Ivan, I draw on black paper just because I find I get better results to my liking. Convenient too as I then need to keep the one black paper pad for my lunar & DSO sketches.
I tend to use charcoal for the black details. If I go too far with the white it is easy to just go right back over it with the black. And vice versa. I don't use an eraser at all. Have a try.
My latest sketch, of the Aristarchus and Vallis Scroteri region.
Aristarchus is the bright crater that dominates the top edge of this view. To the right is the crater Herodotus. Vallis Schroteri winds its way down and across from there, draining into Oceanus Procellarum.
To the left is the almost completely submerged crater Prinz.
This sketch was done from an image captured on May 3rd through a 150mm SCT. Material is charcoal on white paper. Total time was around 3 hours.
Hey Ivan, nice work there. The good thing about what you are doing with sketching off an image like this is you are preping your eyes and hands for the work you will experience at the eyepiece. Learning what the media does, how to best exploit it, what works and doesn't. Your first session at the eyepiece will be less trumatic for this.
I like how your blacks are really black. Makes a real statement this way! How did you find using the charcoal? Quite a bit different from graphite, isn't it! I find it a beautiful, organic medium to use. And you don't need as much pressure applied to it to make a mark.
This is a sketch of the conspicuous craters Copernicus and Eratosthenes.
Copernicus is the main subject. I tried to capture the terraced crater walls and interesting central peaks. This sketch was done during a waxing moon as Copernicus was close to the terminator, and so the shadows are dramatic.
Below (to the North) is the edge of Mare Imbrium. Above is Mare Insularum and the crater Reinhold. To the left is Sinus Aestum, the "Seething Bay", and the crater Eratosthenes. The bottom edge of Montes Apenninus reaches out to Eratosthenes. Under this slanting light, the mountainous terrain appeared much brighter than the smooth mare floors.
The sketch is charcoal on white paper, and took around 3 hours to complete. I sketched from a photograph taken with a C11 at f/5 on May 30th.
It’s been a long while since I made a sketch of the Moon. Last night was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up – cloudless, no dew and the kids were in bed!
I spent half an hour scanning the terminator for a subject. I struggled to find an easily recognisable feature at first, and decided to look for those quirky “alphanumeric” features that to our mind resemble recognisable symbols like letters or numbers. Then a new world opened up with the change in mind set. As half chased letters started to show up, I chanced upon a fantastic freakish apparition – the face of an owl centred around the crater Mercator!
This striking resemblance is created foremost by the wing like mountains that reaches North East away from Mercator, and a vaguely similar feature reaching North West out of the neighbouring crater Campanus. Together these create the impression of the feather tufts that crest the face of the nocturnal aviator.
As the sketch developed and expanded, I came across so many unexpected features. My very first dome, Capuanus 2, in the crater Capuanus (top right of sketch), and the 309km long rile Rima Heiodus that punches through mountains from Palus Epidemiarum through into Mare Nubium. And then the last feature I included in the sketch was the crater Konig, named after the Austrian amateur astronomer whose Konig eyepiece design is one of my favourites (very bottom crater).
I showed my wife the sketch the next morning, and she too exclaimed the uncanny stylised resemblance to the owl! Confirmation to me that I’m not completely off my tree, .
Alex.
Object: Mercator’s owl
Scope: C8, 8” SCT
Gear: 5mm Hyperion, 400X
Date: 28th July 2012
Location: Sydney, Australia.
Media: Soft pastel, charcoal and white ink on A5 size black paper.
Like your sketch. I showed my wife, who just adores owls, and she saw and enjoyed your interpretation.
Your images are inspiring me to give sketching a go!
Fabulous sketch. I particularly like sketches at the terminator, they have bold shadows which really add dramatic effect, and your sketch really captures that.
I've had a bit of a run on Moon sketches. I managed another two this last weekend.
This one is of the region around the crater Brisbane. As it happens, the Australian link to this crater is a direct one as I've noted in the General Chat forum thread Brisbane City and crater linked.
I chose this section to sketch for the striking wedge shaped cluster of craters close to the terminator one day after the full Moon. This was the first time I chased down something to sketch at this phase of the Moon, and I was surprised to see so much was on offer to observe and sketch.
Object: Brisbane crater et al.
Scope: C8, 8" SCT
Gear: 9mm TMB Planetary Type II, 222X
Date: 3rd August, 2012
Location: Sydney, Oz.
Media: Soft pastel, charcoal, white ink and white china graph on A5 size black paper
I've had a bit of a run on Moon sketches. I managed another two this last weekend.
