more my style." Thanks, that's cool, Jeannie. So yeah, as you can see, I'm kind of multitasking with different styles. I'll jump around to these black and white, these fairy tale cottage sketches, and I'll jump to the grunge stuff. I just allow my brain to go in different directions. I'm not going to focus on one because I can't really do that. So I'm just jumping to different styles of paintings and kind of whatever the mood is. So yeah, it's cool to mix it up a little bit. I did say I wasn't going to get crazy with this, but I think I do want to just play with a little bit of graphite just to add some shadows. I think my pen dried too much and it's not really— oh, some of it's kind of loose. Never mind. Weird, it is diluting a little bit. Some of it's not. Not sure what's going on. I think it may have dried a little too much. So that's okay, I'm just gonna jump to the graphite a little bit and just darken up some spots. Or I could do this, actually. Why don't I do this? I'm gonna try not to use the graphite. Stick with just pen on this, keep it really simple. I'm just gonna add more ink in certain areas, and then what I'll do It's wet, so the ink will bleed, or I'll just— as it goes on, I can kind of brush it around a little bit. Sound— that sound like Charlie Brown music. It wasn't. That's what it sounded like a little bit. I'll move this up a little closer so you can see some of the details on it. I like the brown and blue piece. Don likes the other, the brown and blue piece. I really like this one, the black and white towers. Cool. Yeah, something for everybody. I aim to please. I hope it's working. I don't know which one I think I'm more partial to, my pen sketches, only because I've been doing those longer, to be honest with you. But, you know, I'm really loving working on these types of pieces too. Saw someone— I saw someone put a comment on one of my things, posts, that had a castle on. I thought it was a great comment, and it's something I never noticed. I forget who it was, so I apologize, but they said my flags are always going in the same direction. That is interesting. You're right. You are right, whoever said that. My flags are always going— and I'll show you— they're always going— actually, I'm going to do a little kind of different flag here.

I'm going to do something that has kind of like a tail on it.

But the flags are always blowing in this direction. It's funny, I don't know why I do that. Typically I'll just do a simple triangle flag, but I think this has more of a fairy tale kind of look to it, this type of flag. Kind of comes here and splits a little bit. Liking this music, it's very, very jazzy. Add a little more maybe to these windows, more black, more ink. Cool. It's supposed to be a little balcony down here. And right, it's wonky, it's not perfectly straight. Some of it is kind of wavy in places. One of the ways I make it wonky and more playful, whimsical, is the proportions. I play with those. Look, this is pretty narrow and tall. So I exaggerate some of the proportions of things. You know, if you look in this area here, it's like, "What's going on?" There's a lot here but it just adds more character and playfulness. Let's you guys, let's the viewer kind of fill in the blank, imagining what's happening at the top. Stonework, you know, I like to add stonework on these kinds of sketches. I had the stones going on there. The steep roofs, so again, we talk about vocabulary and architecture. One of the vocabularies of architectural design are, you know, roof styles, or roof styles, depending where you live. So I always like picture castles with tall, steep spires on them. At least the fairy tale whimsical castles. So I really kind of try to exaggerate those proportions just to make it more playful. Yeah, variety is a good thing, Becky. Yep. Probably because you're left-handed. Yes, I am left-handed. That's true. They say lefties are more creative, but I don't believe that. I think we all have creativity going on, but maybe there's some neuroscience there I really haven't studied. I do like being left-handed. Yeah, it's definitely easier not to smear ink when you're— to smear what ink? It depends. If I work right to left, yeah, I don't smear, but if I'm working left to right this way, I have definitely smeared things before. I'm just looking at this. I don't even know if I really want to add anything else to this. Heather. Heather likes— now is the perfect time to try it then. Your sketch will be so incredibly loose and wonky, it would be incredible. Oh, flag direction, got you, Becky. Yeah, yeah. That makes sense with the flag direction. Yeah, maybe that's why I do it that way. Good call. I like that. That's using your noodle. Yeah, I don't drink, so I can't even imagine what wine would do to me if I was to drink. If I was to drink and paint and draw, who the heck knows? It would be really crazy. I can't even imagine. So yeah, this is just a fun little piece. I like it nice and clean. Something— I kinda wanna add something here. Maybe I'll just throw some trace paper down quick and take a look. My trace paper drawer. Oh, I have some Mega Trace. I found some Mega White tracing paper the other day in my drawer. So let's just break a piece of this out. Let's see, I don't know. I don't know if I want to create some kind of landscape in the background, some kind of mountain. I'm just inking out loud here, inking out loud. Gotta work that in somehow. So I'm inking out loud, thinking, you know, inking what I would like to Add something back here. Do I want to leave it as is? I don't— I'm not liking that.

