The Inkspired Life - Sketching & Painting : Inking Out Loud
In this live‑stream, artist Jason Nicholas guides viewers through an informal, improvisational sketching session focused on a loosely interpreted Golden Gate Bridge. He experiments with a sepia‑toned graphite lead holder, water‑soluble graphite, and red‑oxide acrylic ink applied with a Pilot Precise pen, demonstrating techniques such as hatching, bleeding, and layering. Throughout the stream he engages with chat participants (Kathy, Chip, Dawn, Don, etc.), shares personal anecdotes, offers real‑time critiques of his work, and discusses workflow tools like refillable pens, built‑in pencil sharpeners, and framing ideas. Jason emphasizes a two‑takeaway learning model—one positive self‑praise and one constructive critique—while also reflecting on his creative process, the importance of community feedback, and his social‑media growth goals. The session concludes with a “Whistling Cowboy” sketch set to a holiday playlist, wrapping up with thanks to the audience and a promise to return.
Chapters
Hey there. If you're watching, hope you're having an awesome Friday night. I'm popping on really quickly here just to do my abridged sketch. I'm playing around with volumes here. I can't hear my music. Oh, there we go. Got it. Hope you guys are having a great night. Welcome to the Inkspired Life. Although I am not using ink tonight. I'm using this really cool graphite, um, it's like a sepia graphite in this really cool lead holder. So I'm trying to be really quick, fast, loose. You can see I did a sketch last night, kind of my first take on the Golden Gate Bridge. I'm just playing around right now, just, just trying to create expressive lines, having fun. And actually, it's water soluble, so I'm gonna add some water and we'll see what happens. Anyway, if you're watching, feel free to say hello in the chat. I'd like to know who's watching and say hi. Uh, there we go. Hey, Kathy's on. Kathy from Arizona, good to see you. Hope all's well in Arizona today. What is the weather like? We had some snow here yesterday, not too much. Today we had a little bit of rain and snow, kind of a slushy mix going on. I hope you're doing well. Cool. So, uh, yeah, I just wanted to play with graphite tonight instead of using ink. I like to change things up a little bit. Um, I've had this lead holder for a long, long time. One of the cool things about it— let me show you. I need a little container. Actually, I'll use this. It has a pencil sharpener built in, which is cool. If you unscrew this, the lid is actually a pencil sharpener. So I can do this, get a nice point on it. And I always love pens or pencils that are refillable, so you can buy leads for these. There you go. So let's just play around this for a few minutes and see what happens. Hey, Chips in the house! Chip, good to see you. Hope all's well with you. All right, Chip, I'm so glad you're feeling better. Awesome, awesome news. That is awesome news. I think I said awesome 4 times within 10 seconds. It happens to be probably my most commonly used word. But Chip, that is great news. So cool. Well, uh, maybe we'll catch up definitely, um, either before or after the holidays. I'm so glad you're feeling better. Kathy says, actually cool, doing well. Who's Cool in Arizona. Love that. So cool. So I like some snow here and there. I do get tired of shoveling it after a while, but, um, I have to give a shout out, and they're not watching, but I'll give a shout out anyway. Um, I was sitting there eating dinner last night and planning on going outside to shovel, and my neighbors did my driveway and sidewalk for me. I am so blessed to live in a really nice neighborhood, um, really, really good, and we all kind of look after each other. So what a nice surprise that was. So I'm, I'm just dipping my brush and I have some dirty water here. It's just kind of dissolving this graphite. And I, I call this sketch painting. I'm kind of sketching and painting at the same time. I'm sure there's another more technical term, but I don't like to get wrapped up in the technical words when creating artwork. I didn't study it, so I just do it. I'm just doing it. Cool, cool. There we go. I like the way this is looking. This will actually dry pretty nicely. Do I want to add— let's see, there's— I don't want to add the, uh, kind of the hills back here. It'll give it a light wash. Cool. All right, so that's a real quick sketch. Uh, so this is, I think, bridge number— I have to number these. So I've been inspired by our friend Roo, who is on his 2000B painting kick. I love that, and I'm just trying to be consistent. I'm doing bridges. I think this is number 15, maybe. I think this was 14 last night. I think this is 15. I'm really bad at numbering and dating things, but we'll let this, uh, I'll put this aside and we'll break something else out. We'll do another sketch. I'll zoom in, actually, you can see a little