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I've tried tortillons, stumps and even my finger - trying to make the haze look more like unresolved stars rather than nebulousity (there's a definate difference between the two).

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Mike, I see no difference between an unresolved haze of stars and nebulosity. But that's just me.

I use the same aproach to draw the Andromeda nebula ,M31 (people thought it was a nebula until prove was given), as I do to draw an unresolved globular or the Orion nebula. For my eyes, there are only two types of objects : pinpointed stars and 'glow'.
Astronomers once believed that every nebula would resolve if a powerful instrument would be used to observe it, so neither could they make a distinction between the two types of glow.
When I look with my bino's at an open cluster, the unresolved stars appear like a faint nebula. I have to look up books to find out if the nebula is real or unresolved starlight.

When we use our averted vision, we gain a few magnitudes on sensitivity of our vision, but loose on resolution. Most faint star clusters appear like unresolved glows, unless we use a high enough power to notice separate stars.

My reply will not help you in solving your drawing problem though. Here is my idea : first draw all the stars that you can detect, ignore the haze. Then concentrate on the haze. It might help to unfocus the scope a little to notice the glow better.

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The technique Jim refers to is "stippling" (swap the m for another p), but it is likely what you want.
-- Jeff.

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DOH! That's two misspells in one evening Thanks for the correction.

Great sketches, really shows off how the technique can bring out the texture as you say.

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