I'm not really liking that at all.

I mean, do I want to do just my typical whimsical kind of sun on here? Some kind of sun spiral? Am I getting too cheesy with that? I don't know. Maybe this is a little too cheesy for what I'm trying to do here. I could do something really— maybe back here, really far in the background, some kind of a hill. Maybe it would just be kind of shaded in. Actually, maybe it would be up a little higher. Nah, you know what? I think I'm gonna leave it. As I sketch more stuff. If I had my dragon— my dragons down, I would do a small dragon or something here. Pardon my loose interpretation of a dragon here. I'm not looking at any references. This is something I would definitely have to reference. Maybe some kind of wings or something. Oh, that is a horrible dragon. I think I do better giraffes than dragons. Looks like a phoenix or something. I don't know. It's a quick sketch. Maybe it's got a dragon or something going there. Maybe this is Harry Potter, Harry Potter land, and we have some Quidditch players flying back here on their brooms.

I don't know if they wear wizard hats when they're flying or not.

We got some Quidditch going on over here, some broom— people flying brooms around. Again, I probably would have to look at some references of just some people. So we got a Quidditch match. That could be kind of interesting. Maybe turn it Harry Potter-ish with some Quidditch players flying in the background. Those are just some ideas. I do feel like something should be in that space. Really small. Wonky is right. Wonky is always right. You can't go wrong with it for sure. Very cool. So we got our wonky spires. Hope that inspired you a little bit. This is, oh, this is from the other day. We did that one. I think I have to save some of this. Going through this book quick. I guess that's the point, right? Cool. So I'm gonna put this one aside for now. A dragon, yeah. You like the dragon idea? I wish I didn't crumple this all up, but maybe I can still use it. Maybe a dragon, he's kind of like flying down this way. He's got a pointy tail here. Maybe he's flying, his wings are doing this, he's kind of flying down this way.

That's too big.

—to be something like this. Again, I have to look at pictures of dragons. I think that might work, that idea. And it would tie in well with some other stuff I've been doing, because I have a— this whole series in my drawer of things I'm working on, and I do have a dragon sketch in there, in one of those pieces. Cool. I just want to continue this down a little bit more. There we go. These all continue down. Awesome. So we have a little castle sketch. Cool, Heather says. Cool. Did I say that right? Cool. It is cool. Just want to look through here for a sec. This is a fun piece. I did one last year, one day. Scene with some balloons. This is just some watercolor and ink. On here. This is just a whimsical little piece with air balloons. Forgot about that one. Just flipping through. Here's a sketch of some daffodils. You're like, "Why is he showing us his sketchbook?" I'm just actually looking through here to see if there's anything cool. Quick. I don't even know what I was trying to draw here. This was very random. I was trying to go for some kind of Japanese or Asian motif. It looks like I was drawing someone weeping with the sunset behind him. That's interesting. I'm gonna work on this page. I don't even remember what this was supposed to be. I was just playing around with it though. Thank you! I'm glad you like the hot air balloons. They were fun. That was a fun little whimsical piece. Again, I don't even know what this is here, but it's going to be on for just a few more minutes. I'm going to head off to bed. I have some gold I want to break out, some of this gold paint. Goldfinger. Goldfinger. Alright, Goldfinger just popped into my brain.

Okay.

I don't know if we can do anything with this piece or not. Again, this was— I was just playing around one time last year with this thing. I should use my bigger brush for this. Whoa, dropping brushes! Watch out, it's getting dangerous, brushes are flying everywhere. I think this is colored pencil on here. I know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna take out my sepia brush and we'll call this one a wrap. Sad one with happy colors around her. Yeah, you know. Yeah, Becky. It's kind of what it looks like. I'm really trying to remember what— I guess I was just playing around. I don't know what the intention of this piece was originally. Probably was no intention. Like usual, I just kind of start doing stuff. I don't know if I was going for some kind of deep meaning in this piece. This is fun music. So I'm just adding a— some structure on here, maybe. Here we go. Cool. I just want to add a little more motif to it, kind of incorporate into a little scene. So I have some little— some architectural elements going on.

No, let's see.

