Pre- and Post-Breakfast

 

10/28/21 Across the street, 6:15 a.m. (metallic brush pens)

While my kettle boiled water for coffee, I sketched Heidi and Joe’s illuminated front porch and car with some Zig metallic brush pens (my review at the Well-Appointed Desk).

After breakfast, the sun must have been close to the horizon but not quite up. When I had been sketching earlier, Beth and Dylan’s house had been dark inside, but now the lights were on. I used colored pencils for most of the sketch but added dots with the Zig brush pens for their Halloween lights (below).

Technical notes: I prefer the softness of pencil for nocturne sketches, but the metallic brush pens are nice for sharp points of light. Although they aren’t as glittery as some solvent-based metallic markers I have, I like these Zig markers better because they are non-toxic and non-stinky. I prefer them to Posca Paint Markers, too. Posca markers are brilliantly opaque, but I tire of the maintenance – all that agitating and potential clogging, blobbing and blurping. I've put the Zig metallics into my night sketching kit.

With so many shades of white among my colored pencils, I’ve been paying more attention to which I use. In the sketch below, I used Prismacolor Beige (997) for the interior lighting and the cooler Warm Gray 30% (1052) for the sky.

10/28/21 Across the street, 7:30 a.m. (colored pencils and metallic brush pens)