Cosmic Watercolour - Pink & Purple Nebulae

In the spirit of experimentation on Steemit, I thought I might try posting a few of my watercolour pieces amongst my blog posts. This one is inspired by the cosmos, but more specifically nebulae - clouds of gas (e.g. hydrogen and helium) and dust in interstellar space that can stretch for hundreds of light years across. As the gas and dust collect, they begin to be drawn together by their own gravitational pull, making the clouds contract and become denser. As they become denser they increase in temperature, until eventually they become so hot that the hydrogen contained within them is ignited and new stars are born!

It was created with a mixture of Winsor & Newton watercolours, Dr Ph Martin's (for those beautiful vibrant pinks and purples), and a little black and white ink. In terms of the process, I first lay down the lighter colours in cloud like splotches, allowing those to dry before building up further darker layers. I like to let the colours bleed into each other and merge whilst everything is still wet. When I'm happy with the result, I let everything dry and then use an old toothbrush to flick a fine mist of white ink over the entire piece to create the stars.

I'd love to connect with other artists out there trying to capture the magic of space, so please comment below if you'd like to chat! I'd also like to get acquianted with the artist community on Steemit (I'm a newbie!), so please let me know if you can point me towards any resources or good people/groups to follow.

As a bit of bonus content, I created a piece the other day where I used masking fluid to create some shapes beneath a watercolour wash. Check out this gif to see how satisfying it is to peel off masking fluid! I could do it all day!

---

Thanks for reading :)

I will be posting more watercolours every week, so be sure to follow if you'd like to see more. I also write posts on philosophy, cosmology and consciousness, if that floats your boat. You can also find me at:

• Twitter - @ongoingwow

• Medium - @ongoingwow

• Instagram - @ongoingwow