How to draw space with a black pen. How to draw space with colored pencils

On a dark night, when we look up, we see a black, bottomless sky and many sparkling small distant points. These are the stars. And somewhere between the stars, even further away and practically invisible to us, distant planets rotate around their axes and in their orbits.

Mysterious space... This little-explored and little-studied world beckons us, attracts us with its secrets and does not allow a person to calm down, asking him the same question: what is there, in the distant distance? A world of stars, planets, nebulae, asteroids, comets... Will we ever know the whole truth about you? The theme of space is very loved by artists: both experienced and beginners. Now let's pick up pencils and try to draw space step by step. So, let's get started!

Stage 1. First, draw a circle approximately in the middle of the sheet. This is the center of our universe - a Star called the Sun. You can draw a circle using a compass or by circling some round object that suits your size.

Stage 2. Then from the circle - the Sun we begin to draw elliptical circles. To put it simply, these are ovals of different sizes: from the smallest around the Sun. They gradually expand, increasing to the largest. These circles are the orbits of the various planets in our Universe that revolve around the Sun.

Stage 3. On the nearest elliptical circle we draw the planet Mercury. Next - Venus, then - Earth, and then - Mars. On our planet Earth we will show the wavy lines of the oceans and continents, and also draw a small satellite of the Earth - the Moon. In the foreground we will depict an interplanetary spacecraft with clear features.

Stage 4. Add large circles - the planets Jupiter and Saturn with rings around their axis. Let's add another front part to the spaceship.

Stage 5. Now the turn of the most distant planets has arrived: Neptune, Uranus and Pluto.

Stage 6. Using small dots throughout the picture between the planets and their axes of motion, we show cosmic dust.

Stage 7. It wasn’t at all difficult for us to draw space. Namely, our Universe with the center - the Sun Star.

Stage 8. Color the drawing. We do this carefully so that it turns out picturesque and believable.

Or oil paints, it will help to understand the method of comparing the above materials. Gouache is easier to apply. It allows you to correct design flaws and easily mix colors. Oil paints require more experience and professionalism. They are the most difficult to work with. To depict a painting in watercolor, certain skills are also required. You need to specifically know and understand how to paint space in watercolors, where and what will be located in the picture, since it is almost impossible to correct shortcomings. Therefore, many beginners prefer gouache.

Watercolor is created for works of a more professional level. Although it is also used for teaching in schools.

Basic principles

To depict space with paints or pencils, you need to prepare:

Take paper, paints or a pencil.
Try to immediately decide what will be shown in the picture.
First you need to draw the background.
Next you need to depict space objects.
Add the necessary effects.

How to paint space with paints?

Let’s try to answer the question: “How to paint space with paints step by step?” Beginning artists will need a little free time and imagination. Taking paper, paints and brushes, we get to work.

There are many recommendations on how to paint space step by step. Let's focus on one of them. The first thing you need to start with is to decide on the subject of the drawing. These can be your own fantasies about space, pictures, photographs, films and more. It is necessary to decide in advance where approximately the various objects in the drawing will be located. These objects can even be outlined with light pencil strokes so that the paint can hide them later.

The drawing should start from the background. He may not be black. Various colors can be used for the background, or even better, a combination of them. Having chosen the necessary shades, paint the sheet with bold strokes. It is best to use acrylic, oil paints or gouache for drawing space. This will give the picture a special flavor. After applying the background, the drawing must be left to dry. If you use oil paints, you don’t need to wait for them to dry.

Once the background is ready, you can begin to design the main details. It is best to draw objects several tones lighter than the main background. You can add highlights to them using paints with a white tint. To make the work more like a cosmic drawing, you can add various effects using light-accumulating or luminescent paints. If you want to give an object a three-dimensional image and a special relief, rub part of the paper with wax before applying the background. After applying the paints and depicting the main objects, you need to run a sharp object over the surface of the drawing. The volumetric image is ready.

How to paint space with watercolors?

By depicting a mysterious abyss, you can get an alluring and mysterious world. Comets, asteroids and other celestial bodies will help you get closer to the mysterious space.

In order to figure out how to draw space in watercolors, you need, as in the previous drawing, to take a sheet of paper, paint, brushes and decide on the background. To do this, you can use blue or lilac shades of watercolor. Black is best used sparingly or not at all. It is advisable to apply the background with a wide brush. After it dries, start creating. You can depict distant planets. Draw stars in the form of blurry highlights, four- or hexagonal outlines.

At the head of the picture, place, for example, a flying comet, consisting of a head and a tail, which can be depicted in the form of several rays. The latter can be either straight or zigzag. Orange or red colors are more suitable for this. The comet can be depicted in other colors, for example, silver or white, with small strokes of blue watercolor. As in the previous example, rubbing paper with wax will provide an interesting effect.

