SGL 2023 Challenge 2 - Sketches

[josefk]

This is "cold and damp off the clipboard" rather than "hot off the press" - a 75% Waning Gibbous moon sketched 05:50...06:30 this morning.

Very damp outside just now so i lost the ability to fully detail the terminator (or at least i lost the ability to try to bring the detail i could see into the sketch). Basically the paper wouldn't take highlight and shadow marks very well. 

The same spotting scope set up and white pastel, white pen, black fineliner set up as usual on a black index card.

[SuburbanMak]

2 hours ago, josefk said:

This is "cold and damp off the clipboard" rather than "hot off the press" - a 75% Waning Gibbous moon sketched 05:50...06:30 this morning.

Very damp outside just now so i lost the ability to fully detail the terminator (or at least i lost the ability to try to bring the detail i could see into the sketch). Basically the paper wouldn't take highlight and shadow marks very well. 

The same spotting scope set up and white pastel, white pen, black fineliner set up as usual on a black index card.

Beautiful! 

[PESKYWAABBIT]

These are all amazing. I am shocked how lovely and powerful each of the images are. Must try this myself.

[Dark Adaptation]

Well, I'll bite. Here is my submission! The medium I used is purely mechanical pencil and my thumb (for smudging) on a piece of scratch paper, and I must admit--it was rather difficult, sitting outside for an hour with my hands freezing off in -15 degrees C temperatures 😁. Sketching at the eyepiece was something completely new to me, and I'm not an amateur artist (I think). I chose the Moon because the telescope I own--a Maksutov-Cassegrain 60mm--isn't powerful enough to magnify anything else into greater detail than a smudge. I did not go into too much detail with the drawing, mostly because my fingers felt about as mobile as breakfast sausages by halfway in, but also because every time I looked at some small detail, it disappeared. If I moved my eyes away to some different part, there it was again. So I settled for just an outline, with the most obvious craters and mountain ranges.

Throughout the course of my sketch, I discovered some interesting details: 1) Quite a few of the noticeable craters on the Moon come in threes! 2) The Moon moves out of the eyepiece at an alarming rate; 3) The bottom side of the Moon was rather lumpy, since the edges were actually mountain ranges; 4) I had never found a use for tilting the eyepiece of the telescope until now--if the telescope is in front of me, I can't very well draw with my knees knocking it. So I had to move it to the side, and tilt the eyepiece. Lastly of all was drawing without looking. This is another thing I don't usually do, but this time, since it takes my eyes a moment to focus on the image, I had to do it. And it didn't turn out badly! The scale and location of the "seas" might be slightly (all right, noticeably) off, but not enough to bother me.

I edited the photo slightly using Gimp, but only to fill the background from white to black, giving it a more authentic look. Doing anything else would be obvious to anybody who looked closely.

 

 

[josefk]

I like it a lot @Dark Adaptation  not easy keeping up with the mountains and valleys and crater rims on that terminator is it? 😂

 

I assume that was Friday night because I see features in your sketch I also found eye catching on the same evening: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/406188-first-time-lunar/#comment-4354316

 

 

Edited February 26, 2023 by josefk

[CraigT82]

Theophilus and Cyrillis last night (my first  sketch 😃) I tried to capture the view in the centre of Theophillus which caught my eye. There were the two largest central peaks in bright sunshine and then there three three tiny, white, star like dots which represented the third, more irregular peak. Must have been the three highest points of that peak just about catching the sun. 

Outline sketched at the eyepiece and shaded/ finished indoors. HB & 4B pencil and white colouring pencil for highlights,  on regular white sketch pad. Picture of sketch taken on my phone and boosted contrast of the image to hide the shading lines (hope that’s ok) 

[Moon-Monkey]

What an outstanding thread this is @admin can we please have more sketching comps maybe a series etc in the future maybe dedicated to one subject every couple of months ? 

[markse68]

Was about to post similarly Moon-monkey  It’s a wonderful thread and anything to encourage more sketching has got to be a good thing 👍 

Mark

[Dark Adaptation]

7 hours ago, josefk said:

I like it a lot @Dark Adaptation  not easy keeping up with the mountains and valleys and crater rims on that terminator is it? 😂

 

I assume that was Friday night because I see features in your sketch I also found eye catching on the same evening: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/406188-first-time-lunar/#comment-4354316

 

 

Thank you--and you are nearly correct. I was actually sketching on Saturday, though it was close enough to midnight that it might as well have been Sunday. Now, crater rims. Those are what I call hard. Especially at low magnification  

Edited February 26, 2023 by Dark Adaptation

[CraigT82]

Posidonious sketched last night, 102ed refractor and 3mm StellaLyra LET EP giving 238x. 
 

