The Inkspired Life - Sketching & Painting : Inking Out Loud

Hey Jason! Hey Jennifer! Good to see you guys. Hope you're doing well today. Happy Saturday! Just popping on very, very briefly. I started a sketch this morning. I just wanted to pop on just for about 10, 15 minutes and just do some finishing touches. I'm kind of just adding some hatching to indicate some shadow lines on here. Anyway, hope you're having a great day. Jason says, "I'm driving back and watching you. I'm on your bread route." Jason, that's awesome. Be safe while you're driving. Be safe while you're driving, man. You can always catch the replay, it'll be up. Safety first. But I'm honored that you're watching. Thank you. Cool. So this is the Ponte di Rialto in Venice. Ponte di Rialto Bridge. I'm gonna wash a little bit of, um, I'll just add some darker areas on here. Jennifer, I hope you're doing well. Hope you're feeling better. Hey, Chip's in the house! Chip, good to see you. Good to be here, Chip. I also hope you're feeling better as well. Me zoom in on this, you can see closer what I'm doing. So I'm just using my Sharpie to come in and add some hatching lines to indicate some depth, some shadow. And I'm gonna wash— I don't know if I'm gonna use— I think I'm gonna use a graphite stick just to darken up some areas. I don't know if I could bleed some Lamy ink. I think it's gonna be too dark. So I'm going to just use some graphite and darken some spots up. Uh, this roof does— I believe this roof curves here. There's a curve. There's a curve this way. I think it curves this way. We have some curvy lines going on this roof here. So nice to see some of you guys popping on, especially when I'm on at such a random time. I'm sketching and then I'm taking a walk. I gotta get some steps in. Jason says, I sent you a message showing the Brooklyn Bridge. Ooh, and the Chain Bridge. Do research, both bridges, two different designers, both built suspension bridges. Hey Jennifer! Oh my gosh, that's awesome! Great news, the cancer in me has not spread. Guys, give some love and, uh, shout out some prayers to Jennifer. That is awesome. Oh, I'm so glad to hear that. That, dude, no matter what I'm gonna do in the next minute or here, cannot top That's just amazing. Wow, Jennifer, you just, you made my day. That's incredible. I'm so glad to hear that. Prayers and positivity your way, continued. Uh, only wish you want, wish you to continue. I don't know what I'm trying to say. Just keep on a positive path with your health. Yeah, that's amazing. Wow, so cool. Actually, I am going to bleed some Lamy ink. I changed my mind here, especially under this bridge. I want it darker, so I'm just going to take my Lamy, kind of run it under this edge, and then we'll bleed some of it. And then Jason Nicholas Nicholas, thank you for sending the information about the bridges. I totally appreciate that. Um, I think actually I did take a quick look. I don't know if I commented back to you, but I did appreciate you sharing that with me, so thank you so much. Very cool. There we go. I feel like I needed some Lamy ink. I really want this bridge underneath here to be darker. I like using the graphite stick, but it would just— it dried to a kind of a light gray under here. I want a little more drama. There we go. Cool. Thank you. I can beat this disease. Yes, you can, Jennifer. You can definitely beat it. You, you've got this. You have got it. You've got it. I think you have the right attitude, you know. Um, keep it up. That is just so, so, so inspiring. So thank you for inspiring me today. I appreciate you so much. That is awesome. Good stuff. Wow, that's what's so fun about coming on and sketching, just to hear, you know, just to be here and hear that kind of news is awesome. I'm just going to darken the top of this area of the bridge a little bit more. I'll pull this piece out. I'm intentionally leaving this background blank. There's a building back here. I'm going to leave it just the way you see it. I like that it's blank. I don't want to draw attention to it. I really want the bridge to pop out. Um, it's cool to show buildings, maybe the silhouettes, the outline, just to give some context to where the bridge is. So silhouetting it without inking it and detailing it is just a cool way to pop out some of that detail on the area you're focusing on. I'm going to take some of that Lamy ink we had thrown down here, and I'm just going to paint with it, darken some areas with it here. I'm not really painting with it, I'm kind of— I like to think of sketching. I'm just kind of sketching with the ink. Whenever I say the word painting, I'm— I always just imagine, you know, like fine art painting, and this is really— I call this sketch painting. I'm going to bleed some ink under here to kind of get a little overhang to that part of the bridge. This one's looking pretty good to me. I don't know how much more I'm going to do. I'm going to do something with the water, I think, down here. Jennifer says, hopefully you'll have a surprise in your mail today. Ooh, Jennifer, that would be so cool. Wow. I have to say, the mail actually just did come about maybe an hour ago. I haven't gotten it yet though. Thank you, Jennifer. That, that's so kind of you to think of me and to put something in the mail. Never, never— it's never ever necessary, but, but it's always— it's