Of the naked-eye planets, Mars goes through the largest changes in brightness. Right now, it is as big and bright as it gets. At other times of Its and earth’s year it fades to being barely visible unlike Jupiter, Saturn and Venus or Mercury for that matter. I’ve read some say that’s why it’s named for Mars, the god of war. Besides it’s red hue, like war, it is sometimes close and noticeable and sometimes dim and far away. Anyhow get out and see it over the next week or so.
One problem if you are looking at it through a telescope is that because Mars’s day length is nearly the same as earth’s, you see pretty much the same side of Mars every night.
When I used to go out with my tripod-mounted 16x70 binocs, I would, when it was possible, view Venus in the daytime. It's actually naked eye visible in the daytime at times, if you know precisely where to look, and of course have good enough vision. In fact, Venus' crescent phases can only be seen during the daytime. Otherwise, the planet is ordinarily too glaringly bright.
I can't recall if I've ever tried it, but it well may be possible to see Venus as a crescent at night under hazy sky conditions, where the clouds act as a filter of sorts.
Quick story: One day I had the binocs set up in New York's Central Park, providing the public free views of Venus as a crescent, and a guy walks up to me with a bewildered look on his face wondering what the heck I was looking in the bright blue clear 'empty' sky. I answered, the planet Venus, and invited him to take a look. He was amazed at the sight. Although I never let on that I knew who the guy was, he was comedian Jerry Seinfeld. Anyway, he hung around for about an hour talking as I showed other passerbys the view.
About a week or so later I read that he had been going around the city that week looking for material for some upcoming routine or project that he was working on. He basically was out looking for 'oddball' characters for ideas and inspiration. I don't know if he ever used anything from that day in any of his routines.