Sketching the Sun

[Qualia]

I've had a little dig around but couldn't find much on sketching the Sun, so thought I'd include a little topic on what I do. The tools used are: scrap paper and your drawing paper, a scratched up CD, Chamois cloth, a 4B, 3B, 2B and B pencil, blending stub and soft rubber.

The first step - try this the night before observing - is to draw a simple circle using a compass or CD (the blank plastic-disc which comes with blank CDs is useful). After this, rub some of the 4B pencil onto your scrap paper and then run your chamois cloth over this and start filling in the blank circle with soft circular movements around the sun's limb. This will create the darker limb appearance you see at the eyepiece and will give the Sun a three dimensional sphere like shape.

You will be creating something like this:

The next stage is to start blending from 4B into the 3B or 2B with your Chamois cloth, getting lighter and lighter as you move towards the centre. Most times I just go from the 4B to the 2B and rub more softly. In a perfect world you end up with something that on paper will look something like this:

You keep on doing this until you end up with something like this:

Now you're set up and ready to observe. Before going out to observe, check out the disc and make sure it's evenly spread with pencil rubbings and if there are overt finger lines add more pencil-lead and even them out. Don't be afraid of making the disc darker, for a little later you'll realise it's often better darker than too light.

The first thing I do is to plot the dark Sun Umbras. I use the 4B for this. Then for the Penumbras and Pores use your blending stub - don't use pencils. The pencil rubbings on your actual Sun disc and the dark pencilled Umbra will be sufficient lead to create adequate shadings.

For the Umbras the trick is to keep your pencils sharp at all times and tend towards the small rather than the big. It's too easy to over-fill, so keep it small and gradually build up. For the Pores and Penumbras dip the blending stubs into the actual Umbra or the disc itself and use that pencil-lead for the shadings.

When this is done you should end up with something looking a little like this:

The hardest part for me is adding the complex curves and runs of Faculae. For many months I'd use a yellow pencil but gradually built up confidence to go ahead and actually start rubbing out parts of the disc. For this I use sliced up pieces of soft rubber with just sufficient edge to give at least an idea of what is going on. Today wasn't a great Sun for this kind of detail, but as always keep it subtle.

The final 'trick' if you want to exhibit your sketch on the web is to scan into the computer and mount it on pitch black. This gives it that final 'photo' finish.

Hope this helped a little.

[Andy_E]

That's some truly fantastic work, thanks very much for sharing. I have a feeling any of my attempts would end up looking somewhat more impressionistic

[jetstream]

Qualia,you are talented.

[Qualia]

Thank you for your kind comments and thank you, Steve.

Okay, here's an example from the Sun this morning. I used a Herschel Wedge, 24mm Panoptic, blue, yellow and polarizing filter, and a Tal 100rs. As can be appreciated, after scanning the image in it didn't look as good as the original, so I've 'doctored' some of the Umbra which upon scanning came out a little rough and the shading of the actual disc has been smoothed over a tad. But here's the sketch:

[rory]

excellent. thanks for  sharing your method.

[David Smith]

Those are excellent Qualia, almost photographic in appearance. And a great tutorial as well.