I’m starting the first full week of World Watercolor Month off with a bang – a new class and a whole week of galaxy paintings! Thus I’ll be following the prompts this week only with perhaps colors that the prompt makes me think of.

As for galaxies – I’ve noticed that, for many years, a lot of us (me included!) just put a bunch of color on a piece of paper, add stars, and call it a galaxy. It was pretty, and easy, and fun….but in all honesty, those are nebula clouds, and are even zoomed-in views at that since we can’t see the whole shape. It’s just blobs. So I set off a few weeks ago on an adventure to learn how to paint real galaxies.

I’ve put together a new class, Galactic Watercolor, and this might end up being Galactic Watercolor I, as I have so many more celestial ideas I want to tackle! The galaxies in this class are all irregular ones – far more forgiving shapes than what you’ll see in today’s spiral galaxy video. I’m only just starting to figure out some techniques for those, so if there’s enough interest in this one, I can start on a new one later.

Video

Watch the video below or click here to see it on YouTube.

This idea came because as I was thinking about all the planets I’ve been practicing, I saw an art journal page with a hot air balloon on it – the two ideas came together, combined with something else special coming on Thursday, and this painting became the pre-quel to the other one! Be sure to subscribe to come back and see it – you’ll smile, I promise!

There are lots of colors you could use for the background darks, as well as several products I’ve found work well for stars….my favorite currently is Indigo, sometimes with a touch of Lamp Black, and using watercolor grounds for stars; I like that the grounds water down nicely to be able to make a slightly less opaque white too.

If you’re interested in participating in World Watercolor Month, there’s no signup needed – just join in! Paint and share your work. Every day, or just on days you’ve got time or are inspired! You can use traditional watercolor, crafty inks, coffee, lemonade – LOL! Use #worldwatercolormonth and/or #worldwatercolormonth2022 to share your work with everyone else participating. Go see their work too and leave them some love! The prompts are optional:

Supplies

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• Paper:
  • Arches Rough Pads:  Blick • Amazon
  • Arches Rough sheets
• Masking:
  • Grumbacher Misket Liquid Frisket BLICK • AMZ
  • Rubber Cement Pickup BLICK AMZ
  • Dishwashing Liquid
  • Cheapie brush
• Watercolors, Daniel Smith:
  • New Gamboge
  • Anthraquinoid Scarlet
  • Quinacridone Rose
  • French Ultramarine Blue
  • Cobalt Teal Blue
  • Indigo
  • Lunar Black
  • Prussian Blue
  • Indanthrone Blue
• Stars and other white details:
  • Daniel Smith Titanium White Watercolor Grounds 4oz BLICK • AMZ
  • Other options for white:
    • Dr. Ph. Martin’s Bleedproof White • BLICK • AMZ
    • Liquitex Acrylic Ink, White • BLICK • AMZ