Here's an image of Venus I took on Wednesday evening. This was taken with a 6 inch TAL 2M reflector and a Philips Toucam Pro II webcam. Image is the result of approximately 400 frames.
You'll notice it has phases; this was one of the evidences for a Sun centred solar system. If Venus's orbit was outside that of the Earth, yet inside the Sun, you would expect Venus to maintain a very slim crescent. However what we actually see is Venus ranging from being full to an extremely thin crescent.
Venus is an easy object to spot in the western sky after sunset. You won't miss it, its third in brightness only to the Sun and the Moon. As Venus starts overtaking the Earth's orbit it will race closer and closer to the Sun, then in August it will move between the Earth and the Sun, and will over September and October become more visible in the morning skies, until finally going back around the far side of the Sun and re-appearing in the evening sky.