Instead of a comet, you can depict a rocket by outlining its contours with a simple pencil. To do this, we draw an oval with a pointed top and straight bottom. The two semicircular lines at the bottom of the rocket will simulate its tail. Red or orange colors will help depict the fire coming from the rocket. The body can be coated with lighter shades.

No less interesting will be UFOs and other objects of any color and shape. It all depends on your imagination.

There are many options for how to paint space in watercolors. Whatever method is chosen, the plot depicted with these colors creates clearer and more realistic contours. It turns out very bright and colorful.

Pencil image of space

To decide how to draw space step by step with a pencil and get a high-quality image, you need a little more attention and perseverance.

The technique of drawing with a pencil is a little more complicated compared to paints.
As with any drawing, you need to decide on the composition of the picture. To create the background, you will need to draw the right classic strokes that will give the drawing a sense of spatiality. You should start with the darkest strokes, gradually moving to lighter colors. The main thing is to avoid sharp corners and hard lines. We add images of planets, the moon, stars, etc. to the background. The depth, smoothness and softness of space should be reflected in the drawing.

Different variants

You can use various objects for a painting on the theme of “space”: stars, planets, rockets. Draw satellites, asteroids, comets. Also suitable for the plot are UFOs, a cluster of galaxies, etc. It is quite easy to draw these objects with paints, the main thing is to have a little imagination.

"Every atom of our body
was once a star."
Vincent Freeman

A week ago on our creative Instagram @miftvorchestvo we launched a competition for the best completion of the task from the notebook “642 ideas on what to draw”. The task sounded simple - space. Many creative and imaginative works were published for the competition. You can see them all by tag. We publish the best works and give a step-by-step master class on how to learn to draw space.

Best works for competition #642ideicosmos

“If you can’t fly into space, make it come to you.” Author of the photo - @al.ex_kv.

“And when darkness sleeps beside you, And the morning is far away, I wanna hold your hand and guide you...” Parov Stelar ft. Lilja Bloom - Shine. Photo by @julia_owlie.

Are they really cool? 🙂

Step-by-step master class

If you did not participate in the competition, but also want to learn how to draw space, save somewhere these step-by-step instructions on what and how to do so that it turns out bright and beautiful.

1. In order to draw the Universe, only 3-4 colors are enough. At least that's the amount you can start with. Important: The sheet for watercolors must be very dense so that it does not wrinkle from water and so that the paint spreads beautifully and evenly.

2. The outline can be drawn with a hard pencil to indicate the space that you will wet with water. Wet part of the allocated space.

3. Apply paint to the wetted area. Try to make the contours beautiful.

4. Wet the rest of the space with water and apply a different color of paint. Selectively add bright pops of color throughout the design. The drawing must be wet so that the paint spreads beautifully.

5. Once the design is completely dry, apply the stars. This can be done with white or yellow paint using an old toothbrush.

6. Some stars could be drawn more carefully.

Photo for the master class from the site kitty-ink.tumblr.com.

If you sprinkle salt on a wet drawing, the structure of space will turn out even more interesting. The salt will absorb some of the paint, and if you shake it off after it has completely dried, there will be beautiful white dots and clouds in place of the salt.

On our creative Instagram @miftvorchestvo we will regularly hold competitions on notebooks “642 ideas, what to draw”, “642 ideas, what to write about” and “642 ideas, what else to write about” (new!). Subscribe to keep up to date with everything creative, interesting and creatively fun.

P.S.: Did you like it? Subscribe to our new newsletter. Once every two weeks we will send 10 of the most interesting and useful materials from the MYTH blog.

Today I’ll tell you how to paint space using watercolors.
You will need: watercolor paper, white acrylic paint, a wide natural brush, a toothbrush, a tablet, electrical tape or masking tape.
A quick note before we begin. I am not a professional artist, and not an artist at all. Therefore, I focus on my own personal experience, and not how it should be according to science.

Paper for drawing space in watercolor

For this technique I use watercolor paper. It is better than usual because it absorbs water and does not deform so much. Ordinary paper comes in waves, water and paint simply flow off it. Watercolor paper dries quickly, while regular paper takes a long time to dry. I have a watercolor tablet from Greenwech Line. It's basically a cheap and simple paper, but it works for me for the job. You can buy paper individually in art and stationery stores. This is not such a rare product.
Let's prepare a sheet. In general, whenever you work with watercolors, the paper needs to be secured well. For these purposes I use a piece of plywood, but any board, any tablet that you don’t mind ruining will do. I glue the paper around the perimeter of the plywood with electrical tape.