Maybe some kind of a kite going on, some kite flying. There's some other kites going on in the distance here. We'll draw another one. Here we go. Maybe there's some kind of kites flying in the background. Just to add some, something fun happening in the sky. Interesting, what kind of story could go with this piece? That would be really interesting to think about. This is supposed to be some kind of growies going on. This is kind of an architectural-ish structure, a pergola structure. I should bring some more of that yellow into the sky and I think that piece will be kind of cool. So creative. Hey, hey, Jeannie, thanks. Yeah, you know, I appreciate you saying that. Just working with what I have here, and I was just kind of trying to pick up on the motif and just adding some elements to it. That's so cool. I'm going to add some more gold up in the sky, I think. Let's put some music on here. Alright, let's add some more gold in the sky. I wanna pour some on his lid maybe. Add some water. This is watercolor ink. I think looking at the hot air balloon image in the sketchbook put something in my brain, subconscious creative brain, doing something, you know, putting the kites in here, something in the air flying. I'm thinking that's how that happened. Ooh, there's a little bit of red in here. I like that. That's cool. Cool, there we go. Fun little scene. Let me lift this up so you can see it better. Boom, there we go. Hmm, just pondering what could be happening in this picture. I'm not sure. I'm not sure what the story is yet. I guess the same song is repeating, it sounds like. It's okay, I like it. It's very dramatic, very dramatic music. I'm just popping some orangey red on here. Just to get a little pop to the kites. I'm just trying to kind of tie in the color up top with what's going on. Even though this is more orangey, this is more red. Cool. Awesome, I think that's a great little piece, guys. Repetition of Japanese sun, this ties everything together. Cool, yeah, you think that, you think the circle kind of helped? That's kind of, that's, Becky, you picked up on it, that's why I was including this circle here. I was trying to pick up on this shape and bring it up here as well. Cool. Hey Sandra, I was on before, Ru. I am back again. Yeah, but I am about to head out in about 1 minute. So we're gonna do the closing, but I'm so glad you joined us, Sandra. It's awesome to see you as always. Yeah, so this was a cool little piece. Just kind of taking a step back and looking at it, I don't know if there's anything else I really want to do with this one. Actually, there is one thing I want to do. I just want to bring this yellowy color just across the bottom just to tie it together. Just to tie the scene together. I should have taken a before picture. So again, this little part was probably done at least a year ago or so. I don't have a date on it. Just this part, messing around one day. Pulled it out tonight just to see what we could do with it. That's why I love going through old sketchbooks and seeing what's in there. Seeing what we have to work with. What ideas are in there? What did we hate? What did we like? What can we work with? What can we practice with? There we go. I don't know what to call this one. Awesome. So guys, I'm going to head out. I don't know if I— I don't think I'll be on tomorrow night, Saturday night. So I wanted to get a little extra time in tonight. We'll see. I'm not planning on it, but I might pop on. We'll see how Saturday goes. Might do movie night tomorrow. Midnight Sun. Ooh, Patty, yeah, The Midnight Sun. I like that. Midnight Sun. What is the story? What is the story? What's going on with this character? Tears. She's crying tears. They're kind of forming a pool of water. We have some kind of circle of life thing happening here while the world beyond is happening. Kites are flying. They're free. They're liberating. They're soaring. Heading off to adventure. This architectural piece represents, you know, structure or something formal, rigid. There's some kind of structure in life. We need to have— I'm inking out loud— so we need to have structure in life. It's about balance, right? We have structure in life. We also need to be free and liberated. Our creativity needs to soar. And this— how does this fit in? Maybe this is the circle of life. This is what it's about. You know, we have good moments, bad moments. These could be tears of sadness. They could be tears of joy, tears of expression. So we need to express ourselves in a structured and free and creative world. Boom! Maybe the kites are spirits. Ooh, spirit kites. That's deep. I'm liking that. Hey Heather, good night. Becky, good night. Good to see you guys. So, I love the way you guys are thinking. I am outta here. Have a great, great night. Peace. Live creatively. Wait, maybe she doesn't remember. Alright, we'll do the peace and creative. We'll come back to that again. Maybe she remembers ancestors who are gone now. Yeah. Maybe she's lamenting and these are their spirits floating away to the heavens. That's deep. That's good. That's good. I'm liking that. Reminds me of the COVID of the book Hiroshima my daughter read for school. Really? That's— I'm going to have to Google that. Maybe there's a picture of it on Amazon. That's so cool. I'm definitely going to Google that. Wow, you guys have such great brains and fun. I like where you're going with it. All right, 11:55. I'm way up past my bedtime. You guys are awesome. I appreciate you all so much. Have a great, great night. Be positive, do good things, pay it forward with your creativity. Peace. Live creatively. I'll catch you guys maybe tomorrow night. We'll see you the day brings. Take care. Thanks, guys.