What do I need to start sketching?

[Manok101]

Thats as simple as it gets. Do I just go out and buy a sketch book and some pencils? Is there something I should know? Astronomy sketching sorry about the lack of details .

[nightfisher]

If it were me asking this question and any one had seen my drawing, they would answer with "some ability"

I did by a sketch pad but i cant draw a short straw to save my life

[tbird]

I've just started sketching and I was pointed to this site Astronomical Sketching Resources - Belt of Venus

[ollypenrice]

As the son of artists and the husband of an artist I'd say, get some teaching in drawing. I'm no good myself but my wife and parents' golden rules were; look and to draw what you see, not what you have in your head.

Don't look at detail till you have the whole grand structure mapped out on the paper. Make decisive marks, not feathery ditherings.

Olly

[4lefts]

Blending stumps are very useful for nebulosity. So is a putty eraser.

[todd8137]

black card and white gel pens and some thing to light things up the hardest thing when sketching is light,not enough and you can not sketch ,to much and your vision will go i look forward to your pics ,best place for to start was the moon ,its easy to start with and you never need a torch for light cheers

todd8137

[Pug]

Belt of Venus site is excellent, you can download observation records from there. As said previously, all you need is a red torch, clipboard, pencils, blending stumps and putty eraser. Just started sketching myself. Look forward to comparing results!

[1stfishinspace]

Adding to the black card/white pens advice above, consider a set of grey pastels (black-white with several greys in between) these can yield superb results!

[RikM]

Pencils and paper for me. I find the moon a great challenge to sketch. It's quite difficult to get right.

Open clusters are good for 'getting your eye in'. Draw a 2" circle on your sketch pad and picture a clock face. Then looking through the eyepiece, decide what 'time' each of the main stars are and how for out from the centre they are, then plot them onto your circle. Darker dots for brighter stars, lighter dots (or a harder pencil) for fainter stars.

It takes no artistic ability to draw round a mug then fill in some dots. You only need to decide where to put the dots

Have fun.