Equipment for beginning sketching

Hi all!

Firstly, apologies if this issue has already been discussed elsewhere on the forum (I had a look and couldn't see this topic).

Anyway, whilst I am busy putting the pennies away to buy my first scope and after that something like the Meade LPI imager to capture what I see, I am going to turn my hand to sketching what I see through my binoculars.

Would somewhere like Easons sell what I need? Do you just buy some black paper and a silver pencil? These are probably very sill questions, but I am a beginner

Any other advice on starting sketching?

Thanks for any help you can give.

Hi Gareth

Binocular sketching is a great way to start, even 10X50's will give you a view of the moons features, good enough to pick out prominent craters, the maria , bays, ejecta rays, and mountains.

Try put your binoculars on a steady tripod , or if yours is not so steady , you can hang a weight from it to improve stability.

I use a variety of pencils, Daler Rowney and Staedtler brands.
I like to have from 4H to 8B at my hand ie from very hard to very very soft. These give lines that go from thin and light in colour thick and black in color. They are very useful for lunar sketching, especially the pencils from 5B - 8B.

A rubber cut to give a fine edge , for use to remove pencil work to enhance rays and other albedo areas.

I buy my stuff, mostly in Premier Arts Supplies www.premierartsandcraft.ie/schools.htm in Greystones.

When I am in Dublin I would buy in Kennedy's in Harcourt Street www.kennedyart.com/Pages/Start.htm or O'Sullivan Graphics www.osullivangraphics.com/

If the sky clears this week you should try for a moon phase sketch and make annotations of the features you identify.

A headlight is useful so your hands are free, most have a red light choice for deep sky work later in the month. Woodies carry them , I think they are Eveready products.

See click on the link below saying Here are some of my pencil sketches, on this page here www.deirdrekelleghan.com/1252/1273.html

If you want further information on pastel or conte sketching on black paper let me know and I will tell you a thing or three about it , when I have a minute.

That's all for now

Deirdre Kelleghan
PRO IFAS
President IAS
www.deirdrekelleghan.com
twitter.com/skysketcher

Hi Deirdre,

Thanks for your detailed reply. I've made a shopping list for the weekend All I need now is some clear skies.....
I'll let you know how I get on.

Thanks again,

Gareth.

Gareth --

Lots of good info from Deirdre there. Let me just add that sometimes I sketch in black pencil on white paper and then invert it after scanning, and sometimes I sketch in white pencil on black paper.

I find black pencil on white paper much easier (the white pencils are either too waxy or too crumbly for me to feel as comfortable with them), so I do that when I can (most of my night-time sketches). The white paper is too blinding during the day, though, so I do my solar work in white pencil on black paper.

I'm not sure which I'd choose for lunar -- I haven't done much of that yet.

I don't live near any good art supply shops, so I get a lot of my stuff mail order through ecreations.co.uk. (My local Art & Hobby does cary some stuff -- Daler Rowney Graphic pencils, some Daler Rowner sketch books, some Conte crayons.)

Cheers,
-- Jeff.

Jeff - thanks for that.

I went out over the weekend and had a wonderful view of the moon through my 15x70 Binoculars on Saturday evening. Breathtaking stuff. I identified Mare Crisium with the help of a map I printed off the net. It was the first time I was able to locate and name a feature on the moon, so I am quite impressed with myself given I have only recently gotten into amateur astronomy. It was very rewarding (althoooooough I am sure it sounds a bit naive to more experienced stargazers).



I tried to sketch what I saw, but it was not a very good effort, but I will keep on trying.

Thanks again.

Gareth.

www.ap-i.net/avl/en/start

Virtual Moon Atlas , download from list on the left.
Very useful for IDing features.

Keep trying the sketching will happen

Deirdre Kelleghan