very much appreciated. So cool. Thank you for thinking of me. I appreciate you guys. Alright, now I pulled the graphite stick out. I kind of want to use that to add some shading in places. I want to gruff, gruff this up a little bit, add a little texture with the graphite. I'll zoom in even closer. You guys can kind of see how I'm kind of roughing this up a little bit. Not gonna get too cray cray with it. I love graphite sticks for adding just texture to to the sketches. I want this a little darker. This is an open area underneath the roof here. And let's see, I want to create more reflection on the water. So to do that, um, take my lambie. The bridge actually continues. Notice the bridge, I kind of let it stop here. I didn't continue the arch. The bridge continues off to the right. I like doing these interesting angles and perspectives that leave parts of the bridges unfinished. Let your imagination kind of play in or take over and just imagine what's happening on the right-hand side. Especially when you're trying to re— when I'm trying to recreate iconic buildings or structures, I like to leave a lot of it kind of blank and open for interpretation. That way you guys know I'm not trying to be— create an accurate reconstruction or redrawing of something, of an iconic building. It's kind of my take, my feeling, my style on the iconic building. I hope that makes sense. You could all look at photographs to see the exact details if you wanted to. That's why we have Google. Google is, uh, pretty amazing. Uh, there are some windows in here. I'm gonna bleed some ink in here. I'm just using my Aqua Brush for right now. Just want to pull those areas out just to indicate there's some windows happening. Just give a little shadow. There's a little depth in these arches. There's actually doorways and windows in these arch— archways here. And oh yeah, I was gonna do the water. I totally forgot. Womp, womp, womp. Just gonna throw down some Lamy ink and we'll just bleed it, get some water happening. I think we're almost done with this. I made a goal to be done out of here by 2:30 to take a walk. So I kind of just put some time pressure on this, on myself. I wanna bleed a little bit of ink up here as well. There we go, that's cool. And I wanna darken this backside of this bridge here. Just so you can see the arch a little bit better. So I'm just going to put my Lamy on top of that and pull that out. Let's do this. Let's pile that up. Let's pull this down. Actually, you know, we're going to blot some of that out. Blot paper towels. All right. Yeah, I don't like what happened right here, so I'm just gonna pull that back a little bit. Just by blotting it. There we go. Much better. Cool. Sorry guys, sometimes I sketch and the paper goes crooked 'cause I'm, I'm always angling it. I rarely sketch with the paper perfectly horizontal. It's usually at an angle when I'm sketching. Maybe it's 'cause the way, just the way my left hand is and the position I like. So you guys are often looking at me sketching crooked. I could compensate by moving the camera like this, couldn't I? There we go. But I think it's actually cool you guys see that I am sketching crooked. Just how I do it. Bum bum. Alright, let's see. And one other thing I'd like to do with reflections, if this is dry enough. Just take my Sharpie and really lightly— may not be good— just really lightly pull straight lines down. I'll show you how I did this yesterday on an interior sketch I did. Just helps to create the idea of reflections being pulled down into the water here. It helps. I feel like it helps. These vertical lines help to connect the base of the structure to the water so it doesn't look like it's floating. Kind of anchors it down a little bit. Gotta be careful. I don't get too nuts with it. Same thing over here. There's a little kind of shadowy area, some people hanging out. Pull that down a little bit. I'm actually going to hatch these arches in a little bit here too. They're in shadow, but I feel like this would be just a nice little— just like a nice little way to pull them out without pulling them out. I kind of like that. I think this is— guys, I think this one might be a wrap. "As the man says," as he adds some more— add some more hatching lines here. Just really lightly dragging my Sharpie down. I like to drag it lightly because the texture of the paper is picked up. It helps the lines look sketchy and loose. There's a little light fixture kind of hanging out here, comes off this column. Just kind of pull that out a little bit. I think this one's a wrap. I'm kind of liking it. So again, this is the, uh, Ponte di Rialto in Venice. I don't know if my— let's try that again. It's the Ponte di Rialto. I'm half Italian, not the half that speaks it. No, I don't know. And but I am half, half Italian, definitely the half that eats it. That's why I'm going for a walk. Um, hey, Linda's in the house! Linda, good afternoon, hope you're doing well. Linda, it's great to see you. I know, uh, Linda, you had an interesting question you were asking earlier today on, um, our favorite guru, Roo, on his, uh, stream. And you were trying to figure out— you don't know what to sketch or what subject to sketch, so you're kind of doing a lot of everything, which I think is awesome. Explore, right? Use this time to explore. Um, I love your most recent