Deep Fog in August

 

8/14/26 8:15 a.m., Maple Leaf neighborhood

The day dawned to a deep fog of the type we usually don’t see until autumn. Say it ain’t so!

Material and process notes: When drawing fog, I tend to use graphite, but on a whim I tried a Derwent Drawing pencil (Midnight 6710). Soft, creamy pencils like this make me want to bear down and use them like crayons, so it took some self-control to use as little pressure as possible.

Working on this sketch, I thought of all the exercises I’ve done from instruction books and in classes to make a gradient of values using one pencil, beginning from the lightest value and working darker. Drawing fog is the on-location version of that exercise: I must begin with the lightest value (the distant fir) so that I’ll know how much darker to make the other values.

Like Snow, But Better

 

1/17/22 Foggy in Maple Leaf

Fog is like snow: It completely changes the way I see ordinary views. With nothing but tones and values, and most details hidden, drawing those ordinary views feels fresh again.

We often get morning fog this time of year, and I enjoy the way it teaches me how far away familiar things are. Even during the half-hour or so that I sketched this, distant trees came in and out of view as the fog’s density changed constantly.

The best thing about fog, though, is that I know how to drive in it, and shoveling is not required.

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)

Back to Morning Fog

 

1/29/25 Maple Leaf neighborhood, about 8:30 a.m., 31 degrees

Unless I’m planning to make a time-consuming, highly detailed drawing in graphite, which would require a range of grades, I tend to pick just one relatively soft pencil, maybe a 2B, for most sketches. I’ve had trouble, though, with even medium-soft pencils when sketching fog. It’s too easy to suddenly find myself going too dark (which is ironic, because in every drawing class I’ve taken, regardless of medium, instructors have urged me to go darker with values). In addition, it’s so tempting to draw in a few sharp details, but fog flattens everything into pale, blurry tones.

After several days of beautiful, well-earned sunshine, we were plunged into a deep fog again last Wednesday – so thick that I could barely see across the street. It was also frosty-cold. I tried a Mitsubishi Hi-Uni in grade H, but even that seemed too soft. It helped to use a blending stump to remove as much texture as possible, but that can also darken graphite if I overdo it. Next time, I’ll choose an even harder grade.

Fog Season

 

1/15/25 Maple Leaf neighborhood

This time of year, we can usually rely on morning fog. I say “morning” because typically it burns off by noon, but that part has become less dependable. The day I sketched this, the fog hung around like a heavy, wet blanket until the sun went down at 4:46 p.m.  Short days, damp air, cold temps – spring feels far away.

Fog, the Great Flattener

 

12/7/21 Maple Leaf neighborhood

If you’ve studied classical drawing as I have, you know that much of the emphasis is on depicting form realistically. It’s all about observing and using light to give the impression of three dimensions on a flat picture plane. Even when thick clouds obscure the sun, you’re supposed to squint hard and try to see whatever shadows there might be to help you describe the forms.

Simple tools for a flat day.

On foggy days, I am always struck by how flat everything looks. Fog obscures light so uniformly that everything in the far and middle distances looks two-dimensional, and even the closest parts show only slightly varying shades of mid-gray. It’s also hard to resist giving distant trees more texture. In fact, I pulled out a blending stump to take away what little texture the side of my pencil point had made.

Two years ago I sketched the same scene in the fog from a slightly different angle.

Foggy Thanksgiving Morning

 

11/24/22 Maple Leaf neighborhood

Thanksgiving morning dawned in a deep fog. As I prepped for the day, I watched it get thicker and thicker. By late morning, the sun was making a valiant effort to burn it off, and I saw a strange effect: I could barely see across the street, yet the fog right in front of the sun must have thinned enough for shadows. Even as I finished the sketch, the fog dissipated, and the rest of the day was clear and bright.

More Fog

10/23/18 Maple Leaf neighborhood

The fog was so thick Tuesday morning that I could barely see the house across the street. I went upstairs to sketch this from our bedroom window. The utility wires dripped as if with rain. Even through the pea soup, I could see the warm glow of our neighbor’s tree. It’s one of my favorite things about fall – seeing trees blazing through fog.

Technical note: I’ve lately been experimenting with putting a bit of color in my mostly-graphite sketches (I tried it in the sketch I posted yesterday, too). If I try to apply colored pencil over graphite, it doesn’t layer well, so I erase out a clear spot of paper first. Then if I want to mute the hue further as I did in this foggy scene, I can smudge graphite over it.

