Thursday night sketch and chill

Hey, um, happy Thursday, October 9th, 2025. Hope you're having an awesome day. I am Jason Nicholas Nicholas. The Inspired Life, where I love sketching, sketching architecture, urban sketching, just sketching anything. I love throwing color down. It's, yeah, it's just, it's my creative playground. So, um, hope you're tuning in and having a great day today. Let me know where you're watching from, if you have any questions or comments. Um, I've been sketching fall-inspired barns And I think I'm going to do another one tonight. I'm just practicing. I have an upcoming workshop. Check the link out in the bottom right-hand side of the screen if you're interested. And it's been a lot of fun, and I'm, I'm really, really loving these vibrant colors. They're just so cool. So let's, uh, let's do another sketch here. Let's see, I got some watercolor here. Boom. Couple of pens. I'm trying to get organized a little bit. I put all these pens in a cup so they're not spread out everywhere. But let's do some sketching. Yeah, this Sharpie, this Sharpie has had it. I got to throw that one out. I think I keep picking the same two Sharpies that don't work. Let's see if this one works. All right, we got lucky, we got one that works. So I'm just gonna sketch from my imagination. Um, my style is very loose, very, very wonky. Maybe we'll do— maybe we'll do a couple buildings. Maybe we'll do a house on a hill here. Uh-oh, did I jinx myself? I said the Sharpie was working. All right, we got it. Maybe we got like some kind of House up on a hill here. So it's kind of— it's starting to feel like fall here finally in New Jersey. Um, the weather's gotten cooler, so if you're a fall fan and like the cooler weather, um, this is a good place to be. The leaves are changing here. I think they're almost in peak state around here, so I'm gonna guess next week we'll have a maximum vibrancy in the foliage. So that would be so cool to see. So maybe we got a house up here on the hill. Maybe we'll come down lower. Maybe we'll sketch, um, I don't want to sketch here. So I'm just using this Sharpie, throwing in some lines. I want to kind of outline some stuff before I throw color down on it. Here we go. Let me zoom out a little bit. I think, um, I'm cramming it in the screen. Let's see, I'm gonna zoom out a little bit here. Um, I just kind of popped on quick. I didn't, I didn't prep all the buttons ahead of time. Let me zoom out. There we go. So I've got a couple of structures. Maybe this is a barn here in the lower part. We got some kind of doors, barn doors here. Boom. Little kind of side piece coming off the barn. We'll do a nice cupola on the roof. We got a cupola, maybe a weather vane up there as well. I was thinking maybe this is like a scarecrow or something in the background. Maybe we got fields happening in here. And as we work our way up, maybe we have, uh, this could be a, maybe a farmhouse with some columns. Maybe there's a porch here that wraps around a little bit. Boom, got it, got the wraparound porch, got some windows going on. Uh, let's do— maybe we'll do like a chimney coming off the back here. So we've got some kind of chimney happening here. That's cool. I think there's enough line work, so I just want to throw down some color. I I love adding color, so much fun. And let me grab some water. So I have some watercolor paints here, so I'm going to dip into those. I do have a few different inks. I have, um, this is probably my favorite acrylic ink color right here, it's called Reflex Rose. Um, really, really cool stuff. Then I have some other Um, this is Fluorescent Orange. Yeah, Fluorescent Orange I have as well. Awesome fall colors to use. And then this one is Inferno Orange. Love that name. Awesome. Hey, how are you? Thanks for watching me on Instagram. Hope you're doing well. Good to see you. Feel free to ask any questions. So let's throw some color down. This is just going to be kind of loose, fast, fun. Think of it— think of this as the Fast and Furious with color. Although I've never seen the Fast and Furious, and I think it was— it— or is it a video game too? Um, I'm not sure. So when I pick colors, I just go with my gut. I'm not like— I'm not trying to recreate anything I know or have seen. I'm just literally— I am just going with with— I call it grab-and-go creativity. I'm just going in a moment and throwing stuff down. So maybe we have some kind of orangey skies happening here. So when I do, um, sketches like this, it's layers. The first layer tonight will be throwing down some color, let it dry, then probably tomorrow I'll come back and add some more color. And then some lines with a Sharpie pen, pull out some details as well. We're doing good. Hey, if you're, if you're watching over on the Insta, um, let me know if you can see the screen. How do you come up with this idea? Hey, that's a great, great question. Uh, this is really just from my imagination. I love sketching architecture. I love sketching barns. And I'm really inspired by the fall colors. I'll show you, here's an example