I sketched this out in pencil at the eyepiece over about 40 minutes, with the intention of going inside and finishing it off as a pencil sketch, however I decided to try another medium and took myself off to Hobbycraft to get some charcoal pencils, grey pastels and a white paint pen. I’m still trying to figure out what kind of sketching medium takes my fancy. Today I finished off this one with charcoal pencil and the white paint pen for the highlights. I also bought some paper stumps for blending and found these quite effective for shading, applying to charcoal to the stump and then rubbing  it onto the page to get a shaded grey instead of flat black. 

[mikeDnight]

These are great sketches Craig. I love the freeness of your sketching style, as it seems really relaxed as if you're just enjoying the ride, yet the end result has an impact and truthfulness about it. Truly excellent!! 

[CraigT82]

Thanks Mike…. Your encouragement is greatly appreciated! 

[Nicola Fletcher]

It’s simple and just a photographed copy from my sketchbook, but this is the best night I viewed comet C/2022 E3 ZTF. It’s the first comet I really observed properly and followed over time. I’ve sketched it on multiple nights and I’m glad to have a record of my observations over time.

I use white chalk pastel, paintbrushes, pastel pencil and a white Gelly roll pen on black paper.

[Justin richens]

The Sun - Drawn from memory due to the constant cloud since I bought a new scope

 

Gear -

Bic ballpoint pen

A4 white 80gsm Paper

 

 

[Gonzo]

😉

[Dark Adaptation]

12 hours ago, Gonzo said:

😉

I noticed that! 😂 But me being me, I completely forgot about it a few minutes later.

[CraigT82]

Another one from me… Sinus Iridum just coming into the light. Sketched last night at the eyepiece and have tried to maintain a faithful eyepiece perspective. I say sketched last night but when I looked at it again today I was unhappy with it and so a lot of erasing and redoing occurred.

I used a white colour pencil, light grey pastel pencil, compressed charcoal pencil and a white paint pen for highlights. All on black paper sketch pad. 

Scope was a 102ED on AZ4 and StellaLyra 3mm LER EP giving 238x.

 

[CraigT82]

Aaaaaand another!  Again sketched at the EP last night. Took only 20 mins this one in total.  Had absolutely no idea what this crater was when I was at the scope but checking the map I’ve identified it as Capuanus, to the SE of Mare Humorum.

I really like this style/medium as it’s quick and quite effective. I shade the paper before even going out, pick a target at the EP, sketch it out in HB pencil at the scope and then embellish with black and white pastel pencils afterwards. 

Same setup as earlier 102ED on AZ4 and 3mm EP giving 238x

[markse68]

Hey Craig, this is quite a thing to witness in real time! You finding your style and technique from one sketch to the next and each one beautiful! That last one really pops of the page- it’s wonderful

Mark

[CraigT82]

5 hours ago, markse68 said:

Hey Craig, this is quite a thing to witness in real time! You finding your style and technique from one sketch to the next and each one beautiful! That last one really pops of the page- it’s wonderful

Mark

Haha thanks Mark it is a bit of a scattergun approach!  Got to admit it’s pretty addictive. Cloudy last night so I’m now walking around the house looking for things I can sketch 

[Knighty2112]

Have to say this is going to be a hard one to judge. All works (apart from the [removed word] one from Justin) are excellent (but yours is good in another way Justin!  ). Really enjoying seeing all items submitted. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻😀😀😀😀

[Knighty2112]

Er, not sure why it removed a word I typed in there. Was certainly nothing rude or anything? 🤔
 

Unless there is another meaning that I am not aware of for this removed word the word censored was j.o.k.e.y. for when someone says or does a funny thing! 

Edited March 4, 2023 by Knighty2112

[JeremyS]

2 hours ago, Knighty2112 said:

Er, not sure why it removed a word I typed in there. Was certainly nothing rude or anything? 🤔
 

Unless there is another meaning that I am not aware of for this removed word the word censored was j.o.k.e.y. for when someone says or does a funny thing! 

Indeed [removed word] is no longer considered appropriate 🤣

[JeremyS]

We might have to use jockey instead 😊

[CraigT82]

Thought I’d have a bash at a deep sky sketch last night. I had my 12” newt set up  on a dob mount down at my in-laws house, where we spend most Monday nights, and it benefits from a darker sky than I enjoy at my house.

My intention was to sketch M45 first and move onto one of the OCs in Auriga, however I only had periodic breaks ont he cloud cover to work win, so M45 on it’s own would have to do. At the eyepiece I sketched out the positions and magnitudes of the stars using white pastel pencil on black sketch pad. Afterwards I used a white paint pen to emphasise the brighter stars and used crushed grey and a tiny bit of blue pastel on a brush to try to depict the faint nebulosity around Alcyone and Merope from memory (I could swear the nebulosity was blue visually, however I’m not sure if that could be the case and it may have been just my brain adding the colour. I then took a pic of the sketch and added the black frame to seem like an EP view and added the text (on the actual sketch I wrote the wrong details and so that’s what drove me to add the black frame!)

 

Edited March 7, 2023 by CraigT82