What do you think? Is the touch of color effective?

Foggy Mornings

9/12/13 Watercolor, Diamine Chocolate Brown ink, Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook

We’ve been starting our days with a thick layer of fog the past couple weeks. Apparently it’s been foggy in Charleston Harbor, Oregon, too, because Elva Paulson made some remarkable paintings of pelicans in the fog. When I saw them yesterday on her blog, I was stunned by their beauty, and she inspired me to get out to Green Lake this morning to sketch the fog.

Unfortunately, my sketch didn’t capture any wildlife, unless you count the (construction) crane on the horizon.

Smog

 

10/10/22 Maple Leaf neighborhood, fog just beginning to lift

10/6/22 Maple Leaf, mid-morning. The sun easily sketched
through the thick haze.

For me, the term smog connotes big cities like L.A., Beijing or Delhi, where the source is usually industrial pollution. Most of the year, Seattle’s air quality is relatively good, probably helped by all the rain that washes away whatever pollution there might be.

Fall is when we typically have thick morning fog that I enjoy sketching, but that’s the clean kind made of water vapor. The past week has given us a different kind of smog – a true mix of both fog and smoke from wildfires. In general, I stayed indoors, but on my few abbreviated fitness walks, I couldn’t resist making quick sketches of the eerie haze hanging over us. Most disturbing was when I was able to sketch the sun with my bare eyes.

10/4/22 Green Lake

10/4/22 Green Lake

10/8/22 Maple Leaf, sunrise

10/3/22 Maple Leaf, sunset

First Fog

1/1/24 From the bedroom window

The first day of the fresh year dawned overcast, but after a short while, a heavy fog came through. The temperature was 36. I stayed cozy and sketched this roofline view from our bedroom window.

Technical notes: I typically use graphite pencils to sketch fog, but I’ve been having so much fun with ArtGraf water-soluble graphite lately that it was a natural to try on a fogscape. It takes very little effort to get varying degrees of value even with a waterbrush.

Ever since the 30x30 Direct Watercolor challenge last summer, I haven’t necessarily avoided all under-drawing lines when I use paint or other wet media, but I’ve been pushing myself to use as few as possible. I almost always need some kind of under-drawing with architectural lines because I rarely get the angles right on the first try (the hardest part is showing the very subtle angle change between the Dutch gable and the rest of the roof  – and Seattle has so many of these). But I’ve never blocked in trees and other organic parts, even before the challenge. Just for fun, I took a snapshot of my under-drawing just before I started “painting” with graphite. (Sorry the lines are so pale – I used an H pencil.) I’d like to get to the point where I need even fewer lines than this.

Under-drawing in H graphite

Foggy Magnolia

10/27/18 Magnolia neighborhood

Morning fog has become such a regular occurrence that air quality has begun to suffer. It’s not a good thing for people who experience respiratory issues, but since I don’t, I enjoy it. Like snow, fog seems to insulate the world, softening sounds and casting a sense of mystery.

On Saturday I was in the Magnolia neighborhood’s public library for a meeting. Just outside, fog hung heavily over the fir trees, but a decorative cherry leaning over a fence gave the view a spot of color.

What Could Be More Important than Pencils?

 

1/23/22 Maple Leaf neighborhood, Seattle

As you know, I enjoy drawing fog. Happily, I get plenty of opportunities here in winter.

My favorite material for fog is graphite, but last week I tried a black colored pencil, just to see what it would be like. Then I remembered that colored pencil doesn’t smudge nearly as much as graphite. The soft, blurry effect was lost to my visible pencil marks on the subtle paper texture.

On this morning, I went back to graphite. As much attention as I give to my pencils, the most important tool for fog was the blending stump. The eraser was important, too – the chimney’s brickwork.

Fog with Charcoal

 

3/5/24 Maple Leaf from our upstairs bedroom window

Fog is a common winter occurrence. Until it appeared earlier this week, I hadn’t realized how surprisingly little we’ve seen this season. It was thick during breakfast, so I thought I had plenty of time, but by the time I went upstairs, I could see that it was already beginning to lift. I usually use graphite for fog, but anticipating the little time I had, I grabbed a Conte charcoal pencil, thinking it might be faster.

