Proverbial Pea Soup

10/22/18 Wedgwood street with ballpoint

As is typical for this time of year, fog has been rolling in at night and staying through the morning, shrouding the Puget Sound area with a thick white blanket. It burns off by early afternoon, so I usually wait until the sun breaks through to go out sketching. On Monday morning, though, the fog was exceptionally dense and mysterious, and I couldn’t resist heading out to the Wedgwood neighborhood, where I knew the fog would be thickest.

When sketching fog, my first impulse is to reach for graphite, but since my Bic ballpoint is adhered to my left hand for InkTober, I thought I’d give it a try. Although it’s been helpful to learn to use a Bic by thinking of it as a pencil, the one thing I can’t do with a ballpoint is lay it at an angle and smudge the ink into a soft haze. I may be getting friendlier with ballpoint, but that doesn’t mean I don’t miss graphite.

After sketching the street at left with the Bic, I couldn’t resist one more – this time with graphite. You can take the pencil away from the girl, but you can’t take the girl away from the pencil.

10/22/18 A different Wedgwood street, this time with graphite (and a little colored pencil)