The Inkspired Life - Sketching & Painting : Inking Out Loud

Hey everybody, good evening. Hope you're having an awesome Monday night. I see Heather K. Hey Heather K, hope you're doing well. It is 7:48 PM Eastern time. Hope you guys are doing great on this January 2nd, second day of the new year, which is awesome. It's always— I love New Year's because it's just a time for refreshing, renewing, and restarting, refocusing. A lot of rewords there, re. Anyway, hope you guys are having a great day. This is my last day break. I have to go back to school tomorrow, which is okay, which is okay. I love teaching. I also love breaks, so I had a good combination. So I figured I'd pop on, I wanted to do my bridge sketch a little bit early tonight. I probably should turn in earlier tonight. Um, this is the Liberty Bridge in Budapest. Budapest crosses over the Danube River. So we're just gonna do a really quick sketch of this. So this bridge, bridge doesn't— it has a really beautiful ironwork. I have a piece that comes up like this here. Notice I did turn my sketchbook just because it's easier for me to sketch that rather than trying to do this. Just, just rotate the book. It's easier for for me to get the, uh, curved shape in there. These cool little kind of tower pieces happening here. Heather K is making tamales and watching. That's awesome. That is some wicked skills right there. Wicked. If I tried to cook, watch, and sketch at the same time, it would be disastrous. So I think that's awesome that you're doing that. So fun. Tamales sound yummy. I made some— one of my favorite things to make I made tonight for dinner, which is black beans and rice, and I just love the way it comes out. Really, really tasty kind of dish. I throw in, uh, let's see what do I throw in. I use a pan and I throw in some crushed tomatoes and some seasonings I put in there as well. I put some— what did I put in there? Some cumin I put in there, some basil I put in there as well, garlic, onions. I bring that to a boil. And then I throw in the black beans right out of the can. Just Goya black beans right out of the can with their juices. I love that. And I let it simmer for, geez, long time today, about 3 hours, 3 and a half hours. Came out pretty tasty. This bridge does something, let's see, kind of a curved piece coming down here. It's a pretty complicated bridge, a lot going on with it. But I really just want to capture— I'm just practicing. I want to capture the overall form of it right now. You have some nice angled supports kind of happening here. You have these light fixtures here. Kind of at one end of the bridge. This part of the bridge I sketched here actually spans over a highway and also the water. So the highway is kind of somewhere. This is definitely not to the right proportions, but again, I'm just trying to capture the feel of what's going on here. It kind of meanders back in there. And then we have, um, highway's kind of on this side over here.

You have a railing across here.

The bridge continues off to the right, back this way.

Cool.

All right, let's bleed some ink on that. Hey, Jason! Jason's playing chess. That's awesome! Play chess at the same time and sketching and watching you. That is some serious talent right there. Chess playing, sketching, watching. Awesome! Yeah, that is multitasking right there. I am so bad at multitasking. I try to avoid it whenever I can. So we have some vertical struts, we have some vertical pieces here, diagonals happening on this side as well.

Boom.

Cool. Alright, let's bleed some ink on this. Heather K says, "Sounds delicious." Yeah, it was. It was really delicious. Actually, I wanna just throw some curved lines on here. This kind of bulkhead here curves a little bit. So when I went to college at the University of Miami, I had— it was like a whole new world opened up to me as far as just learning about different cultures. You know, it's pretty, pretty isolated where I lived growing up, which is fine. I had a really nice place, but University of Miami is an international university. I have— I had friends there from all over the world, from Malaysia, Korea, Cuba, Barbados. Um, jeez. I mean, the list goes on and on. And it was just so cool to experience different cultures and different foods and customs and traditions. I have to say, I think that was probably more educational than architecture school. I mean, I learned a lot in architecture school, but it was just amazing to learn about these different traditions. And that's where I developed an appreciation for different types of foods. And I'd go to my friends' homes or their apartments and, you know, they'd be making these delicious meals and I loved— I had a Cuban friend, we'd go to her house a lot and amazing, just amazing food. I really fell in love with Cuban food. Cuban food at school. That's where I was first introduced to black beans and rice. Right? Cool. So we got these towers. There's a lot of really detailed ironwork on here. I'm just kind of sketching just some diagonal lines just to indicate there's stuff going on. I think this is looking pretty good. Let's bleed a little bit of ink on here. So I have my Lamy pen, so I'm gonna just trace— not trace, that's the wrong word, because when you say trace, it implies you're directly copying over, but I'm using the lines I have here as a guide. Just to throw some black Lamy down so I can bleed it. Reason I start with a Sharpie is I don't want to bleed all this ink. If I bleed all of it, it's going to be too— oops, I just dropped my lid. It's going to be too mucky looking. So I like to start with the Lamy, I mean the Sharpie, and then come back with the Lamy. So it's going to get a brush here with just throwing some water on it. Let's just bleed some of the ink I threw down here. Cool. And I think I threw some here, just trying to create some shadows. It's kind of highlighting the outline of the bridge a little bit in certain places. Let's throw some down here. So this looks like it's in shadow. Yeah, this perspective definitely needed some work down here. That's okay. We're just playing around, laying it out. And I'm just trying to get the feel of this bridge. I'm going to bleed some of that Lammy across here to show this is kind of in shadow under the bridge. Here we go. Pretty cool. Jason says, I'll be back. I'll be back. That's so cool. I'm glad you'll be back. So it's 8:01. I'm probably only going to be on until 8:15 the latest. Again, I just wanted to pop on quick, say hello. Doing my Daily Bridge sketch live tonight. Let's just bleed some of this here as well. I'm gonna throw down a little bit more Lammy. We'll bleed that a little bit darker, and I want to kind of shadow this— these here as well.