of one I did the other day. So I'm just kind of vibing off the idea of just doing, just doing barns and fall colors. That's really just my two purposes of this. So that awesome question, I appreciate that. Feel free to ask any questions. So sometimes I'm inspired by the seasons, uh, sometimes I'm inspired just, you know, if I was just in New York City, sometimes I'm inspired by the buildings and the architecture there. Um, and lots of times things are just kind of popping into my brain, so from my imagination. Notice I'm not being neat with the paint. I'm just kind of throwing it down on here. I'm not trying to stay within any lines. I want it to look really kind of loose and kind of crazy, but you'll see how it starts to pull together. I love fall weather. Oh, that's awesome. I'm glad you do. Fall is a— fall is a great time of the year, right? I think every season has its pluses and has its minuses for sure. Um, my favorite plus about the fall is the colors. And the treats as well. So, you know, when I hear fall, I think like apple cider, apple cider donuts, and that kind of yummy stuff. But for me, I think it's really the fall colors that are what I love most about it. All right, so I have kind of a sky going on here with orange and yellow. It looks kind of cool. Hey, Eagle Scout Kiko, great to see you. Hope all is well, man. Love the colors. Thank you so much, you guys are awesome. It's fun to see you both on here. Thanks for tuning in, guys. I'm going to throw down some— I'm going to get a little crazy. I'm going to throw down some neon, um, I call it neon pink. It's actually called Reflex Rose. But it has like a neon kind of color to it. So this is where it gets really fun. You have to be brave. I'm just being brave with colors. Um, you may have noticed some— even just, I'm going to drip some right in here in the sky, and we'll play around with that in a second. So now I'm just kind of spreading that pink in the sky here. So I don't know how the colors look on screen to you guys, but they're really vibrant here in person. All is great! I'm so glad to hear all is great. That's awesome. It's been a very long time. Since I've seen you. I'm glad all is great. You deserve that, man. You'll throw some yellow down on the house. I just want to maybe pop it out a little bit there. Maybe we'll throw some on the barn as well. Cool. I'm gonna add some color to I miss the class. Oh, thank you. Well, we miss you too, man. Think about you a lot. Appreciate that. I always watch it when you sketch. Oh, that's so cool. I appreciate you watching. That means, that means a lot to me. That means a lot to me. Thank you so much. It makes me feel special. Um, I appreciate you sharing some of your time with me. That's so cool. Hope you— hopefully you find it, uh, enjoyable, entertaining. Maybe you're learning some stuff. It would be really cool if you actually started— maybe, maybe you are— maybe do some sketching or some painting. That would be so fun. You know, you could do it like this. You can do it digitally. I know that you love digital kind of stuff as well. Always look at architecture in the city or anywhere because you never know when you see a building and you can sketch it. So always have a creative mind. Oh, I— that is— I love that take— that takeaway or that, um, comment you made. That is so true. I have a new sketchbook and I sketch a lot. That's so cool. Well, one of these days One of these days we'll have to get together and I'd love to see what you're sketching. That'd be awesome. This is a fun color, it's called Inferno Orange. It is so bright. So I want you to notice that I am not filling in every single white part of this paper. With color. I'm going to purposely leave a lot of white space on here. Um, it's kind of the style I like to sketch in. It keeps it looking kind of loose and just allows— I think the white space allows for you guys, the viewers, to kind of use your imaginations, and you can kind of fill in the blanks, fill in the white space. With your own creative thoughts. So that's kind of one of the, one of the reasons I love to leave a lot of white space so the sketches look kind of unfinished, and that's on purpose. Hey, have a great night. Take care. It's great seeing you. Take care. Appreciate it. Anuj. Anuj, great. Hello, good to see you. I hope I'm saying your name right. I knew— and Anuj, Anuj, I appreciate you watching over on the YouTube. That is so cool. I hope you're having a fantastic day. I'm grabbing my favorite— probably my favorite watercolor color is light— no, not light aqua. Light aqua is a, uh, my favorite color pencil color. I think this is— I think this is just like turquoise. So it might be looking a little messy, right? A lot of things happening. Um, as it dries and when I come back and add some detail with a Sharpie pen, it'll pull things out, add a little more detail, clean it up. Right now the idea is just throwing down color. And literally just to have fun doing it. Is this a masterpiece? Nope, but I don't want it to be. I just want it to be— it's just me