Painting the Pillars of Creation...again!

Submitted by Quarkycharmedart t3_116og5g in space

The image on the right is my second attempt to paint the Pillars of Creation in watercolor! The first time I did a mini painting of it using the Hubble image from 1995, and it was part of a larger piece I did just for myself over a decade ago, integrating many of my high school passions into one painting. But when JWST released its image of the Pillars this past October, I just had to paint it again. I completed this piece for my dad as a Christmas gift, since a love of astronomy is something we share. It took around 50 hours of painting and many, many layers of increasing detail and depth.

https://preview.redd.it/7v1a5drzp7ja1.jpg?width=3600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=4f0f1970ea0d77c671eacceda55897691bf0defb

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Comments

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Itis_TheStranger t1_j97l36o wrote

That is beautiful, such talent. It looks just like the photo!

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araujoms t1_j9b9tag wrote

If the goal was to make it look like the photo OP would just have used the photo.

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Itis_TheStranger t1_j9dxsqg wrote

That doesn't make sense. Why would he just use the photo? Are you ok?

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Embarrassed-Cat-52 t1_j97ymdr wrote

Watercolour?! How did you paint the blinking little stars? That looks awesome!

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Quarkycharmedart OP t1_j985px9 wrote

I used a masking fluid to keep the background white while painting the blue sky, and then removed it and painted a faint wash on each star.

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