bit closer before I do that. Hey, Dawn's in the house! Dawn, hope you're doing well. Don says happy Friday, Inklings. Let's see which camera— where am I looking? I think— is it this one? This one? No, it's that one. Cool. Happy, happy Friday to you, Don. It's always great to see you. I kind of want to do another sketch of this, but I want to use— if I can find— I have some red. Actually, maybe I'll break out a red Pilot Pro precise. I also wanted to do Red Oxide acrylic ink, if I can find it. I have it over here. Let's see, it's— no, no, I'm looking in my— I have so many inks over here, I'm trying to find the one I want. Red Oxide, where are you hiding? Where are you hiding? Let's see. Oh, I found it, I found it. Like right here. Yeah. So this is acrylic ink. Um, this is red oxide. I love this color. So let's do another sketch of the bridge, but we'll do it with red oxide paint. Uh, acrylic ink, sorry. I'm gonna I'm going to get different paper. Let's see, let's put this one dry. Actually, I'm going to keep this one here as a reference. I'll move this. Cool. All right, got a blank piece of paper. I'm just kind of looking at what I just did as a real quick reference. Again, I'm not trying to create anything realistic or lifelike, just getting a feeling, trying to capture bridges and their structure. Hmm, debating how I want to do this. Let's see. All right, let's, um, you know, I'm going to sketch it with the red Pilot pen and then I'll brush some Red Oxide on. Let's see what happens. You guys are enjoying the holiday music I have playing? Let's see. Again, I want to keep this quick. I've been practicing trying to be looser with my sketching, so I've been holding my pens really far. I used to— I I used to start down here, you, from, uh, which is kind of tight, so I've been kind of trying to hold it up higher just to get looser strokes on it.
Reminds me of something wrong. Send me lights and angels, help me through the changes, and I'll be waiting on Christmas night.
I'm really exaggerating this kind of bend here, trying to create the idea of depth, maybe see how that works out. All right, let's sketch some structure here. This is very loosely based on the Golden Gate Bridge. Very loosely based on it. The Golden Gate Bridge actually kind of steps out, comes down, it kind of steps out a little bit more. There's probably gonna be another one up here. It's gonna step out, kind of step out. I'm trying to make this look kind of in the distance back here. So I'm going to put these lines closer together just so it fades off in the distance a little bit. And we have the cables. We have a cable kind of here, cable there. Cool. I'm going to actually bleed this with some water. And we'll just create a water line or shoreline back here, maybe. All right, cool. Uh, let's bleed this with some water and see what happens. This, I kind of want it to appear— let's move this out of the way, um, almost kind of in a haze back here.
On miracles tonight. Cuz don't you know it's Christmas? Don't you know it's Christmas? That's why I'm waiting on miracles tonight.
That's why I'm Let's see, let's add some water here, some more water. Let's add some here. Cool. Alright, so that was all done with just a Pilot Precise V7. I love using this for anything I want to do in red, like an ink wash with red. I love the color this, um, turns out to be. Cool. All right, I like that. I like the way that looks. That's really quick and loose. It almost has a hazy kind of quality happening, you know, maybe there's fog rising up from the bay. All right, let's see. I think I'm gonna— I like that it's all red. I don't know if I want to use— you know, I'm gonna do it. We'll throw some iron oxide on here and see what it looks like. Hope you guys are doing well out there in chat. Chatland. I have my glasses on, trying to look smarter tonight as I'm creating, going for the professor look. Now let's see, I'm just looking on my computer. I'm looking to see— I want to check, I'm trying to check see if it's broadcasting to YouTube also. It should be streaming to YouTube and Facebook. All right, cool. All right, let's put some of this Oxide color on here and just have fun, because that is what it's about. I'm actually going to put some of this paint in this lid here. Like, I keep saying paint, it's actually ink. Very cool. I'm gonna do this up. Hope you guys can see that. All right, all right, cool. Let's just throw some of this on here. That's cool. I like the combination of the Red oxide with the red ink. And I have to sketch, um, cables. I didn't show any cables on here yet, so let's do some cables coming down. Yeah, I like the way the looseness is looking in here. It's looking pretty good. I just want to take a— sometimes I like to take pictures. As I'm working on these, let me take a quick snapshot. I should have taken one before I put the iron oxide on, but that's okay. Boom. Just like to capture what