How to Paint a Galaxy with Watercolours

Grab your paints and paintbrushes, I’ve got an easy watercolour tutorial for you!

Here is the list of materials and the colours I used in this 3-layer painting:

Crimson
Cadmium yellow
Ultramarine blue
Violet
Neutral tint
Ivory Black
White gouache

A Few Helpful Tips

When you paint a watercolour galaxy, you will need to use the wet on wet technique for the majority of the process. This will allow the colours to blend and blur nicely, without any brushstrokes showing or leaving any hard lines.

I also recommend doing colour swatches before you begin for two reasons:

It will save you time while you are painting
It will help you avoid muddy colours as they mix on the paper

For those two reasons, having a little bit of a plan can make your galaxy painting a breeze! Let’s break them down.

Why You Should Choose Your Colours Before You Begin

Reason No. 1: Choosing your colours in advance will save you time and effort.

In order to achieve that naturally blended appearance, you need to add colour within the same layer. Each layer of your painting is separated by the drying time of your paper. For example, let’s say you paint a red circle and you want to blend in some yellow directly on the paper. As long as that circle of colour is wet, you are painting within the same layer and your colours will blur and mix together. If that circle had dried completely, then any additional paint is now a new layer and will not blend.

By having your colours chosen in advance, you won’t have to worry about the layer drying before you are ready.

Reason No. 2: Having a set colour palette will limit muddy mixes

Because the colours will be blending on the paper, the chances of making a mess is higher. By choosing harmonious colours and keeping those together, you will be able to avoid too many mixing together and creating a brown or black layer.

Think of kids when they paint. They start out with the most wonderful palette but by the time they are done having a TON of fun moving the paint around the canvas or paper, their art is very often brown. This is what we want to avoid!

Now without further ado, get ready to paint along with me!