post that I saw with the buildings and the trees. I think that was awesome. I love your trees. Keep going forward. I love your little ocean vignettes that you do. They're so awesome as well. Just keep exploring and we'll see— sketch what excites you the most. Like, I'm really, really, really excited about these bridges and I keep doing them. Architecture, right? I know you love gardening and flowers, so, you know, maybe revisit some flower sketches. I guess if I had to give any words of wisdom, it would be sketch stuff that you have fun doing. Otherwise, what's the point of doing it, right? But I feel like you're the type of person, no matter what you put your mind to, it's going to come out awesome. Good stuff. Jennifer says, "I struggle being left-handed with drawing and painting." Hey Jennifer, I get that. Let me zoom out. Let me see my left hand here in action. Yeah, I get it. Especially the smudging and smearing. That's why I always say it's not art unless we wear it. I say that because I always end up with smudging and ink and stuff on my left hand. Um, so I get it, and I struggle being left-handed with bindings of sketchbooks on the left-hand side, which annoys me sometimes. I guess we could always make them— flip it over and do sketches this way. So I totally get the whole left-handed thing. I love it. I've learned to embrace it. Linda says your brain is eclectic right now. Thank you. Maybe I need to pull the mule by the ears. Hey Chip, have a great day. Take care. We'll see you soon. Be well, Chip. It's always fun having you in here. Linda's gonna pull the mule by the ears. Hmm. That poor mule. Actually, I do want to add some shadow lines down here. I just noticed. Some hatching lines. Yeah, Linda, eclectic, it could be awesome. Eclectic is, for me, another word is just being adventurous, being curious. Yeah, so keep putting different things out there and something or some things will start to resonate for sure. And sometimes it's good to mix it up, change up your repertoire, as they say. It stimulates your imagination and your creativity in different ways. Alright guys, I think this one's done. I'm liking it. I didn't sign it yet. Just sign it over here. And I've been putting the year as well, 2023. And sometimes on my sketches, you might notice I'll have like a 1.0, 2.0, 3.0. That just lets me know that this is the first time I sketch this bridge. So this is, uh, I keep looking up the name. Ponte di Rialto numero uno. How do you say one in Italian? Uno? I know in Spanish it's uno. Anyway, this is version 1.0 of this bridge. Actually, and I actually did sketch some figures on here just to give a sense of scale. You can see some people hanging out on the bridge here. I thought it'd be fun to include them on this one. And there are even tinier people kind of down in this end here. Can't really tell they're people. These, I think you could tell, are people. Um, Linda says, what sketchbook are you using right now? Linda, great question. I'll show you. I'm actually loving this sketchbook. This is the second one. I just finished one up yesterday. I started a new one yesterday. It's this right here. I actually, I left the paper on this time. So it's a Strathmore Visual Journal, 140-pound watercolor, cold press, 22 sheets or 44 pages if you're using both sides, 5.5 by 8 inches. Uh, I'm loving this little sketchbook. Here's what it looks like. If you take this little cover off. It has a nice hard cover on it, which I like. It's thick cardboard. I might actually try laser engraving this at school. Monday. Um, maybe I'll try laser engraving the Inspired Life, or I'll come up with a design or something for the COVID Anyway, got off topic. It has a nice hard cover on the front and the back. Which is one thing I really like about it. I actually bought this one day. I was looking for my Canson XL watercolor book paper. They didn't have it one day when I went to Michaels, so I ended up buying this book. Maybe it could have been online too. I don't remember if it was in the store or online. I ended up buying this, and I really, really like the paper and the texture. Of this. And my phone's ringing. Sorry guys, my phone's ringing. That is interesting. Here's a sketch I did yesterday we'll take a look at. Oh, it's just a text letting me know that my payment went through for paying a bill. Always nice to know. Here we go, so here's the sketch I did yesterday. This is pedestrian walkway bridge in Grand Central Terminal in New York City. And you can see I did the similar, similar technique here with the floor. And just, this is a, you know, highly polished floor in here, but I wanted to create the idea of reflection. So I did the same thing, just kind of pulling down some vertical lines there. And again, we have some people here for scale. This person did not really come out so well. So we'll pretend that person is not a person. It's— we'll do something else with it. Anyway, but I like this sketch. It's quick, it's loose. Let me see if you can see the texture. I hold it up, you can see there is a little bit of texture on here. So it's not rough, rough. It's not smooth, smooth. It has a nice little bite to it. It's really awesome for a sketch. I know I keep going on about it. Sorry, I'm talking like a— I could talk for an hour about this. So to answer your question briefly, that was— that's