Fog with a Matte Finish

 

1/21/23 Maple Leaf neighborhood through our bedroom window, 8:30 a.m., 33 degrees F.

In addition to basic cold and rain, January in these parts is known for foggy mornings. It was already beginning to lift when I started this sketch at around 8:30 a.m., so I had to rush. On a whim, I grabbed a Faber-Castell Pitt Graphite Matt pencil, which I hadn’t used in a while, thinking it would be ideal for the flat, matte look of fog. I forgot, though, that one if its benefits is that it doesn’t smudge as much as standard graphite pencils, so it was harder to get the soft foggy look. Most of the smudginess that appears here probably came from the graphite that was already on the stump from previous drawings.