Space Painting

For this painting I used:

one 11 x 14 inch art canvas. sturdy poster board can also be used. Your painting can be any size.

black and white acrylic paint paint brush toothpick

paper towel

assorted colors of spray paints and drop cloth, old sheet or newspaper

assorted "shapes" of metal pieces found at the thrift store - mine seem to be something for electrical use

old dehydrator trays - my dehydrator quit working so i had this idea to use 2 of them for the painting.

this painting took 1 hour total (the computer is not my friend; it takes me longer to put this into Instructables!)

Place the canvas on your work area - I should have had a layer of newspaper under it.

Using the paint brush and black paint paint the canvas black.

The solid black makes a good background but while the paint was wet I took a wadded up paper towel and lifted some of the paint off to create some grayish areas. This is optional.

Let the paint dry.

This dehydrator tray is about 12 inches in diameter. Trays vary in size.

The second picture is a few of the metal pieces I had.

You might have other items that would work well in the space painting.

Take the dried canvas, the drop cloth, the spray paint ,the dehydrator trays and metal pieces to an outdoor workspace.

When using spray paint you should use a face mask.

Spread the drop cloth out and set your canvas on it.

You might want to experiment on a piece of cardboard before you do your actual painting.

You can see from the first picture that one of the dehydrator trays and metal pieces were practiced with.

One tray is still clean.

Arrange your trays and metal pieces so that they are on top of the canvas.

When the arrangement is what you want take one color of spray paint and standing over the canvas randomly spray paint. Repeat this with any other colors you have overlapping some of the colors. Sometimes as you paint you will get small spots or drips that will look perfectly fine in the painting. After you have the color you want on the canvas let the paint dry. When dry, remove the trays and metal pieces.

Bring the canvas back indoors. (be sure to clean up the outdoor work area)

Using white paint and the tip of a toothpick, I painted white star clusters.

Framed or unframed, a large canvas and small canvases grouping