Cool.

This is water on this side here. There's a shoreline back here in the distance, come somewhere across here. We'll bleed that a little bit. I'm really just touching my wet brush down to the ink. Not, not painting with it, just dabbing it here. All right, now I'm just moving around a little bit.

Cool.

Bleed some of this here so you get kind of the idea of a reflection maybe happening. A little too wet, I think, to throw down some more Lammy, so I have to wait for that to dry. You can see it's just a quick perspective going there. You know, let's just kind of show the edges, uh, edge of a curb here, so we'll just bleed some ink. There we go.

Boom.

How long have I been painting? Let's see. Sketching this. Where is it? About 18 minutes. So probably about 15 minutes worth of sketch time here. So I want these to be quick and loose. We'll probably wrap it up. For now, I do want to show Let's see, just lightly show some lines on here. There's some block work happening. Uh, let's take— where's my Pilot pen? Let's take a Pilot Precise and we'll just kind of lightly or quickly just get some block work on there. The reason I took my Pilot pen is it writes, writes okay on damp areas, where a Sharpie will not do that. So I'm just trying to keep this moving along. Let's show there's some structure along here. There's a— let's kind of pull this edge out a little bit here. Let's just show some of the rivets on here. Again, my sketches are kind of— they're loose and quick. They're not meant to be photographic realistic. It's just an impression of what I'm seeing and what I want to capture with what I'm seeing. So I definitely did not count the number of rivets I just showed. There's a lot more structural things happening underneath this bridge that I didn't sketch. So a lot of this is just kind of an artistic subtraction, just simplifying what I'm seeing. And that's what makes this fun for me. Some people are like, oh, it doesn't look like the real thing, and that's okay. I don't want it to. Um, that's why I take photographs. Or use photographs, right? This is just an interpretation of how I'm kind of seeing things. Yeah, this is cool. I like the way it's kind of— it's drying here. Hey, Kim. Kim says, good evening, I could stay for a short while. Guess what, Kim, me too. I'm out of here at 8:15, 9 more minutes. This is just a quick pop-on session, so I'm glad you popped on. Great to see you, hope you're having a great day. Um, by the way guys, thank you. I've been getting some really nice comments and feedback on these bridge sketches, which I really appreciate. So thank you for your kind words. And, and your feedback. I always, um, it's always nice to see that putting something positive out there and you guys are getting something out of it, which is awesome. There's a really cool building back in here, like a dome.

Shape.

