Thanks for the information, the link to the Mellish sketches, and the invitation. We occasionally get up to Salt Lake to visit the grandchildren. If I'm ever up there at a time you are planning to sketch, I may take you up on the invitation to observe the technique. There is something about well done sketches that just doesn't happen with photos. They seem to have more life than the photos and are more pleasing to look at in the same way excellent painted portraits (Vermeer) have more emotional effect than do photographs. I've done a lot of painting and art over the years. I already have the materials on hand to try this. When I first started observing, I did some sketches of planets, but it never occurred to me to try deep sky objects. I actually did an oil on canvas of Mars once. At the telescope, using red light to illuminate the sketch pad, I did a pencil sketch and made notes of the colors and anything else I thought I might need to turn it into a color painting. I prepared the canvas by "gessoing" it with some flat black acrylic. After the acrylic dried, I think (this was back in 1987 or so so some of the details of what I did are a little hazy) to the entire canvas, I applied a medium such as linseed oil or a mixture of linseed oil and odorless turpentine or Windsor Newton Liquin, I don't remember which one I used. Whichever medium is used, it has to be applied fairly thinly. It should be such that if you touch it with a finger it will coat the fingerprint ridges but not be enough to get down in the valleys. I think I blocked in the area that would become Mars at this point using the intermediate red color. At the time of the observation, there were a couple of stars that seemed to have a reddish hue and the rest were white. In the section of sky where the stars had reddish hue, I put a thin coating of alizarin crimson and I undercoated the rest of the sky with pthalo blue. Again, these passed the fingerprint test. These colors are transparent and couldn't be seen against the black acrylic. I built up the surrounding stars with titanium white, adding more white until the brightness seemed right, blending it with the underlying medium and paint. I painted in the rest of Mars and softened the sharpness of focus with a blending brush. I remember being pretty pleased with it. I'm not sure where I put the painting. Since it was just an experiment, I had cut a rectangle of canvas out and tacked it to a plywood board. I never fastened it to stretcher bars. If I ever come across it, I'll photograph it and email the photograph to you. On 12/27/2011 11:34 AM, Jay Eads wrote:

Hi William,

I appreciate your comments on my sketching. I have traditionally always used drafting pencils with 2B, 2H, HB, 4B and 6B lead on white paper. Earlier this year Alex Massey from Australia shared over at Ice in Space a method called the Scott Mellish or Mellish method. It is the use of pastel chalk on black paper basically and the method can be found here:

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/63-614-0-0-1-0.html

So 90% of the time I do the white on black at the scope but winter and the freezing temperatures have made me go to using my drafting pencils with their various leads on white paper also using blending stumps etc., with extensive notes, and then re-creating them at home using the pastels and charcoal. The batch at Lakeside were done this way and the batch I am currently processing from last night at Pit n Pole are that way also. They ones at home don't different much except I feel this method is a better representation of what is seen at the scope. I should have the Pit n Pole sketches up today or tomorrow. Come spring as the temps increase I'll go back to doing the white on black again. Feel free to contact me or if you want your welcome to come out in the field even without a scope and just watch the technique.

On a very, very sad note, Scott Mellish passed away earlier this year at the age of 46. In many ways his technique is just catching on with sketchers and he never lived to see that. It made me wake up because I am also 46 and that is far too young to pass away.

You can see Scott's work at Astronomy Sketch of the Day located at this special memoir at:

http://www.asod.info/?p=5434

His gallery at Astronomy Sketch of the Day is located here:

http://www.asod.info/?s=scott+mellish&x=0&y=0

Take a minute and look at his work. I think it is as stunning as many astrophotographers if not more so but I admit my bias for sketching. He refined his method for well over 15 years plus. Let me know if I can be of any help. All my supplies were purchased at either Hobby Lobby or Michaels.

On 2011-12-27 14:09, William Lockman wrote:

...

I was very impressed with your sketches. They very accurately show what one sees looking through a telescope. I was wondering about your technique and medium. You may have posed this before, but if you did, I never caught the posts. Did you use some sort of light colored pastel on a dark paper? Did you do the white on black at the telescope or did you do pencil on white paper at the telescope, then copy it in white on black later? What did you use at the telescope to illuminate the drawing surface? Was the telescope computer guided or did you have to keep moving it by hand to keep the image in view?

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