we have going. Alright, cool. So I think I like this one. I'm gonna let it dry. Don't really want to do too much, or do I? I want to do Mm, just take some dirty paint water, throw some in here. All right, so let's see how these are looking. These are two quick sketches I did tonight. Zoom out. Boom, there we go, you can see them. I really like the way the red is popping on here. I think it's a really fun color. And I actually, I kind of like the very— this looks, um, so I kind of know what the word is. I like, I like the really quick lines on here. Not texture, I can't think of the word, but there's a quality about this I like. It has more of an old-time kind of feel to it. Maybe because of the sepia color. I didn't draw cables on here yet, so let's draw some cables coming down. And I just want to pull the edge the outline of this structure out a little bit. So I'm going to go back over it with my graphite here, just kind of pull it out, do a little more definition. And I'll pull out these openings a little bit more, just kind of go around the rectangle a little bit. And I think I would do some hatching here just to indicate there's some kind of landmass happening, kind of hills back here. And I'm just doing a diagonal hatch line just to give it some texture. There we go. I think that's coming together. Yes, want to pull this down like there's some kind of reflection happening. Pull that down a little bit. Use our finger, kind of blend it into the paper. Maybe show that there's some water. Some water— watery lines. I want to whistle. This song makes me want to whistle out loud. I'm not a good whistler though. Cool. There you go, we have the second bridge. I mean, the first one, added more to it. Man, I don't know what I'm doing. All right, if you guys have any questions, let me know in the chat. I'm probably gonna wrap up in about 5 minutes. This was just a quick session. I didn't do my bridge sketch today. We actually did 2 today. Do we do 3? No, I think we'll leave it at 2. I'm getting the urge to add blue to this. I don't know why. Ah, I was gonna bleed some blue ink on there, but you know what, let's break out my favorite color pencil. Let's throw some aqua on here. I'm having like tech issues with my AirPods. I think they keep disconnecting. Don't know why. Check it out. All right, I think that's good. I can hear now. Kathy says, added blue to mine. Oh, you did? That's cool, Kathy. Are you sketching along? Let me know. I think it's always awesome if you guys are sketching along with me. I know I'm a little fast and I don't— I'm not kind of breaking it down in steps, but yeah, it's always cool to know what you're doing. So I have my light aqua colored pencil. I love adding colored pencil on top of ink, so we're going to just throw some on here. I'm actually getting a cool kind of gray happening. I don't want to overdo it though.
Let me—
let's see, I'm gonna— let's try this. I'm gonna do this. Yeah, it's looking cool. This is like— is this like '50s, '50s Christmas music? I'm getting like a '50s— I was gonna say Chuck Berry, but I don't know if that makes sense or not. I know it's not. I think he was known for his guitar, right? I like it, whatever it is. Kathy says yes, following. Oh, you're following along? That is so cool. I'd love to see what you're making. Feel free to share it with me. Cool. I have to say the one thing I don't like about this one— so remember last time, I think it was last time I was on, I talked about always having like two takeaways from anything you create, any kind of sketch or painting. One is a positive pat yourself on the back takeaway. And one is, you could kind of self-critique, but think of how you could fix it. So it's like a learning lesson, right? So the thing I'm not liking about this is I don't like this. I don't like what I did for the hill in the background. It's kind of distracting to me. I almost wish I had left it out. So I'm not gonna beat myself up about it. I'm not gonna throw this away and curse myself. It's part of the learning. It's part of the creating. It's part of the playing. So how could I correct this? What could I do to make it better? Do I leave it and walk away? I could do that. But I really like the way this turned out, which was some simple hatching lines for the hills. These diagonal hatching lines. So maybe I'll try something similar on this one. Maybe I just need some texture back in here. Um, and I think— I guess I'll try with the red Precise Pen and see how it looks. So that's kind of my learning lesson takeaway. Let me move that so I don't knock it over. Here's another tip. Something I like to do is I like to take the caps off of my pens. I have a habit of rotating the pen like when I'm sketching, kind of like this, and the pen cap, this, what do you call this thing? You guys, what is this called on a pen? The hook? The latch? The clasp? I'm not sure what it's called. Maybe it's a clasp. Gets