Why not Sketch Wednesday

Hey, Jason here from The Inspired Life. It is Wednesday, August something, 2025. August 13th, 2025. That's what happens when you're a teacher and it's summer. You sometimes lose track of the days. Um, it's all good. So I'm popping on a very random time and I just felt like, um, I felt like doing some sketching. Why the heck not? It's a Wednesday, it's either napping or sketching, so I figured I'd just come on, do some sketching, uh, and have fun for a few minutes. So if you're watching, let me know where you're watching from. Um, if you don't know who I am, my name is Jason Nicholas. I am an architect school teacher. I teach architecture and CAD or design. Um, yeah, those are just a couple, couple of things I do, and I love urban sketching as well. So I'm popping on and I think I'm going to sketch a St. Patrick's Cathedral inspired sketch today. I have markers out here, some pens out here. So it's kind of gonna— it's kind of grab and go and see what comes out of it. So it's great to see you guys. Uh, hello CGK Writer and Eagle Scout on Instagram, great to see you guys. Feel free to put questions in the comments. I hope you're doing well out there. Um, Kiko, always a pleasure to see you. Hope you're well, my friend. Let me zoom in a little bit better. Cool. All right, so I, uh, typically when I sketch, I like to start with a Sharpie because a few things. One is, um, when I throw Sharpie ink on a page, I know I'm committed. Uh, my style of sketching is kind of very loose and fast, and if I used a pencil I would be worrying about, um, or I would have the opportunity to worry about making mistakes and being able to erase things and correct things. And that's cool, but I don't like that for my style. I kind of like to document every line, every time my, my pen touches the page. It helps show the story or tell a story about how a sketch was created. So That's one reason I love using Sharpie. Another reason is if I'm going to add an ink wash or watercolor, the Sharpie ink will not bleed. So that's another reason. I'm sketching today on kraft paper, and what I like about this kraft paper, and you'll see as I sketch today, is it's really great for popping colors with color pencils or creative markers, Sharpie creative markers. You can see in this barn sketch, the colors kind of really pop out. So I love this kind of paper bag brown color paper to, uh, to sketch on. It's a lot of fun. Let's see, I am— so I am looking at a reference picture just to get started with, and then we'll just have fun, free flow. My— well, actually, I'll do it vertical so Instagram can see it better. Uh, my idea is not to draw a sketch, anything in detail. It's really to capture the essence or feeling of a building. So St. Patrick's Cathedral, uh, neo-gothic architecture, has these beautiful spires. So I'm going to just sketch a spire here and just watch for a few minutes and let the pen kind of just dance loosely across the page. You'll notice my technique is kind of scribbly. I like to go over lines a lot so that it shows an energy level to the sketch. It's not— this is not meant to be an architectural drawing. I'm an architect and I do precise technical drawings for blueprints. This is my creative outlet where I can just kind of go wild and Let my pen, my marker, just glide and dance across the page. One of the things I hear from people about sketching architecture is it's intimidating to sketch a building, and I totally get that. Um, here's a, here's the thing: you don't always need to sketch the entire building. You could focus on a piece of it, something that really draws you and attracts you to it. Don't feel like you have to sketch like the entire cathedral or, uh, all— every single detail. Find something that really interests you. So I'm just interested really in this kind of small view, um, and working on a smaller piece of paper for me helps limit that idea as well. I don't feel like I need to sketch every single thing I'm seeing because I'm limited by the size of the page. And I'm just going to throw this Sharpie down, then we're going to come in and just add a lot of colors and just have fun with it. This is just kind of a starting point. Hey Mel, I see Mel on Instagram. Mel, great to see you, hope all's well. Sketches and Psalm, check him out guys if you don't know who he is, check him out on Instagram. Mel is a an amazing urban sketcher. I love Mel's people, people. I took a workshop with him recently and learned how to add people into a scene. It was really, really rewarding, very educational, because I am not great at people sketching. And I learned I don't have to be great at people sketching. It's just to capture a sense of feeling, energy, uh you know, people— as Mel said, people are not rigid, they're kind of curved to them and full, and they kind of flow. So that was really cool to see your different mindset. All right, I'm just going to keep it at that for now. Let's just throw color down. So good question. A question I get a lot is how do I decide what colors to use? Totally fair question. And I never really added color until I don't know, 3, 5 years ago, because I was afraid whatever color I added had to be exactly the building I was sketching. So I was afraid to do that, to add color. Um, I shifted my mindset, and then I came to realize that the colors can be whatever I want them to be. This is my sketch, my world. I see things differently than you'll