Watercolor for drawing space

Any watercolor will be suitable for this work. I will use my old honey watercolor palette that is over 10 years old. A larger brush is suitable here to quickly cover the entire surface of the sheet. It is better to work with watercolors with natural brushes, because they allow you to pick up more paint and water.

Space in watercolor step by step for beginners

First stage
First, we wet the paper point by point so that the paint spreads better over the sheet. We begin to add light in small spots. We also apply the paint pointwise. Don't try, as they say, to paint the wall. We need these colored areas to be heterogeneous. I mainly use purple and blue colors. And in some places I add emerald and green spots. Don't skimp on water. The more it is, the better the colors will mix with each other, the less blank paper we will have. So before I pick up a new color, I dip my brush into a cup. When there is enough color, leave it to dry. You can dry the sheet with a regular hairdryer. Firstly, it will be faster, and secondly, all the waves on the sheet are smoothed out, and I just need the sheets to be as even as possible. Make sure that the paper is completely dry, otherwise we will simply wash out the paint with the second layer.
Second phase
Now you can proceed to the second stage. For this we only need black watercolor. We collect more water and more paint and boldly cover the entire sheet. So far it looks like a terrible mess, but don't worry. wait again until the layer dries. I'll turn to the hairdryer again. As it dries, other colors will begin to appear through the black layer. I ended up with a lot of gaps where there is no paint at all. In those places I added a couple of colored spots. Check again to see if the paper is still wet somewhere.
Third stage
And we move on to the most interesting third stage. But you also need to thoroughly prepare for it. To close the workspace, you need to make a protective screen out of paper. I use old Whatman paper for this. Bend a square sheet of whatman paper in half. Then again. Unfold it completely and cut along one of the resulting lines to the center of the square. Bend the sheet so that it looks like a room, three intersecting planes. We will need two such screens to completely cover the desktop. In general, in a good way, you also need to close the top, but that’s usually enough for me. Place the tablet inside the screen. Take an old toothbrush and white acrylic paint. Dip the bristles into the paint and begin spattering the paint onto the sheet. To ensure that the splashes fly in the right direction, move your finger along the brush towards yourself, otherwise all the paint will fly towards you and splash everything around. The closer you hold the brush to the sheet, the more crowded the stars will be. Change the height constantly to create a more interesting look. I had a lot of paint left on my hands and so that it wouldn’t disappear, I added it to the sheet with my fingertips. And our picture of space is ready. We detach it from the work surface.
In principle, there are other ways to depict the galaxy, but in my opinion this is the simplest and fastest. It took me about 10 minutes per sheet, no more. I used this technique when I made a space-themed greeting set. There I had a predominant color of green and I didn’t skimp on the splashes. Each time we get a completely different picture of space. If you want the images to be as similar as possible, make several at a time and apply spots in the same places. It will be even faster this way.
That's all. I hope you enjoyed today's master class. Happy creativity everyone!

Today we will teach you how to paint space in watercolors. This lesson is quite easy, which means that any beginning artist can master it. In addition, drawing space will also be useful for beginners who have not had time to master the “wet” and “graduated wash” techniques.

So, to draw space you will need:

watercolor paper;
tablet and masking/stationery tape (for fixing paper);
a simple pencil;
round synthetic brushes No. 6 and 3;
watercolor paints.

Drawing stages

Step 1. When working using the wet-on-wet technique, you must secure the watercolor sheet of paper on the tablet using strips of masking/stationery tape. Thanks to this, the paper soaked in water will not be deformed, and the applied watercolor shades will fall beautifully on each piece of the sheet.

Using a simple pencil, draw an uneven horizon line.

Step 2. Wet the sheet of paper thoroughly with water using a large brush to the pencil line. After applying water, paint should be applied as quickly as possible in order to achieve smooth, beautiful shade transitions. In the lower right corner we apply a little lemon cadmium with chaotic strokes.

We draw translucent ocher along the horizon line and the central part of the picture.

Step 3. Saturate the drawing with cool shades. Apply ultramarine to the central and upper right part of the sketch. Above the ocher horizon we add a little turquoise tone, and in the upper left corner - blue. Using a clean brush, blend the boundaries of the shades, making them smooth.

Step 4. Paint the upper corners of the sky with black.

And we make the already applied shades more saturated, using the same shades of watercolor, but with less water. We mix all the clear boundaries of the shades to obtain a beautiful gradient.

We process yellow borders with purple or violet-pink.

Step 5. Let the drawing dry, and then fill the unpainted island with black.

Using a thin brush we create the base of the trees, and then draw the small branches of the tops of the fir trees.

Step 6. Now add a white tone to the brush and select the light areas in the center of the picture. We blur their edges to avoid a clear outline.