I’m not sure it saved me time, but its chunky point forced me to look at shapes instead of lines. The blending stump worked as hard as the pencil did.

Pre-dawn Fog

 

12/10/20 Foggy in Maple Leaf

Thinking I had probably exhausted all the pre-dawn sketching possibilities from our livingroom window, I still open the shades every morning with some anticipation, just in case. On this morning, I was delighted by fog, which diffuses light but also seems to reflect it softly.

My plan was to focus on that diffused light above the rooftops and between two houses across the street. Just then, around 6:45 a.m., a porch light came on, and our neighbor came out with his trash can. That’s when I noticed that they had put up a string of lights on their mantle.

By 7:05 a.m., the fog suddenly thinned, and the misty moment was over.

June Gloom

6/1/19 Wedgwood neighborhood

I first heard the expression “June Gloom” when I was visiting L.A. It’s a weather pattern marked by foggy or overcast skies and cool temperatures during the late spring and early summer. The weather people here like the term, too. The fog usually burns off around noon, but it starts to dissipate gradually long before that, so on this morning I headed over to Wedgwood early. The dips and rises in that neighborhood’s hills seem to emphasize the varying distances of the trees, which make them fun to draw in fog.

I had a feeling the car could disappear before I finished, but I could see that the fog was starting to thin, too. I had to make a choice.

Pea Soup for Breakfast

 

12/4/24 Maple Leaf neighborhood, about 8:45 a.m.

This is the time of year for sketching fog. Often it starts to burn off by mid- to late-morning and thins even earlier. If I want to sketch it, I have a relatively narrow window of time after full sun around 8 a.m. and whenever it may dissipate. Since I know it may begin lifting at any time, there’s always a bit of tension, which I relish. It was already fading by the time I finished this sketch shortly before 9 a.m.

I’ve tried different media to sketch fog, including watercolor (way back in 2013!), water-soluble graphite, charcoal and white colored pencils, but my favorite is graphite. In years past, I’ve often used a blending stump to soften graphite for a diffused, foggy look. The risk, though, is that the stump will darken graphite slightly, and it’s already challenging to apply graphite lightly. For this one and the one I had made the day before, I resisted the stump and challenged myself to draw as lightly as possible (and still be visible).

I’ve been using a Field Notes Streetscapes sketchbook, which has a lovely, mild tooth that I enjoy with graphite, but it might still be too strong a texture for soft fog. Next time I’ll try something smoother.

Pinehurst Pea Soup

11/8/18 Pinehurst neighborhood

It was another pea soup morning, but the weather report said that the fog would lift by noon. Fog often seems thicker further north, so I head out to the Pinehurst neighborhood, where tall firs fringe the sky even in residential areas. On a quiet street with no sidewalks, I parked in a spot that may not have been legal, but I saw very few cars going by.

Even as I sketched, the fog had started to lift; for a while, I could barely see those trees.

Foggy First

 

1/1/26 Maple Leaf neighborhood

The new year awakened with a thick blanket of fog. It’s a common occurrence this time of year, as my Facebook “memories” have been showing me my foggy sketches from years past. The first one I make of the season always feels rusty – like I forgot how to use a graphite pencil (which, I admit, I hadn’t used in a while, since I used only colored pencils during Pencilvember).

For the animals I’ve been drawing with colored pencils lately, my general approach is to slam on the color as hard and fast as possible. Drawing fog with graphite, however, requires the opposite approach: Shading as lightly as possible while still being visible.

Fog Behind Maples

9/12/13 Diamine Chocolate Brown ink, watercolor, Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook

After sketching the fog over Green Lake, I walked to my favorite stand of maple trees for another seasonal sketch. (To see my series of sketches marking the seasonal changes in this stand of maples, scroll down to the labels at right and choose “seasonal maples.”)

Whenever I intend to paint a sketch, I automatically grab a Lamy filled with Platinum Carbon ink – my waterproof ink of choice – for the line work. But since I’ve been using my Sailor filled with Diamine Chocolate Brown lately, I tried something new this time: I did the line work with that water-soluble ink instead. It’s a nice warm brown that washes with a reddish hue – just right for these trees that are definitely showing touches of red and orange. Against the backdrop of the foggy sky and lake, they seemed to blaze even more brightly.

I guess there’s no more denying it.