see them. In my sketch framework, S-K-E-T-C-H, the S stands for seeing the world in curious and wondrous ways. So the way I see the world and want to capture it is going to be very different than the way someone else might want to capture it. So pro tip, guys, there are no wrong answers. When you're, when you're creating any kind of art. Um, it's yours, do what you want with it, have fun. For me, it's about embracing the journey, the fun, the playfulness. Um, I love the way this, this color works on This kraft paper, it really pops out. If you like what you're seeing, I do have an online workshop coming up on August 30th where I will be walking you through more of the details about how I approach loose style architectural sketching. And we're going to be sketching St. Patrick's Cathedral together. I think it'll be a fun workshop, and I'll go slower than I'm going today. I'll break down my thought process in more detail on the in the workshop for sure. And then you'll leave with, uh, hopefully a newfound sense of confidence, or maybe you'll pick up some techniques about quick loose style sketching. Um, maybe you'll just leave feeling that you had a fun and playful time and you met some other cool people online. So there's a link on screen, feel free to check it out. Love to see you guys in the online workshop. And I'm planning on doing an in-person workshop, uh, in October, sketching St. Patrick's Cathedral. So where we would actually meet, New York City, Rockefeller Center area, and we'll sketch St. Patrick's. We'll do some other sketching as well. I feel like it would be kind of a day together or a half day together. We'll have lunch and, uh, really really cool time and in-person workshop. Great way to get feedback and capture the vibe of sketching a city live while, you know, in person. So, um, more coming up on that, guys. I don't have it figured quite all the details figured out. I do know I want to do it though. All right. Hello, Ray! Ray's online. Ray, it's great to see you, my friend. Hope all's well. Ray says, I'm planning to be there, massively important. Ray, you— my door is always open to you, my friend. Ray is an amazing, amazing human being, uh, a mentor and a friend to me. I'm blessed to, to know him. So here, this again, I'm just throwing down the colors. This, guys, it's all about having fun. I'm not, I'm not sitting here all tense and worried about, oh my, oh my, this— does this look like St. Patrick's? What am I doing? It's a mindset. It really is a mindset. And I know I'm going to zoom in closer. I know it's easy for me to say But sometimes, uh, just trust, just trust, trust in putting your pen or marker down on paper and let it just kind of wander. One of the things that helps me to create loose style sketching is what I like to call grab-and-go creativity. I have ready in front of me here markers, and I have a bag, this cool Lockbee bag. Check them out, there's a link. Uh, Lockbee is a great company, you can get a discount if you use my link. But I— everything I pretty much need, it goes in this bag so I can grab and go. If I have to stop and think about the tools I'm going to use, it slows my, my flow down. And when I slow down, I tense up and I tighten up. And then I get worried and paranoid. I want to be able just to pick up and throw things down. So it's a great way to stay loose just by not thinking about what you're going to pick up. You can think a little bit, but I'm not searching. I'm not going around my studio searching for a certain pen or marker. So hopefully you can see, or you're getting the vibes, that this is a Gothic, Neo-Gothic cathedral. Um, let me— I'm going to highlight some of the things here. We'll talk a little architecture. So one of the characteristics of Neo-Gothic architecture— we'll use this color— are the spires, right? So we have this kind of spire shape. I'm just going to outline it so you can see what I'm talking about. So we have spires in Neo-Gothic architecture. Say that 10 times fast. Um, another big characteristic are the arches, the Gothic arches. So I'm just going to draw one up to the side here. We'll sketch. Right, we have these kind of arch shapes. It's not so much rounded at the top, but it has a point. So sometimes they're called pointed arches. Kind of looks like a wishbone a little bit. So the, the Gothic arches. So in my sketch here, I have some arches right here. Another characteristic of these Neo-Gothic cathedrals are the Oriel windows. So let's sketch an oriel window. I'm going to just grab a— let's grab a red pen here. So an oriel window, let's just pretend there's one here, are the other big round windows you see. If you think Notre Dame, if you've seen The Hunchback of Notre Dame, uh, you'll know, you'll, you'll know the big huge stained glass window, that round window. So that is a big feature and characteristic of these cathedrals. And by putting these elements together, you can create any kind of cathedral you want. So, right, so we started with St. Patrick's inspired, but now I'm just adding my own shapes to it and It's kind of riffing. It's almost like, uh, riffing with music or jazz impromptu session where you just pick up, you know, the basic, basic instruments, basic chords. You just start laying them down. And sketching architecture is the same way. When you know the basics, you can just lay them down and you can create anything you want from your imagination. Cool. Hey, Artist AB, great