in my way, so I just take the cap off and then I can rotate the pen and it's more freeing for me. Now let's do some hatching. I'll try to keep it pretty light. Keeping it light and letting the paper texture come through. I'm— I am liking it better already. It's a little too dark. It's okay though. So I like those lines. It adds a little more interest. It's a little— added some dynamicism. Who are my language arts people? Dynamism. Movement. It has some movement to this back here. It's a little darker than I wanted it. I was— actually, I was going to pull out the red colored pencil here, but I just went with a pen instead. I mean, I could add water and bleed it, but I don't want it to turn into a big red kind of mass back here. Back here because it'll take away from the other red of the bridge. I'm trying to make it look further away. Another thought I had was to add a— maybe some gray, you know, maybe a Tombow art marker, could have thrown some gray back there. Actually, I could still do that. Let's try that. Um, get a light one. I think I have a lighter one here somewhere. This one, maybe. Let's try this one. So I'm just throwing some Tombow, it's a light gray tone here, and I'm hoping that recedes a little bit more in the background. Actually, I could pull this gray and take— create some depth on this as well. Let me try that. Maybe under the bridge. Yeah, now I'm getting too fussy with it. Okay, time to put everything away and back off of this one. I'm getting fussy with it. The fussy meter is now— has gone like all the way past high, so I'm being way too fussy with it. Um, I probably should have stopped and not added the gray, but cool, this was fun. That's fun. Let me know, out of the two, which do you like better, the sepia one or the red one? Be curious to know what you guys think. Let's see, Kathy said clip. Oh yeah, maybe it's called the clip on the pen. You're probably right. You would think I would know. It's probably the clip. Just couldn't think of the word. My memory— part of my brain shuts off at 8 o'clock. Very strange. It's just how it's been like that for a long time. Memory shuts off, but creativity stays on. Chip said, I think that adds depth. Oh, thanks, Chip. Put the pen down. Yes, Kathy, you're right, put the pen down. The top one, no question. Yep, I'm with you guys. I'm with you, Chip. I love this one. This became, this became too fussy. Um, what I do like about it, so I My positive takeaway from this is what? I think my positive takeaway from this is I just love the way this pen bleeds. So it was good practice for me using the red Precise pen and bleeding some ink. You know, actually, I think this— I think this one would look better if I kind of cropped it off If I crop this into a narrow piece— let me get a frame out and show you guys what I'm thinking. I know what I don't like about this that's striking me. Let me get a frame out. I can grab one here. Where are my frames? They are in my— one of my drawers here. Which one, which one? I swear I organized these a few weeks ago. I need to put labels on the drawers so I know what's inside. Where are my frames? Those aren't my frames. That's not my frame. Where are my little frames? Oh boy, getting lost in the magic drawers here. Oh, I found them. I found one. No, what the heck? If you guys could only see all the stuff in here. Where the heck are my frames? I am going cuckoo. Usually I keep my frames right up here. Hey guys, how you doing? Are you enjoying listening to me talking to myself while I'm Looking through this drawer, these drawers, this is a mystery. Well, I know where all my, um, rulers are. I found my rulers in there. Oh, see, they're right on top. Silly me, silly me. All right, here's what I was thinking. Try that one. I think if this was cropped You know, maybe something like this. I like the tower off-center, or it may be more like this. I think this looks a lot better cropping it. This isn't the exact right frame size, but I think you can see what I mean. So I would crop that, and then I would kind of— you wouldn't see anything there. So that would be the sketch. What's bothering me about this— I don't— I'm not caring for this side at all. I was trying to create a— create a— yeah, I was trying to create depth. It didn't really work with this piece, so cutting it off would make it much better. These are all the same. Size frames. So don't be afraid to look for smaller pieces of artwork in your larger pieces of artwork. Framing things is an awesome, awesome thing. Just imagine these frames are cutout frames on paper. This is the first time I ever tried it. I cut really small squares. I have a 2-inch and a 1-inch square, and then I would do this because on my acrylic abstract paintings I used to do a lot of. I always just find little paintings inside of the paintings. So I've learned to take that idea and apply it to my sketching as well. That's much better.
Cool.
