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James Pierce
member
Reged: 08/11/09
Posts: 10
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Hello again gang - After a good deal of encouragement for my first feeble attempts a month or so ago I've kept at it. Here's a few sketches of the moon as well as one of Jupiter from the last few nights. The thing I'm struggling with most is to get the highlights right, it's all to easy to end up smudging, or just mis-judging how much area to leave white, and yet it's almost impossible to accurately clean and touch up the highlights (like you can with darker areas). Is there a trick I'm missing ?
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Jeremy Perez
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 08/12/04
Posts: 1930
Loc: Flagstaff, Arizona, USA
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Those look great, James! I also find controlling highlights in graphite/charcoal sketches to be a little touchy. I like to use a pencil-style vinyl eraser. You can use a craft knife to sharpen the tip and then precisely touch up the edges of the highlight areas. You can also use an eraser shield to carefully erase small sections of a sketch--although I don't employ this tool very often, some folks make great use of it.
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Orion SVP 6LT (6" f/8 Newt) || Orion XT8 (8" f/5.9 Dob) || 15x70 Oberwerk Binoculars || Coronado PST
The Belt Of Venus || Sketch Gallery || Sketching Resources || Astro-Photo Gallery
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CarlosEH
Post Laureate
Reged: 01/19/05
Posts: 4138
Loc: Pembroke Pines, Broward County...
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James,
Excellent observations of Copernicus, Jupiter, and Theophilus/Cyrillus/Catharina. You have captured all of these objects very nicely in your Takahashi Sky 90 refractor. I was also observing the Moon and Jupiter on the same date and time (I have posted my observation of Copernicus on the forum). Thank you for sharing them with us all.
Carlos
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markseibold
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 01/19/08
Posts: 1084
Loc: Portland Oregon
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James
Very nice field sketches.  I admire your great control of black graphite on white paper as I have never worked in this mode. As Jeremy states the black graphite/charcoal can be touchy; and you asked about how to keep light areas light; you might consider trying white pastels or white Conte Crayon on black pastel paper. It is an entirely different experience but I find it working in the positive proper mode of applying white on black as we see the white light against black space. I also add some ranges of grey pastel chalks between the black and white. Everyone will develop their own personal approach.
You have achieved some great and realistic detail in your lunar sketches. Also many subtleties in Jupiter's cloud belts.
You have me wanting to try graphite or charcoal now on white paper.
Thanks for posting your fine work,
Mark
www.markseibold.com
My CN Gallery
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frank5817
Post Laureate
Reged: 06/13/06
Posts: 4084
Loc: Illinois
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James,
All excellent sketches. You can't go wrong with the advice you received above. One more suggestion, if I may, when you draw a circle to begin your Jupiter sketches, press very lightly with the pencil. I'm an expert on pressing to hard, I do it too.  
Frank 
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my gallery
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James Pierce
member
Reged: 08/11/09
Posts: 10
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On the jupiter outline, that's a black pen circle !!! Yes, I'm learning though - really only just started to get the hang of drawing jupiter at all. So much more subtle than the moon, the challenge is finding the detail to draw. With the moon the challenge is drawing all the detail that can be seen !
Here's another moon sketch from last night. I'm happier with the highlights overall I think, I ended up cutting a small bit of eraser and trimming it down to a point to use as well as the eraser shield (who's shapes can be a bit arbitrary)
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