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Materials

Paints

To begin, you will need some paint, something to paint with, and of course, something to paint onto. Start only with black paint (for space) and white (for stars). A full palette of colors are expensive and can be added as you progress. Clearance sales at your local art stores are often well worth the wait, especially if you have a limited budget.
You may want to start off with only white and black gesso. Gesso is a special medium for priming canvas in preparation for painting. It is an opaque paint like liquid that both seals and leaves a medium rough surface (called ground) for paint to easily adhere. Be sure to buy gesso suitable for acrylic paints. Some manufactures produce gesso in various colors including black.

• Black Gesso or Paint
• White Gesso or Paint
• Gloss Medium and Varnish

If you can not find black gesso then get a 16 oz. (or larger) jar of black acrylic paint. Jar acrylics have a higher pigment to medium ratio and tend to cover better than tube acrylics.

Something to Paint With

You will also need something to paint with. First you will need a brush for laying down the black gesso primer. I find a 1/2" to 1" medium stiff flat brush to work well. You will definitely need a toothbrush (preferably used) to spatter on star fields and other celestial objects. A soft 1" to 1-1/2" flat brush is ideal for varnishing. Some miscellaneous items such as a box of round toothpicks for dotting on stars and a small tee-square.

• 1/2" to 1" medium stiff flat gesso brush
• (old) toothbrush
• 1" to 1-1/2" soft varnish brush
• small tee square or ruler (metal preferred for cutting)

Something to Paint On

Finally you will need something to paint onto. Acrylics can be painted on a wide variety of surfaces from heavy paper to masonite hard board. Canvas is the traditional material and can usually be bought by the yard or on pre stretched and mounted panels or boards. Canvas can even be just cut up into pieces of any desired size. In this case I recommend pre-primed canvas that is already sealed with gesso. Raw un-primed canvas must be stretched to be primed to avoid wrinkling as it dries. .(Many of my first experiments were on small, one square foot, or so, un-stretched pieces of pre-primed canvas. Once finished, varnished and thoroughly dried they can simply be stacked together, rolled up, and stored in a cardboard or plastic tube.)

My preferred material, though, is hot press illustration board. Hot press board has a smooth surface as opposed to the slightly course texture of cold press board. Either would probably be suitable. Illustration board comes in many sizes such as (15" x 20"), (18" x 24"), (20" x 30"), (24" x 36"), (30" x 40"), and (36" x 48"). For experiments and test I cut a 15" x 20" board in half each direction resulting if four 7-1/2" x 10" pieces. Different brands react differently to priming. Some will bow and warp whereas other seem to remain surprisingly flat. Some brands also offer board in different thickness. Generally the thicker, the better. A few brands even come in black. Be sure though that it is a deep solid black.

I find when starting out its easy to be intimidated by a large blank surface especially if it costs enough that you can only afford a few of them. Cutting the longest length in half gives your two pieces that are more manageable. If it is still too much to tackle then cut one in half again, and so on until you have a size and cost that seems comfortable. As you gain skill and confidence you may find that the size that once seemed too big and intimidating has become too small and hindering.

Another advantage to illustration board is that it has nice stiff straight sides for a tee square. Unless the board was cut badly the edges will be perpendicular and you will not need a drawing board for accurate horizontal and vertical lines.

• Hot press board
• Utility Knife
• Tee Square (Metal edge)

Always be careful when cutting with a utility knife. I strongly recommend the type where the blade can be retracted into the handle. Keep the blade retracted or covered anytime the knife is not in use. Always double check and make sure that finger tips are clear and away from the cutting path. Avoid using plastic as a cutting edge. A sharp blade can easily shave into a plastic edge thus ruining an expensive tee square. Once damaged it is no longer good for either drawing or cutting.

Miscelaneous Items

• drafting or other removable low tack tape
• circle templates or small compass
• white colored pencil

Drafting or other removable tape can be used to mask off portions on the illustration board. I almost always start by masking off a border the width of the tape. This border can also be very useful for recording centers of circles, ellipses and location of other objects. Centers of circles can be difficult to determine once lost after being painted. The tape also makes an attractive boarder once peeled up. This prevents you from painting clear to the edge of the board where interesting items might be lost under a mat if framed. Paint running over the edge of the board can also glue your artwork to your workspace.

Tape can be torn into small pieces and built up for use under a compass point. This avoids poking holes in your board everywhere you need to draw a circle. Except for boarder tape always try and minimize the amount of time it is stuck to your artwork. Even low tack tape can pull up paint, especially areas that have been airbrushed. When using tape on the border or for other masking be sure to rub and burnish down the edge that will be painted to avoid paint seeping under via capillary action.

Preparing the surface (Priming)

The blackness of space is perhaps best rendered using black paint or gesso. Some artists use dark blue instead of black for backgrounds. This suggests sky glow or some other form of atmospheric illumination. Another "explanation" is the presence of a thin veil of a foreground or background nebula. The usually artistic motivation is simply so that the black shadow side of planets and other objects stand out against the background. This of course is less than realistic. A reasonably large night side of a planet will stand out surprisingly well against a sufficiently dense star field. Adding even the hint of a nebula can make it down right dramatic.

If desired, mask the border with tape. Wet the gesso brush with water. If using a squeeze bottle apply some heavy drops of gesso around the surface. Otherwise if using a jar dip and load the brush with gesso. Starting near a corner, apply and spread the gesso using either side to side or up and down strokes. Wetting the brush by occasionally it dipping into water and removing excess thins the gesso and generally produces better results. This also leaves less prominent brush strokes. Gesso brush strokes can become especially noticeable with the accumulation of over spray from airbrushing. Work across the surface spreading the gesso as smooth as time allows. Set aside to let dry. Black gesso dries especially quickly under the warmth of a lamp.

When dry apply a second coat using brush strokes in the opposite/perpendicular direction. One coat is sufficient for experiments and tests. I usually use two coats for everything else.

Some artists will sand between coats to remove all brush strokes to get a completely smooth surface. This may require more than two layers of gesso since you remove some with each sanding. Use a very fine grit paper specially designed for sanding painted surfaces. It may be necessary to apply heavier layers of gesso using a palette knife. Some surfaces, such as masonite, might tolerate wet sanding for a smoother finish. This, however, is very tricky on illustration board. If the water does manage to penetrate to the board itself the surface quickly tears and peels off.

It is generally more efficient to prepare or prime more than one board at a time. It is especially nice to have a ready prepared board nearby for those sudden moments of inspiration.

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