having some fun. This is all this all comes down to. Sometimes we stress ourselves out and we feel like we need to be perfect with everything we do. And I don't want that to happen here. I want to keep it loose and fun, you know what I'm saying? Hey, good to see you on Instagram, Andrew. Hope all is well. Um, I love the way the sky is looking, guys. I hope it's coming across on the camera, but this is so vibrant and bright up in here. Watercolor really changes, and inks really change when they dry. It— this will take on a whole different character. So next time I show it to you, you'll, you'll notice that. Yes, I got some red. Let's throw some red on here. Time's at 9:43. I'll probably be on for, I'm going to say, about 10 more minutes and I'll wrap it up. Got a busy day tomorrow. It's been a crazy week, crazy, crazy week, um, in a lot of different ways, but All good, but just tired. I'm just throwing down some red ink on here. I'll zoom in before I wrap up so you guys can see the details, what it looks like close up. I know they're, they're fairly, um, small sketches tonight. I just wanted to make a little scene with a couple buildings. And a scarecrow will eventually emerge somewhere over here. I kind of loosely sketched a scarecrow on the right, and I'll, I'll come back and I'll somehow pop him out. I think I'm going to mix up some purple. So I like to mix purple, um, myself. So I'm just going to grab some blue, I have some red in here, and I'm just going to mix them together, right? So red and blue make purple, and then I can control, you know, how much red do I want in that purple, how much, how much blue do I want. So it's, it's kind of fun to mix colors. You can see my palette, it's kind of messy. Um, I actually like it. It almost looks like an artwork, right? All the stuff happening here. But what I really love is it just shows the process. It kind of shows how I work. I'm messy when it comes to watercolor. I have splatters and mixes, and I have colors mixed here on top of the colors. Probably not the smartest thing to do, but it's kind of how I— it's just how I roll. So there is no wrong way to do this, guys. Do it your way. I think that— is that a song? It's like a Frank Sinatra song or something. I did it my way, right? You'll have critics, you'll have people look at your stuff, you'll have people that that don't like it, people that make rude comments, and you'll have people that get something from it, or just kind people. So as an artist, for me as an artist and architect and designer— that's weird, I just saw a light outside my window. I think they're taking their dog for a walk. I hope so. Um, anyway, as an artist, architect, teacher I get feedback from, from so many different people, not always solicited. And you know what, you got to just— you got to be tough. You got to be prepared for it. Some of the feedback's valid, some isn't. Um, I guess my point is just don't, don't take it personally. I'm going to zoom in so you guys can see how this is drying. And, um, oops, sorry, let me zoom in a little bit. I'll just pan around. So here's kind of the top building. So you can kind of see how some of the actual building itself is getting lost, you know, with all the colors happening. That's where the magic of this will come in after it dries, going back, outlining some things, adding some shading. It'll really pull it out more. So don't worry if you find things are getting lost, you can bring them back. And then I'll— here's, here's kind of the barn happening at the bottom. I really love when the colors dry. I love to see what's happening. I kind of like what's happening down here with the green, the way it's kind of drying on the paper. Looks pretty cool. Uh, it's unfortunately too wet. I can't use the Sharpie right now, it has to be dry. So I'm going to throw down some of this pen. This is cool, it's a, uh, it's a Pentel EnerGel pen, brown color. Let's do some sketching with this. Maybe I'll just focus up here so you guys can see up close. Um, and just as I really like— oh, my TikTok. There we go. I really like the thin black Sharpie to do that. Yeah, exactly. That's a cool thing, right? Sharpie is a— is great for doing that with your sketches. So as you can see, I do practice what I preach at school. So, but my goal is to never have anybody sketch and copy like what I'm doing. I want— my goals for, um, anybody watching, anybody sketching, any artists, any creatives, my goal is for you to have your own style and to have the confidence, the creative confidence, to throw ink on paper, throw color on paper. Um, don't be afraid, just kind of go for it, right? And the more you do things, the more you practice, the more you throw down color, the more playful you are, you'll eventually develop kind of your own, your own style. You'll keep using the tools you like using, the colors you like using, but you just got to start somewhere. So in the end, if, if I can get you guys to be playful. Just give it a try and don't seek perfection. This is not— look at this— it's not about clean, beautiful