what it is. Not so briefly, I guess. Cool. I'm liking it. Here's my other one I used. This is the one I started off sketching with and I haven't given up on them yet, the XLs. But I have to say I'm liking the texture of the Strathmore a little bit better than the Canson. And the paper, it's the same weight. Same weight. Very cool. All right, so here we are. Thank you guys for watching. Jennifer says, "Nice sketch." Hey, thanks, Jennifer. "Um, what are those people talking about on the bridge?" Yeah, what are they talking about? See them up there? They're kind of looking out. So on my bucket list is a trip to Venice. I just want to spend, I don't even know how long, a week in Venice, taking it in, sketching like crazy, photographing, getting inspo. Hey guys! Hey, Jenny— uh, Jeannie, good to see you! Love the sketch. Thank you, Jeannie, I appreciate that so much. Thanks for popping on. You guys are awesome. So here's the— before I wrap up, one question that pops into my head before I go for my walk is— it's a question that pops up often. I'm loving the black and white sketches. Do I add color for the water? It's a big question. My gut is saying to leave it black and white, so I'm going to leave this black and white for now. Where's the example I did? Where's that sketchbook? Here it is. So here, this is the sketchbook I just finished up. Hey, gotta love the Ring doorbell. Maybe we got a delivery of something cool. I don't know. Um, where's my— maybe it's not in here. Yeah, here we go. So here's the sketch, um, the Liberty Bridge. No, this is not— this is the, um, Village Causeway at Disney Springs. My bad. But here I decided to put some blue on here for the water. Which I still think it came out pretty nice, actually. But this one I'm not sure. I think I'm going to leave it black and white for now. Jennifer says resketch with color and compare. Hey, our Linda said that. I can't read. Linda, that's a great idea. I will definitely be resketching it, this bridge. So I think that's what we'll do. We'll do another version and we'll add some color. Great, great suggestion. Cool, cool. And this was my— where's the other sketch? I just want to show you one more sketch and then I'm heading out. Uh, here we are. So this was my first sketch I did of a bridge in Venice. Again, I didn't color the water. I just kind of left it. With some shading on it. There you go, guys. So that's what I have in Venice so far. It's a couple of bridges. I hope you enjoyed this. Thank you guys for tuning in at such a random time. That is beautiful. Ah, thank you so much. I'm glad you like it. Yeah, thank you so much, guys. You'll be seeing in my Etsy store— I do have an Etsy store. I had one years ago. I forgot about it. I shut it down years ago. I just reopened it. I'm adding these little bridge sketches in there. So original bridge sketches will be available for anybody that's interested in purchasing them. You'll most likely— I love this one. I'm not ready to part with this one yet. I will. I will. Actually, I love them both. But you may see these in the shop. Thank you guys so much for watching. Linda says, well, The both are. Thank you so much. I'm glad you enjoyed both of them. Um, Jeannie, it was nice to see you popping on. I appreciate you. Linda, it's funny you popped on. I was almost going to ask, um, the Inklings if they wanted to do a live Zoom tonight and do some artwork, but I didn't do that. Um, kind of like a little reunion from our class last year. Um, but but I didn't do that. Darn me. And it's late in the day now. But I was thinking about you guys earlier today. D-Ray, hey D-Ray, good to see you. D-Ray, it's always great to see you. Thanks, I hope you're not buried in snow out there. Yes, we can, yeah, we can do a Zoom very soon. Why don't we block one out for next Saturday? Next Saturday. Maybe next Saturday night we can do a Zoom. How would that work for you? And anybody else listening, if you're interested, let me know, send me a message. You can see what it's like when we have our Inkling Zooms and workshops in the past, but this time we'll just be having fun and kind of hanging. Um, dear, I could see you, you're late. No, we can never be late when I don't tell you when I'm gonna be on. You're not late. But I am, I am actually headed out though, but I'm so glad you were able to pop in. Uh, Jennifer, thank you for sharing your great news. Guys, if— please make sure you give Jennifer just some hearts and/or positive thoughts and prayers. Jennifer has some nice, uh, great news to share earlier about her cancer not spreading. So guys, that alone, that news alone was worth tuning in for. So thank you for that, Jennifer. Chip, it was always great, always good to see you in the house. And Jason was in here while he was on his bread route, so Jason, thanks for tuning in, man. And I will definitely re-look at your— what you sent me about the Brooklyn Bridge. I appreciate it. If I missed anybody, I'm sorry. Hopefully got everybody. Take care, guys. I might be sketching later tonight around 10 PM Eastern. We'll see. The rest of the day goes. Take care, guys. Remember just to keep seeing your world with a childlike sense of wonder and curiosity. Um, that's kind of what I try to do to keep my creative soul nourished. So peace, guys, and live creatively. I'll see you soon. Have a great, great day.