Telescope Reviews: Congratulations !!!

Thanks to all of you for your kind words; I owe much of this to the encouragement that many of you offer here in the CN Forums.

Yes, I think it is my second win with sketched art being chosen over the astrophotographers. I guess this must say something about the moon as art vs photography? I just re-read the January contest finals again which was my other win over the photography as I could not remember some of the words; and realized two days ago that I am to receive a T-shirt since January! I never responded to that yet, so I wrote to Charlie to indicate the size. See how far removed I am from all of this? Thanks again Charlie. When I was in high school, my parents got me a subscription to National Geographic. Other friends who already had the subscription would ask me, Mark did you see that great article in last months issue, did you read it? No, I told them, I just look at the pictures.

I must say that all those competing astrophotographs are beautiful and I know that each photographer exerted much effort and work to capture their images. With that said, I have some explaining to do.

This was one work that I believe I exerted the least effort and time on although it is yet the largest format paper that I had worked on to date. What if they measured our success on effort? as I feel that I have not really tried to achieve my greatest work yet. I procrastinate with artists block allot. I have just recently begun to make the sketches bigger.

I think that much of the impact in this work is owed in part to the portion that does not really qualify for this forum; that being the imaginary moonscape that I rendered in the foreground as the final touch. I spent even less time on that portion of the work (Also the details in it are not visible in this small screen photograph. Perhaps I'll post a close-up photo of that moonscape portion soon into my gallery.) More so, the four close –up renderings that I floated around the whole moon image in the sky are not the most detailed close-ups that I have done from observation through the eyepiece.

Whats more, I find it interesting that the sketches that seem to have won over photography in the past and present have been, I believe, that of the moon more often than not; the object that many astronomers do not like or chose to ignore. And is that astrophotographers too? Perhaps the best things in life are going un-noticed? Those which may be the close to us.

So with all these minuses about the moon as an art subject and imaginary art rather than technical scientific observation from reality, what am I doing that is so special? Breaking the rules of convention? Dare I do the moon again next month! I thought I was a solar astronomer.

Mark
www.markseibold.com
My CN Sketch Gallery

Imagination is more important than knowledge - Albert Einstein

Edited by markseibold (05/17/09 02:12 AM)