lines. Not for me. That's what my architecture work is. When I do blueprints, I need to be technical with my, my architectural drawings, right? But this is just, this is just my playground here. So you can see, uh, I'm throwing some of this brown pen, and you can see I'm starting to pull some of the outlines out a little bit just to give a little definition. I was just looking, do I have— you know, I'm gonna break out some of that pink paint. I'm just gonna focus down here for you guys. Let me move this up. We'll focus on that section as I wrap up. All right, so this is that Reflex Rose color. I always try to put the cap back on when I'm done because I have spilled more ink than you could possibly imagine. I really love when I throw this pink color down over orange paint. It, it has a really cool color that happens. You can probably see down in here. It is so fun to see that. Take a little more out. You have to be careful not to overuse this Reflex Rose. It is such— it is a really powerful color, and it could definitely take over the entire sketch. So I'm kind of lightly just putting it in some places. I think I'll pop some up here as well. You know what I just, I just realized, and this has not been intentional, is I'm doing these fall sketches, fall colors. Does anybody know what I have not been showing on the sketches? It's kind of weird, and I don't know why I haven't showed them. This might be the last song for me tonight. This is— I love this color. I call it taxi cab yellow. I don't— I should know the actual name. I don't know the actual name of it. I just put a kind of a thick layer of the paint, and I'm just adding some water because I just want to thin it out, kind of let it bleed down the page a little bit here. Usually I sketch at an angle. I have my paper tilted up so that water and stuff can run down. It's just another thing that— just, uh, an aesthetic, aesthetic thing that I like to do. Cool. Throw down some green. I'm just going to grab a green pen, throw down some green on here. Cool. This needs a little bit of yellow, lemon, lemon yellow. So I like, I like adding lemon yellow. Um, for me it adds a sense of— think about using lemon in cooking, or lemon zest. It just adds that pop of freshness to cooking. It does the same thing with your paintings. It could just add a pop of freshness. So add a little bit of water. You can kind of see when I throw it on here, you'll see what I mean. It just, it just lifts these colors up somehow by throwing a little bit of yellow on there. And I'll just— same thing at the top. It's almost like I'm doing too many Too many, uh, paintings at the same time here. And then I'll zoom out before we leave. You can see the whole scene, how it's shaping up. All right, that might be— I think it looks pretty good for tonight. Let me zoom out, you can see what the whole thing looks like, and then we'll call it a night. If you have any questions before I wrap up, wrap up, let me know. Feel free to ask them. Uh, let me see, you can zoom out. There we go. I'll zoom way out. You can actually see, kind of get a glimpse of kind of my work area. Okay, I got watercolor here, I got some water, some pens over here, some more pens, all kinds of inks here. Here are the inks I used tonight. Boom, boom, boom. And I did not throw any of the neon— did I throw the neon orange on? I don't think I got to it yet. Not neon orange, fluorescent orange. Gotta get that right. All right, I'll zoom in on the sketch so you can see it better. So when you see the worktop or the work desk area And there you go. That is kind of the overall sketch, how it's drying up. Um, I could definitely need to add some Sharpie. You can see I'm losing the house on the top. It's kind of getting lost a little bit up there. Also, this barn is getting a little bit lost as well. So the Sharpies will really pop it. And then, am I going— the big question is, do I add the scarecrow? I kind of marked where a scarecrow might go. Yeah, you know, I think I might actually do another. I might do a couple scarecrows. I'm thinking one here and then maybe one And I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why I'm doing this. Maybe one here somewhere. Just imagine that's a scarecrow. So the reason I'm doing that is I want your— I want the viewer's eye to travel. I feel like if I have this focal point, focal point, focal point, your eye is going to kind of go in that pattern when you're looking at this, or the other way. Doesn't matter. Um, if I have that out, yeah, you could do that, but I feel like we need to do more movement. So that's one of the reasons I think I would add something right there, just to get the eye moving a little bit differently. Awesome. Hey guys, I think that's a wrap for tonight. Um, hope you had a good time. I'm Jason Nicholas Nicholas with The Inkspired Life. I love doing this stuff. I love when you guys watch, comment, give me feedback. I appreciate it all so much. Appreciate your time, and remember, until next time, sketch boldly, live creatively, and inspire endlessly. See you guys soon.