Sketching Forum

I would like to see a sketching forum on the IFAS boards. I post my sketches on www.cloudynights.com and get some great feedback and some very useful sketching advice from it. I use the name Dee on that forum.

Sketching from the eyepiece to the page is so rewarding, and totaly focusing. I post some of my sketches on this forum and I think it may be encouraging to others if a sketching section was available.

What do you guys think? Do you think there is an interest out there?

Deirdre Kelleghan
Irish Astronomical Society
www.irishastrosoc.org

Having seen your sketch work, and also co-awarding you with the first ever Novice Observing Challenge Certificate for your efforts (that HUGE Maccholz chart!), I am all for the promotion of a Sketch Work forum. I myself do a lot of sketches, almost weekly, simply because I don't have a suitable camera, to record my own observations.

But don't worry, I won't be flooding a new potential sketch forum with all of them!

I think sketching is a good way to pay more attention to detail - it is self-explanetory really. You appreciate observing more, particularly of things like the Moon, sunspots, the planets (depending on instrument size), and even star clusters and nebulae.

I guess it could be called Observing Reports By Sketch in the Observing forum?

sure, why not.

I agree with Dee wholeheartedly! Her recent lunar venus occultation sketch was in NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day.

Many of my pastel artworks have appeared in NASA's www.spaceweather.com and once in APOD.

I have trouble finding where to post sketch and artwork here. There is a large participation in the US site, Cloudy Nights Astronomy Forums >
www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/postlist...at/0/Board/Sketching

Also, I just tried to upload and attach here, two of my recent large lunar sketches, but the site disqualifies them as the wrong format. Why such stringent restrictions? They are small memory jpegs of say 60 ~ 70 KB.

I'll look forward to advice from any of you,

Thanks,
Mark

A sketching forum sound slike a great idea, I'm sure there are more people out there sketching and perhaps they would like to display their work.

One thing that should be mentioned that not everyone is as talented as Dee or Mark, check out his sketches on Cloudynights, wonderful. So, no matter how bad you think your sketch is, post it regardless as I'm sure the above mentioned would be only too happy to offer practical tips.

Besides it's a great feeling to see something you've created out there for the world to see.

Paul

I'd be all for it.

On CloudyNights I post most of my sketches in the Deep Sky forum as observing reports, and use the Sketching forum to talk about materials, techniques, etc.

But I'm easy to please -- I'll follow whatever common practice becomes.

-- Jeff.