to see you. Hope all's well. Becky, good to see you. Hope all's well. Becky, it's always great to see you online. Becky's one of the original, original Inklings from, uh, I don't know how many years ago did we start, 5, 5 years ago maybe. It's always good to see you, hope all is well. So this is just, like I said, a fun, loosey-goosey take on a cathedral. I just feel like playing around with this, the brown kraft paper today. Let's get some people here. Let's get a sense of what do I imagine this building being, the size of it. I'm going to sketch a person right— let me actually use a Sharpie so it pops a little bit more. I imagine people next to this cathedral being like this big. So it's a fairly sizable building. And that's one of the cool things about adding people to your sketches, is it helps create a sense of scale of your building. So now we kind of can see, oh yeah, this is a— that's a pretty, um, tall structure if you look at the people and look at the building. Excuse me. Becky says, um, loving the colors. Craft paper is fun to play around with. Yes, it totally is. So I am sketching on this today, guys. I am using Soho Sketch craft sheets. This is 5.5 roughly by 8.25 inches. I have a nice smaller square size, it's 5.5 by 5.5. I think I'm taking this one with me, um, when I go sketching this weekend in the city. So I do love this craft paper. You know, I love— I mean, I love this lighthouse sketch and how I love how the white pops out. Oh, here's another sketch of St. Patrick's I did in here. I'm actually going to mark that page. I'm trying to gather my St. Patrick's sketches to put on my, uh, workshop notifications and emails and promos and all that stuff. You'd think I'd have a Post-it here somewhere. I got a coaster. We'll just mark it with a coaster. All right, so this is a cool— let's actually work on this for a second, add some white. So I apparently did this in March this year, March 10th, 2025. I should have white in here. Yes, I do. Let's throw some white on this. And you can really see how that white pops out against the brown, the brown kraft paper. And I'm not gonna get cray cray and throw it everywhere, I'm just gonna highlight it in certain places. I really like this sketch. I forgot about it. Cool. So I'm not going to overdo it. I'm going to kind of leave it like that. I like, like where it is. All right, let me just mark that page. Actually, I'll just stick this in here. Um, here's a cool example. You can just see how some other colors pop off the kraft paper. We have orange greens on here. My absolute favorite color, hands down, anytime I use it, any medium, is this turquoise color. I think these I did in the workshop one day. Here's a— here, this is the Brooklyn Library, or at least one branch of it. They might have more than one location. This was a fun sketch to do. This I did in person on, on site. I believe I did one on site and I did one in studio. That may be the one I did in studio. No, I'm not sure. It doesn't matter. Um, here's another example of some of the colors popping off. This is a cool, um, perspective just from my imagination. Created maybe some kind of an alleyway, some growies happening on the side of the building here. Maybe there's an archway that we're walking towards. That was a fun sketch to do. And we're back to the fun we were working on today. Actually, I want to try this pink. This is a new pen. Um, let's try it. So this is a Pentel— Pentel— nope, sorry, Pilot. It's called Pilot Frixion. Frixion. It's actually erasable. So if you are kind of hesitant about putting pen on paper and you need to erase, this could be a kind of a cheat code for you. Um, so let's test it out on the— I haven't used it on the kraft paper. Let's see what it looks like. I'm going to zoom in even closer on this. There we go. So you can kind of see this is that pink. And just for the heck of it, let's see how it erases off the kraft paper. So here's the eraser. Uh, there you go. So you can see how it erased. So yeah, so there is a cheat code if you must absolutely erase and you want to use a pen, try the Pilot FriXion pen. I have, I have other colors as well, um, and I actually have not used them too much yet, so Becky says a secret garden feel. Yeah, this sketch here, let me see if I can find it. Yeah, this almost has a secret garden feel to it. There's a nice close-up, you can see more of the details and the layers going on. Yeah, good call on that. The people behind me are doing work. On their pool and the music is so loud. I don't know, you might be able to hear it in the background. This is ridiculous. So this is, this is grumpy old me coming, the grumpy old version of me coming out. Um, I just— people will sometimes have more respect for people around them. They don't care. And I'm not the kind of person that's going to go over there and say anything, and sometimes I wish I would. It's just super annoying, especially when I took a day off of this summer. I took this week off from my summer job. I'm working a summer job this year, so this is my week off I took. I need at least one week before school starts. And I don't want to hear that music. Anyway, let's get back to sketching because sketching is a good escape and I could block the outside world out. Pro tip: if we need a good escape, get into some artwork, do some painting, some sketching. It's a great way, at least for me, it's a great way to focus zoom in, block out when I need to