All right, let me show you this. Here's, here's the one I did the other night, which I really love the way this dried. So this is the bridge that's based on the sketch I did in class one day last year. Quick 5-minute pencil sketch. Um, I love the way this comes out, and I'm always trying to do different versions of this. So this was my latest take on it right here, and the way this dried, it almost has a hazy quality to it, which is really interesting. And I love the colors of it as well. And then this was back to the original, inspired by the Golden Gate Bridge, my very first ever sketch of the Golden Gate Bridge, which I, I think I still prefer that. I don't know, actually. I think I'm preferring the black and white over this, this one here. This is more proportional to the Golden Gate. This is really not proportional to it. Cool. All right guys, I'm gonna wrap unless you have any final questions. It is 10:57. Um, I'd like to come on. I think I'm gonna come on Saturday night, tomorrow night. I miss coming on live more often. It's just been really crazy at school. Crazy in a good way. Today I had to— today I got to get my face painted green at school to match my shirt, kind of, because I was, um, I am the Grinch in a Christmas video the school is— will be showing at the end of next week. It's just a short little, maybe like 5-minute video. It was fun. So I got to play the Grinch, a reformed Grinch. Solving a mystery. It was cool. Um, I definitely am not going to quit my day job though. Um, Chip says the top one. Yep. Kathy says the sepia one. Yeah. And the black frame looks great on the Red Bridge. Thanks, Chip. I agree with you. So this is, this is definitely salvageable as a sketch if I wanted to sell it. Just by throwing the frame on it, it makes a huge difference. I am totally with you. I wouldn't even mind cropping the top of the bridge out. I don't have to show the whole thing. I could crop it like this, right in the corner maybe. I love the negative space that happens here. This negative space, all the white space, kind of plays off the vertical here, kind of plays off of that. They kind of balance each other. Cool. Um, frames add to it, like the color and the, and the person adds interest. Yeah, this one here, right? Definitely. I did a really cool one, um, that I actually sent to our friend Rue, and so I don't have it here, but I've posted pictures of it. That was a cool one. It had a person on it as well. What time tomorrow, Kathy said? Kathy, good question. I don't know. Um, it probably wouldn't be late. It probably would be late, around 10 o'clock PM. So if I come on, it probably would be late, 10 o'clock PM-ish. Oops, Eastern Time. Thank you for asking, though. I don't like to commit myself because sometimes I'm really exhausted and I just can't. I just don't have the energy to come on. But I will definitely try to come on tomorrow night around 10. I shouldn't say definitely, I will try to come on. So, um, can't be— so thank you for asking. Chip says sending you a bridge picture. Oh cool, thank you Chip! I would love to see it and sketch it. So I know you sent me the one of the George Washington Bridge, which I think I did a sketch of. Is it in here? Chip sent me a picture of the George Washington Bridge. That might be in this one. So thank you, Chip. I always appreciate that. Yeah, I think it was this one, Chip. This was a real, real, real quick sketch also with the lead holder. I was just messing around with that picture you sent. Um, usually my very first sketches of a picture are really fast, quick, just trying to capture the feel of what I'm looking at. So I— so yeah, I appreciate that. So cool. Chip says love that. You're talking about this one? Yeah, I love this too. Uh, okay, hope to catch you. Hey, that's great, Kathy, I would appreciate it. Guys, I want to thank you for sharing. Um, I've been really blessed the past few weeks that you guys are helping, and I don't know why it's working, but I'm not going to question it. But I picked up, I picked up a lot of viewers, a lot of shares out there, a lot of likes. I got a thing from Facebook that I posted earlier about 2,500 likes or something. I'm not normally a numbers guy, but that just reaffirms that you know, what I'm putting out there has some interest and hopefully some, you know, positive benefit. So that's why I'm doing this. I just want to have fun and show you guys that creating stuff is, is fun. So thank you for sharing. Um, I have 975 followers. If I can get to 1,000 on Facebook before the end of the year, that would be so cool. Um, just gives me a little extra motivation. So thank you guys for sharing and liking and chatting here. I appreciate y'all. Cool. All right guys, I'm gonna wrap up tonight. Thank you for watching. Um, I'm actually gonna wrap up the Whistling Cowboy sketch. So if someone wants to give me a number from 1 to 20, I'll pick a random song out and then we'll end up with a quick Whistling Cowboy sketch. It's always a fun way to close out these shows. It was actually fun sketching to some kind of holiday music tonight, a little bit of different playlist. Just want to make sure I get this on camera. One time I did the Whistling Cowboy sketch and it wasn't even on camera. I had the sketchbook like over here and I was sketching. For 2 minutes. 18, we got 18. Chip says night all, good night Chip, great seeing you, hang in there, glad you're feeling better, you're awesome. Um, we will, we will connect sometime very, very soon, you're all feeling better. All right, song 18, let's find it and play a song and we'll do our quick listening cowboy sketch and get out of here. All right, let's see, 18, I just got to count on my list. I have a playlist here. 1, 2, I think 18 was actually the last time with 18 as well, if I remember. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. Uh, this song's called Leave It for Later. Leave it for later. Maybe we'll sketch with our graphite or our red. We'll see. All right guys, thank you so much. Have an awesome, awesome rest of your night. Enjoy your Saturday and your Sunday if I don't see you. All right, here we go. Whistling Cowboy, leave it for later. I think you guys have a great, great night. Peace and live creatively. See you guys soon. Take care. Finish button's here. The finish button is actually hiding behind the music playlist. There we go. Have a good night, guys. Take care.