Let's see, do I want to even try to sketch it? Maybe, maybe very faintly. We'll just throw it in the background here. Kind of, we're going to kind of ghost it in here. So when I say ghost, I'm just kind of really lightly going to outline it. And I don't want to to be the main feature of what we're sketching. I'm just gonna just indicate that there's something happening back in here. Yeah, that's all I want to show of that. Let's see, I'm going to show— just going to hatch in some vertical lines here just to indicate shadowy edge down here. I could bleed ink, which I did. I bled a little bit. Let me zoom in, but I'm actually just doing these vertical hatch lines to help indicate the idea of some shadow. I like to do hatch lines because it keeps the skip— my sketches looking loose, and it has a kind of that effect I'm looking for. There's actually some diagonal supports I think I'm gonna just sketch on here lightly, down here. That's cool, that's good enough. Let's see, there is a guardrail across here. We'll show that across the bridge. Cool. I like the way this bridge is looking. Kim says, uh, your bridges are amazing always. Oh, thank you, Kim. That is That's nice of you to say. I appreciate that. I do appreciate your kind words. I'm so, I'm so lucky to be here with you guys who are also amazing creatives, and I love your paintings and sketches that you guys share. So thank you for sharing your work. Good stuff, Kim. I'm picturing a barn that you had sketched. I don't remember. I think you sketched it maybe— maybe it was November, if I'm correct. And it was a really cool looking barn. Yeah, I'm liking this bridge, guys. Let me zoom out a little bit. There you go. That's looking kind of cool. Uh, perspective's a little off, proportions are off, but that's okay. This is actually supposed to be like a 3-lane highway across here. I won't tell if you don't tell. Um, I think I was able to just kind of capture the, the feel of what I was looking for here. Probably should have shrunk it down. So remember, I like to do this. I always like to have two takeaways. One is a self-critique takeaway and one is, uh, something I really like takeaway. So my self-critique with this is, uh, the, the proportions are a little off. It's okay. I like wonky, but the bridge should have been stretched longer. I should have had it stretched longer left to right. So that's my self-critique. I would stretch it out next time, which is fine because it will give me— it'll just have the proportions, the slenderness. This is a very slender and elegant bridge, and mine's kind of chunky, like me. It's a chunky version of me. I am chunky. This bridge should be slender and elegant. So that's my self-critique takeaway. My positive takeaway What do I like? What do I like about this? So let me look for a second. I'm actually— a couple of things. I'm liking the ink bleeding happening, especially along this edge. Zoom in. So I'm really liking the ink bleeding here and the hard edge. It's drying really nicely. The other thing I actually like is I'm kind of, I'm kind of liking those little sketchy light post fixture here on the left. So those are my two things I really like about this one. This kind of sketchy lamppost and then the ink here. Heather says, "Great bridge." Thank you, Heather, I appreciate it. Kim says, "Haha, yes. Really love the dimension you obtained with minimal lines." Oh, thanks, I appreciate that. Yeah, so my keyword for 2023 is right here. This is, this is what I'm trying to do in 2023. This is my guiding word. Can you see that? Simplify. So I don't make New Year's resolutions. I use a word or a couple keywords. Simplify is one keyword. The other word I have kind of goes with simplifying is, um, systematize— I don't like that word, it's boring. Kind of like autopilot. I want some of my things and things I do every day, everyday tasks, somehow to be automated. That's a good word too, automated. And that would help simplify things for me as well. So even with my sketching, I want to try to simplify things if I can. So, Kim, I'm glad you said that. Minimal lines, cool. Jason Nicholas, I like the ink bleed as well and the hard edge. I'm also liking the dark bleed on the left. The sketch light is cool. Need a darker mood and turn the light on. Darker mood and turn— so thank you, Jason Nicholas. Yeah, over here, over here as well. Yeah, it'd be kind of cool, set like a darker atmosphere, like almost a night scene. Scene, right? Darker, maybe get the lights kind of popping on. That'd be cool for a future sketch to kind of create, um, that kind of atmosphere. So I love that. Thank you for sharing. All right guys, it is 8:15. I'm gonna wrap, I think. I think we're going to call this one done. Thank you guys so much. I'm going to wrap. It's 8:15. Just wanted to come on here quick, do a bridge sketch. We've been on for almost half an hour. So again, this is the Liberty Bridge in Budapest, crossing over the Danube River, which is right here. I'll be revisiting this bridge. I'm gonna keep sketching bridges this year. I'm gonna keep doing one a day. I'm on— this is— gosh, this is actually Bridge Sketch 33, 34. I think this is Bridge Sketch 34, and I've been sketching every bridge every day since, gosh, I guess the beginning of December or end of November. So I'm gonna keep sketching them, just quick, quick bridge sketches. Something I want to practice. And I'll be sketching other things as well. So, yeah, thanks guys so much. I appreciate y'all. Enjoy the rest of your Monday. Have an amazing Tuesday. I'm trying to find the right cap. This doesn't work. That is not the cap. And I will be in school tomorrow, so wish me luck getting up in the morning, because I've been sleeping in. Alright, you guys are awesome. Thank you so much. Take care. Have a great, great night. I appreciate you. Peace and live creatively. See you guys soon.

Good night.

Where's that finish button? It's right here.