This was a slightly different Wild Life Drawing event as we weren’t drawing animals or plants, but our closest neighbour, astronomically speaking: our Moon. It’s the vernal equinox here in the northern hemisphere and we have a full moon happening in a few days (nights?) so it was great to have the opportunity to draw this familiar and reassuring celestial body. It was also my mum’s birthday present!
Needless to say, the Moon is a lot more complicated to draw as soon as you start looking at the–admittedly wonderful–reference photos. Mum choose to do a white moon on black paper but I love painting with black gouache so I went for white paper. I used gouache in my Fabriano sketchbook for the one featuring the terminator, touched up with a little pencil once it had dried. The other two were painted in my Leuchtturm sketchbook, and I chose a more contrasty palette to depict the lunar maria, and the impact craters.
I really like these challenges as they are usually subjects I wouldn’t normally think to draw, and it’s fun to listen to the expert talking about the subject while we make our artwork, and I love looking back on these in my sketchbook. Next up are aa favourite of mine: flamingoes! I can’t wait! 🦩🦩
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