block out. Cool. Hey, Q1, great to see you. Hope all's well. Yeah, Becky says it erased surprisingly well. Yeah, let's, let's do it again, Beck. Let's try it again. Let's, uh, let's try it up here. I'm going to— let's just kind of do a little sketch up here, and we'll erase some of that out again. It's closer, so maybe you guys can see it better. Actually, I'm just going to fill this circle in. All right, so let's see if it erases. Yeah, it does erase well. This is pretty thin kraft paper, so I'm afraid, uh, If I erase too hard, it's going to rip the paper. So you have to really think about that too. What paper are you sketching on? Are you going to erase? If so, or if you're going to add watercolor or ink washes, you know, is it going to bleed through? So this is, this is fairly thin paper, so it's not really meant for doing any kind of ink washing or water coloring on. Becky says, uh, living on, living on a back road has its advantages. More space between you and your neighbors. Yeah, right. Yeah. That's, uh, it's on my bucket list. Give me, give me a 100-acre property in like, I don't know, Wyoming or something. I, I find the older I get, the more I'm valuing quiet time. That might sound weird, I don't know, but the older I get, the more I'm valuing, valuing quiet time. Which might sound ironic because I love going to New York City and sketching, but that brings me back to what I said before. When I'm there sketching, I can tune out what I need to tune out. Oh no, everybody's like, oh man, Jason Nicholas has a grumpy side. I'm not usually grumpy. I just like to be able to think when I want to think. All right, I'm throwing out some red on here. One of the cool things about these Creative Markers is you can layer the colors. So I'm layering some red on the purple. It looks really cool here. Love it. I think part of the reason I'm thinking about, like, quiet— I think part of the reason is, uh, teaching. I love teaching. It's the best thing I've ever, ever done. But when I'm teaching, I, I have, you know, I'm seeing, I don't know, so many people during the day in, you know, an 8-hour time period. That really can overload your senses big time. So I think when I'm home, that's why I value the quiet time even more, because of all the, uh, overstimulation of being in a school environment. Becky says, nothing wrong with enjoying peace and quiet. Exactly. You guys liking the colors on this? Let me know in the comments, what do you think? Another aesthetic I like for sketching is leaving things unfinished. So let me zoom out so you can see a little bit more of it. You know, I don't feel a need to color everything here. You see I like the, the kraft paper showing through. I like that it's a lot of— it's kind of bleeding almost. It's kind of intentional. It looks— if you look at it, almost looks like the color is kind of running down the page. That's just a look I like. And the more you sketch, the more you'll come up with your own style, your own looks. And you know what? They're going to change, and that's normal, right? It's adapting. It's, it's creating on the fly. It's letting your spirit and soul out onto paper, and you'll get different results, and that's cool with me. I do want to put some white. I feel like I need to pop some white on here, and this one will be done. Here's the white. Cool. Oh yeah, drinking some now cold hazelnut coffee. It's still good. All right, I'm gonna throw some white on here. Yeah, I'm, I'm really loving— I'm just loving what this white is doing. It's just pulling some of these edges out a little bit more. I'm actually going to color these people, I think. Put some white here. I just want these people to pop a little bit. Right, so there you go. I kind of like that. Now you can see them more. Craft paper gives a warm feel even when using a lot of white. Yeah, that's a— that is a great way to put it. It truly does. And I think that's going to be enough. This one's, this one's in the home stretch. Um, I do want to pull out some of the edges here with some black. So where did my Sharpie go? I feel like my Sharpie pen might be running out of steam. Let's see, just move this down a little bit so we can see the spire. Yeah, I think my Sharpie is, uh, doesn't want to play nice, so I might have a black I usually have a black Creative Marker and I don't have it in my grab and go. This is what I was talking about earlier also. Now I'm stopping to think about— and I'm searching for a tool and it's slowing my flow down. So instead of doing that, we're just gonna use what I have in my hand. Go back to it. I'll just kind of scribble it on And I feel like the black's just gonna add a little bit of depth in areas to it. I like, I like that, Becky. Yeah, stained glass, colorful. I want to give a little more depth to these, um, this entryway here, so I'm going to hatch— do some hatching here. Alright, this might be done. I'll zoom out so you can see the whole thing. We'll just— we'll stay close here for a sec. I'm going to zoom even, even closer so you can see some of the details closer up, and then we'll, we'll zoom out so you can see the whole thing. Let me start with the top and we'll work our way down. Is that what the light projections look like on Cinderella Castle at Disney? That would be cool. Um, man, some of those light projections they do there are fantastic. Amazing, amazing. Um, yeah, hey Disney, if you're watching, just saying, let's collab, let's do