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Hi all,
Susy had asked me to do a bit of a sketch 'how-to', and with the sketch of Posidonius I posted in the thread "Lunar sketch night", Paddy also asked a question and prompted me to make the same notes here in the Sketching Tips thread.
Paddy had asked how to gauge the scale of a drawing according to how you see things in the eyepiece: do you draw to the same size as you see it, or do you make things larger. In a nut shell it depends on what you are trying to draw. How you go about this is detailed below.
I'll show how I go about it with a rough process on the sketch of Posidonius, following the pics numbered 1 to 3, and starting with a really hard pencil in numbers 1 & 2, like a 6H as these lines will be rubbed out as you go. The last pic is my finished sketch which I nutted out at the eyepiece last Friday night.
1: Have a good look at the area in question. Then squint a little to get an overall notion of the light and dark areas as this will give you the direction of the main axis of the feature to be sketched. Then you set the scale by 'boxing in' the main feature- here a crater. The rest of the sketch will follow this very scale. How do I determine how large to make the scale - just decide on the boundries of the area to be sketched and just get the 'boxing in' done. Nothing more. The rest will follow.
2: Next position the other major feature along the axis in proportion to the principle one. Then roughly mark the other main craters and any significant BLACK features, here a mountain ridge.
From here, rub out any lines that are now redundant as you need to.
3: Start shading in the black shading, being careful to note the fine lines that are in black. This takes time as most of the detail sits here. Use no harder pencil than 2B as these need to be definite. The rest of the softer features can then be filled in. Write any notes you like with 6H pencil that will help remind of details.
Back in the house, these black features I went over with a black felt-tip pen. Make sure it is a permanent, water proof marker because if you go over the highlights with white paint the ink may bleed. The softer shading is also worked on. Highlights with white paint need to be done with a very fine brush and with next to no excess water in its bristles or the page will warp.
I hope this makes sense.
Mental.
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