Painting Watercolor Spiral Galaxy in 5 Quick and Easy Steps

Being into galaxy mood in early 2020, I experimented on different watercolor techniques and this piece is a successful painting mimicking stippling method in drawing, shown in the process video above.

Watercolor Spiral Galaxy Painting Process

Here’s a step-by-step guide in painting watercolor spiral galaxy:

1. Wet the paper and start painting the galaxy. You’ll need the full paper wet as we are working using mainly the wet-on-wet technique for this painting. Define the ellipse by adding in the midtones. Slowly build up the shade by making the edges dark.

2. Building the light. Add in the midtones, in this case the purple colour, and blend it towards the light area.

3. Painting the spirals. This is a repeated steps of adding in the colours, blending it with the light using water, and lifting up some parts of the paint to suggest the direction of the spirals of the galaxy.

For a more interesting galaxy piece, we can introduce blue to blend with the previous purple. Add the cobalt blue by stippling to create the starry effect.

4. Slowly building up and intensifying the spirals. Add in the mid tones to define the spirals more, keeping in mind to blend this towards the center. After this, blend the spirals outwards using the darkest gray. In this painting, we are using a more saturated Payne’s Gray for the darkest area. Keep blending until you’re satisfied with the shape of the galaxy, then let it dry.

5. Finishing up by sprinkling the stars. As with any galaxy painting, after letting the painting dry, sprinkle in some white gouache for the stars. Let you’re painting dry and you’re done!

And that’s how we paint Watercolor Spiral Galaxy! I do hope you find this tutorial easy and fun to do! if you have any questions, comments or suggestions, do let me know by commenting on the youtube video. You can also show me your version of this piece by tagging me with your painting on Instagram so I can see your lovely work! For a more details of the painting process, watch the full video above, or watch it straight from our youtube channel. I hope you find this painting process useful in your creative journey! Thanks so much and always, happy painting!

Watercolor Spiral Galaxy Finished Piece

330 x 190 mm Watercolor on Cotton Rough Paper (300gsm)