a collab. My dream job, and I've probably said this before, but one of my dream jobs was to be a Disney Imagineer, you know, be, be an architect on staff, you know, that would help design the concepts and bring these— bring the, uh, the theme park to life. That would have been so cool. So you can see some of the detail as I just kind of pan up. It's really just— I don't know if it's the right word or not— splotches, splotches of color I kind of threw down, um, splashes of color I kind of threw down. You know, this isn't like a coloring book page where I'm trying to color in everything you see on that page. I'm just throwing down splashes splotches, splotches of color here and there. I don't know what the word is. This is kind of cool. I like, um, I don't know, maybe you've got— maybe we got a wedding happening here. Maybe we have a bride and groom as they exited the church. Maybe they've got a bride and groom standing there. I don't know, what do you see? I'm going to zoom out and you can see the whole thing. There you go. And that's kind of an overview of the whole thing. I'm going to do something I haven't done in a while. Do I have my frames here? Right behind me, I do. I haven't done this in a while. I like to, uh, let's throw a frame around this and see what it looks like. A couple— let's try this, this black frame. Oh man, are you kidding me? Holy moly. Let me just kind of see if I could— how would I do that? Let's see. Wow, this looks so Awesome with a frame around it. I know it's cutting off the top of this at the top here a little bit, so let me zoom out for you guys. Man, that is amazing. No, I kind of, I kind of like it here. Maybe here, maybe here. I kind of like seeing part of a person on the right-hand side. Disney, you need to hire Jason Nicholas Nicholas. Thank you so much. Yes, hire me now. Yeah, thank you. It looks amazing framed. Thank you, Becky. It, it really does. Dang. Let's just savor the moment. Sometimes we need to look at what we did, kick back, and savor the moment with a cup of cold hazelnut coffee. And your amazing Rue mug. Yeah, I think that looks really cool. I have a— let's just try a smaller frame for the heck of it. I think this is the winner, but let's try this one. Oh, maybe Maybe this. Let me know what you guys think of this. You know what, I kind of— I'm kind of liking the tighter frame too. I just moved that graphic. I want to see if it shows up on, uh, Instagram. Creative Triumph, oh my gosh, you were way too kind for your words. Um, what do you think, Becky? Do you like the smaller frame? I'm sorry, I got the text there. I'll move it up. A smaller frame or the bigger one? I'm kind of torn, actually. I know I got this text in the way here. Move it over. All right, now we can see it better. I think I'm liking the smaller frame. I'm liking the smaller opening better. I kind of like how it's cropping the top of the tower, the spire on here. All right, if you guys are watching this live or the replay and anybody is interested in owning an original St. Patrick's Cathedral sketch like the one we're looking at, or the actual one we're looking at here, let me know. Just send me a message in the comments or private message. Um, yeah, this is— I think this is, um, worthy of selling. This is amazing. It's a little gem. Little gem. All right guys, I'm gonna wrap up in a minute or so. Um, it was fun popping on today, surprise Wednesday afternoon sketching. And I'm just going to put in the frame, so if anybody is interested in kind of sketching along with me, sketching St. Patrick's Cathedral I'll walk you through my sketch framework, S-K-E-T-C-H. That's kind of a good— it's a mindset tool and some little bit of tech tips as well. And it's what goes through my brain when I'm sketching stuff like this. So we'll walk through that in the online workshop, and our subject's going to be St. Patrick's Cathedral. So that happens on August 30th from 8 o'clock to 10 o'clock PM Eastern Standard Time. Um, there's a link on your screen and feel free to check it out. Go to the link, you can read more about it. Love to sketch with you guys. And October, that's my goal. October is to host my first live in-person on-location sketch workshop where, um I think we'll be in NYC. Well, we will be. We'll be sketching St. Patrick's Cathedral and the area around it. So, um, yeah guys, stay tuned for that announcement. That'll be a real fun, fun day together. All right. I appreciate y'all so much. I'm Jason Nicholas Nicholas with the Inkspired Life where I love sketching architecture, urban sketching, and I just love, um, self personal growth, personal development, motivation. I love putting that stuff out there as well, mindset stuff. So you're seeing me post more and more of that because, yeah, it's what I love doing. I love putting that, that out there. All right, remember, until we meet again, I want you to sketch boldly, live creatively, and inspire endlessly. All right, until we sketch again, we'll see you. Thank you so much, Becky. Thank you for your comments, for watching live. It was a pleasure seeing you. Um, you're an amazing human being, and Becky is a talented artist, guys. Um, Becky, you— I, I— for me, your trees and your horses would always stand out. So amazing. Keep, uh— hope you've been doing some creative stuff. And thank you, everybody watched on Instagram as well. Appreciate you guys for tuning in and commenting. Until we meet again. See you guys.