Space Art

The sky has fascinated scientists and artists alike for thousands of years. Here I present a few paintings and drawings made by me in 2001. Some are in the style of David Hardy, and others have some Alan Bean influence. See if you can spot those in each catagory.

Space Art. Saturn and the lettering was completed using oil pastles, whereas for the Horse-head nebula I used watercolour.

MIR. This old space station used to be the star of the Russian fleet, but has now been de-orbited. I painted it usings acrylics. To acheive a slightly 3D effect I raised the station 3mm above the clouds using sticky pads. Of course the effect cannot be viewed on screen!

Space Shuttle in Orbit. This utilises the same effect as Mir above. This time there are five layers. Apologies for the rubbish photograph.

Comet West. This comet appeared in the 70s and my drawing of it is more of an exercise in using pastles than anything else.

Impact.This is a direct copy of a picture by an artist mentioned above in acrylics. The theme of cosmic impacts is a fun one to follow, and is continued in the next two paintings.

Impact with Shoemaker Levy 9. In 1994 Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashed into Jupiter and made such large scars that it was visable from Earth. My painting here imagines that you are positioned on the "W" fragment. This was the last part of the comet to collide. It was supposed to be a tranquill scene, despite the upcoming collision. Unfortunatly it didn't turn out well especially regarding the colours. Drawing pencils were used for the comet fragment, and acrylic paint for the remainder.

Impact with Shoemaker Levy 9. This time the painting came out much more satisfactory. I used acrylic throughout on very rough canvas.

Exploded Drawing of the Space Shuttle. I copied this exploded view of the American Space Shuttle from "Stephen Biesty's Incredible Cross-Sections". Drawn using pencils and ink pens it only has a black background for display here. You can view this piece full size here.