You think you know how to draw a full moon. Honestly, most of us do. We grab a compass or a soup bowl, trace a perfect circle, and call it a day. But then you look at it and it feels... flat. Dead. It looks like a white dinner plate floating in a sea of black ink. It doesn’t glow. It doesn’t have that haunting, cratered texture that makes the real Moon look like it’s actually hanging in three-dimensional space.
The Moon isn't just a white circle.
If you want to create something that actually stops a scroll on Instagram or looks decent in a sketchbook, you have to stop treating it like a 2D shape. The Moon is a massive, dusty, rock-covered sphere being hammered by sunlight. It has geography. It has history. Getting that onto paper requires more than just a steady hand; it requires understanding how light interacts with regolith—that fine, gray lunar dust.
The "Perfect Circle" Trap
Stop obsessing over the outline.
The biggest mistake beginners make when they sit down to draw a full moon is focusing 90% of their energy on the perimeter. Yes, the Moon is round. But if the edge is too sharp, it looks like a sticker. In reality, the Moon has a very slight "bloom" or atmospheric glow. Even in the vacuum of space, the way our eyes (and cameras) perceive that bright reflected light creates a soft edge.
Instead of a hard, mechanical line, try using a light touch. If you're working with graphite, a 2H pencil is your friend for the initial layout. If you're digital, use a brush with just a tiny bit of feathering. You want the eye to focus on the interior details, not the border.
Mapping the Man in the Moon (Lunar Maria)
The "dark spots" aren't just random smudges. They are ancient volcanic plains called Maria (Latin for "seas"). When you draw a full moon, these are your landmarks. If you get these wrong, the Moon looks "off," even if the person looking at it can't quite explain why.
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You’ve got the Oceanus Procellarum (Ocean of Storms) taking up a huge chunk of the left side. Then there’s the Mare Tranquillitatis (Sea of Tranquility), where Apollo 11 actually landed. These shapes are irregular. They’re blotchy. They have soft, gradient edges because they are low-lying basaltic plains.
- Pro Tip: Don’t use pure black for the Maria. Use a mid-tone gray. The Moon is actually quite dark—it has the reflectivity (albedo) of an asphalt road. It only looks white because it’s contrasted against the darkness of space.
Craters and the Secret of the Ray System
Here is where most people mess up: they draw craters as little circles all over the surface.
During a full moon, the sun is hitting the lunar surface directly from our perspective. This means there are almost no shadows. Without shadows, those deep craters like Copernicus or Tycho don't look like holes; they look like bright spots.
Tycho, located near the bottom of the Moon, is the most famous example. It’s a "ray crater." When the impact happened, it sprayed bright material across thousands of miles. To draw this effectively, you should create a bright focal point and then use a dry brush or a blending stump to pull faint, radial lines outward. It looks like a giant splash frozen in time.
Value Mastery and the "Glow" Effect
If you want the Moon to pop, you need contrast. But not where you think.
The brightest part of the Moon isn't always the center. Because of a phenomenon called opposition surge, the Moon reflects light back toward the source (the Sun/Earth) very efficiently. This makes the whole disk appear relatively uniform in brightness. To make it look like it's glowing on paper, you actually need to darken the sky around it.
Try this:
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- Lay down your moon's base light-gray tone.
- Use a kneaded eraser to lift highlights for the "bright" crater rays.
- Use a soft 4B or 6B pencil (or a deep navy digital wash) to create a vignette around the Moon.
- Slightly—and I mean very slightly—smudge the very edge of the Moon into the sky.
This creates the illusion of "luminescence." It’s a trick used by landscape masters like Caspar David Friedrich, who knew that the Moon is only as bright as the darkness surrounding it.
Texture is Everything
The Moon is a mess. It's been hit by space rocks for billions of years. If your drawing is too smooth, it lacks character. Use a technique called stippling or "scumbling" (moving your pencil in tiny, messy circles) to create the appearance of a rough, rocky surface.
If you are using watercolors, the "salt technique" is a godsend. While the paint is still damp, drop a few grains of sea salt onto your Moon. The salt pulls the pigment, leaving behind textures that look eerily like lunar highlands and impact sites. It’s almost like cheating.
Common Misconceptions to Avoid
People often think the Moon is yellow or cheese-colored. Unless it’s hanging low on the horizon (where atmospheric scattering kicks in), the Moon is gray. Neutral, cool, boring gray. Adding too much yellow makes it look like a cartoon. Stick to a palette of grays, maybe with a hint of very pale blue or tan if you’re feeling fancy.
Another thing? The "dark side" isn't always dark, but in a full moon drawing, we don't see it. You are drawing the side that faces us. If you start adding heavy crescent shadows to a "full" moon, you've just drawn a gibbous moon. Decide on your phase and stick to it.
Step-by-Step Action Plan
To move from a "circle on paper" to a realistic lunar study, follow these specific steps:
- Step 1: Ghost the Outline. Use a light pencil or a low-opacity brush to mark your circle. Don't press hard. If you're using a compass, put a piece of tape where the needle goes so you don't leave a hole in the middle of your Moon.
- Step 2: Map the Maria. Look at a real photo of the Moon. Lightly shade in the "seas." Focus on the "Rabbit in the Moon" or the "Man in the Moon" shapes. Keep these edges soft.
- Step 3: The Tycho Splash. Mark a bright spot near the bottom. Draw very faint lines radiating upward and outward from it. This gives the sphere its "round" feel.
- Step 4: Contrast Check. Darken your background. If the background is white paper, the Moon will never look like it's glowing. You need that dark sky to provide the "punch."
- Step 5: Micro-Texturing. Take a sharp pencil and add tiny, tiny dots and "crescents" inside the darker Maria areas to represent smaller craters and ridges.
Once you’ve finished, take a photo of your work and turn it to grayscale. If it still looks like a sphere, you’ve nailed the values. If it looks like a flat circle, go back and add more contrast to those ray systems and the surrounding sky.