This one is of the region around the crater Brisbane. As it happens, the Australian link to this crater is a direct one as I've noted in the General Chat forum thread Brisbane City and crater linked.
I'll reply here so I don't repeat the post twice.
Just showed this to my wife and family, again we're in awe, at first they thought it was a photo from a distance.....
This is the second sketch I managed last weekend. The phase was the day after the Brisbane crater sketch, three days after full Moon. With no particular target in mind, after half an hour of scanning the terminator, evaluating this and that, I settled on this striking crater, Petavius.
It remined me a lot of Copernicus with its teraced walls, stunning central peaks, and detailed floor. But Petavius is also very different to Copernicus. The ray system is highly erroded from a more concentrated subsequent impacts, and the remant ray system to its south is very, very jagged. Might just be an illusion though due to the position of Petavius close to the Moon's limb, and Coperincus more central. But the effect is of a very nasty Moonscape.
Petavius also has an impressive rile running through its floor. Probably from fracturing of the surface - Petavius is a very ancient crater.
Being situated in a highly cratered section of the Moon, the surrounds of Petavius is complex, textured and tortured. There are very fresh impacts, and highly erroded ones. One such near obliterated crater sits just to the south (right) of the crater Snellius. There are three craters that trace a short arc around Snellius. The top one is the most erroded, with only a soft shadow of the depression remaining due to the innumerable smaller impacts. The crater just below this "shadow" is also highly erroded, but to a lesser extent, but also on its way to oblivion. And the third (S. A) I've just included its sharp illuminated eastern wall. The trio made for an impressive example of lunar errosion.
Snellius also has a rile running through its floor. Finer than that of Petavius.
I learnt a lot from this sketch. The time taken to observe each little section allows for a much more concentrated examination of the lunar surface. The erroded trio was one such little treasure of me. Another was a more technical one where I found a way to depict the variations of illumination by fixing the finished sketch, and then the application of the white ink has less bleed into it from the pastel and charcoal, making it even brighter.
Object: crater Petavius and surrounds
Scope: C8, 8" SCT
Gear: 9mm TMB Planetary Type II, 222X
Date: 4th August, 2012
Location: Sydney, Oz
Media: Soft pastel, charcoal, white ink and china graph on black paper
A sad time has befallen our hobby with the passing of Neil Armstrong. I never imagined as a little boy that I would be writing a tribute to him. And these words are not easy either.
Last Saturday night I managed a session with a good mate, both of us sketching the Moon. We never could have imagined what was happening on the other side of the world at the same time. What had been a very productive and happy time turned into a sorrowful one in a few short hours.
From my last sketch, I was determined to focus on the area around either one of the poles. Whatever took my fancy would become my subject. The spectacular crater Moretus caught my eye, and two hours later the sketch below appeared.
What most impressed me was the shadow flooded crater floor with its brilliantly white, massive and tall central peak surrounded by the silent blackness. Careful inspection showed a terraced internal crater wall, highly textured and fractured, as well as very crated too.
The whole scene was very dramatic with the foreshortened lunarscape, long, long shadows, and an impressively long leading edge of singularly illuminated peaks far beyond the terminator proper. By the time the main body of the sketch was done, I just couldn’t finish it without adding the position of the south pole and an extension of the south east limb with the irregular ‘horizon’ of the Moon.
This sketch will forever be a “remember where you were when…?” occasion with the passing of Neil Armstrong.
Neil, every time I look through a telescope, I become an astronaut too…
The world has lost a true hero. Humble, graceful, peaceful.
Alex.
Object: Crater Moretus to South Pole
Gear: C8, 8” SCT
Gear: 9mm TMB Type II Planetary, 222X
Date: 25th August, 2012
Location: Sydney, Australia
Media: Soft pastel, charcoal, white ink and china graph on A5 size black paper
PS, I've added a photo of the whole sheet the sketch is on.
Last edited by mental4astro; 28-08-2012 at 06:45 AM.
This drawing done on Saturday 25th August shows a chain of three prominent craters: Ptolomaeus, Arzachel and Alphonsus. Arzachel is the topmost and (with a diameter of 100 km) smallest of the craters in the above image, Alphonsus is the middle one having a diameter of 121 km. With 158 km, the crater Ptolomaeus is the biggest of the craters visible in this drawing.
Soft pastel and charcoal on black paper.
Alex gave me a lesson prior to attempting the drawing. I wasn't too fussed about my effort until I saw it in daylight and now I'm quite impressed with myself.
Thanks Alex for you patience and guidance.
I found the details about the lunar location at at... http://scholtes.syssoft.uni-trier.de...alphonsus.aspx
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