Easy Night Sky Galaxy Bookmark Painting For Beginners!

1. Introduction: Hello everyone. My name is Alicia and I'm an artist here in San Jose, California. With fall only a couple of weeks away. I figured I would begin the season with a cozy painting of this easy acrylic galaxy bookmark painting will show you all the materials that you will need. We will then paint this galaxy bookmarks step-by-step. This class is great for all levels. So let's dive right in and begin. 2. Materials: Okay, So this is everything that I have used. It Gesso Primer. It's acrylic white primer. Along with Artist's tape that I used to tape down my edges. You will also need some sort of bull for water and a napkin. And then I used a sponge for the forced to bookmark. If you have that, then that's great. I also use a bunch of brushes, so too rough brushes. They are by Princeton and call. Again, I have linked them all down below as well. Then one flat brush along with one angled brush. And then I've also used a tiny, just a tiny round brush for details. And then for paper, It's my regular Strathmore acrylic paper. Cut mine into a 2.5 by seven inch. And then I have a glass palette like always comes with a scraper as well. Then these are all the paints that I've used. So the violet rose and light avocados for the forest bookmark. And for the second one, I added in a deep green intrusion green along with white and black. 3. Bookmark 1 - Sky: All right, so to begin, you will need to cut your paper to a bookmark size. The size I cut mine is a 2.5 by seven inch. And once you get that ready, you can begin taping down the edges for a clean border, look at the end. I believe the standard size for a bookmark is like either 22 by six inch or two by seven or two by eight inch. The reason I like doing mine 2.5 is because I do like to tape down the edges a little bit, so I like to leave that extra room so that I can get more of the painting, part of the bookmark. But that's totally up to you. If you want to do the standard two by seven, feel free to do that. Okay, So for the first bookmark, I'm gonna be using only three colors with black and white, of course. So I've got here violet, rose and light up. God, really, it's just purple, pink, and peach. If you have that, again, by all means you can choose any color you wish to make the bookmark unique to you. There's really no right or wrong here, so just have fun with it. So I'm gonna do this a little bit different here. And I'm just going to lay the colors directly from the tube onto the paper. So starting with black on the very top, followed by violet below that, then rose in the center. And light apricots down below. Just a pea size amount is good for now. You can always add more colors after if you feel like you need it. All right, so for the next part, I'm actually going to be using a sponge now, if you do not have this handy, that is okay too. You can go ahead and use a big rough bristle brush. I actually use that brush for the second bookmarks, so you will see how to use that as well. If you have any kind of sponge lying around, then bring that out because it is, the sponge makes it so much more easier and quicker to get that galaxy type effect. So all you do is wet the sponge a little bit and simply dab like you see me doing. So right now, all you're doing is just dabbing. Also, just make sure to not let your sponge too much, squeeze it all out before you started dabbing it in. Just a little bit, goes a long way. So starting with the darkest color first and just moving my way down, I'm marching and blending the colors. You're, I felt like I needed some more color. So I'm just adding a pea size amount of the violet and then also add the pink below it. And I'm just dabbing that in. Once you get to the lightest part. I like using a fresh site to the sponge so that the pH will remain clean without getting all the darks too. It just rotate your sponge round to just to use a cleaner side once you get to the PGRN. To add to the galaxy effect, I'm getting ingest the slightest amount of the leftover dabs of the peach that's already on my sponge. And I'm just dabbing that also above to the dark areas just a little bit for that Starry Night sort of effect. At this point, if you feel like you need to add just a few extra bits of color here and there to intensify the colors, then feel free to do that. I'm just adding a dollop size of the pink in the middle because I felt like the color was a bit lost. And then I'll also extend the pH at the bottom as well. Alright, so with the leftover base at the bottom, I am going to add some trees with plain black using a three-eighths angled brush. I'm getting a horizontal stroke at the base first. And then using the tip of the brush, I'm going to be making straight vertical lines for the tree base. Once you get those lines, lightly fill in some of those lines with leaves coming out from either side. Again, nothing too much in focus since this is far away. I'm just getting little impressions of slanting lines on either sides to resemble a four or a pine tree. 4. Bookmark 1 - Stars: Let's get back to this guy and finish up this bookmark with some starting night effect. I'm getting out a tiny brush. The TNC is brush that you have and I'm using white directly and making some tiny dots, four stars. So here I'm adding a cross like shapes for some of the stars. Make sure your lines are really fun. To finish up with further tiny spider-like start effects. I'm using a medium to small rough brush. You can also use a toothbrush if you have that. So I'm getting a bunch of white with water and I'm simply flicking off the end of the brush for that splatter effect. Here I'm adding some small stars with my tiny round brush and we will be done. I do come back and add a moon to this at the very end, but you will see that later. Alright, it's a time to remove the tape to look at our dreamy bookmark. Now, if you have edges that have bled through, don't worry, you can clean that up with Jessup primer, even white paint. But just so primer is preferred because the color matches more to the paper. Here I'm just using any small flat brush and I'm just going in directly into the JSON painting that edge. You may have to do this multiple times until it has fully gone. And that's it. You will be left with a clean edge. Once again. There we go. We got our first dreamy galaxies, Starry Night bookmark done. Now let's move on to the second one which has a more northern lights bookmark field. 5. Bookmark 2 - Northern Sky: I've already prepped my paper size and taped down the edges. So for my background color, I'm using violet and black and just dotting my way through this randomly. So few dots off the violet first. And then I'm just going to spread out dots of the black as well. I'm going to use a rough brush this time to show you the outcome of this in case you did not have a sponge to begin with? It has the same effects, but takes a little longer to blend. In my opinion, the Spanish also leaves a slightly more natural galaxy effects. But both of them work at the end of the day. It's fine. So the next two colors that will go on to this bookmark are two different kinds of green. So we have deep green here and precision green using a small flat brush. I'm just mixing in the deep green with some of that bite. And I'm simply going back and forth quickly in a slanted brushstroke. Don't make the layer too thick. You want it to be slightly translucent and airy looking. So essentially this will be the background to the northern light effects we are going for here. So I'm getting in the Parisian green with some of that white. I'm adding a quick stroke to that in the center of each band. It may look confusing right now, but trust me, it'll all come together in the end. 6. Bookmark 2 - Final Details : So taking in the tiny brush, I'm adding in a few specks with plain white, just like we did with the first bookmark. Making the cross like star shape again, just a few of them. Alright, same technique we used for the first bookmark. Use a rough brush to flicker off some white paint for that scatter starting tonight effect. I'm just going to be making a simple mountain here at the base with black. To bring out some of the violet in the background. I'm taking in violet and white and just adding a few streaks of that to a couple of places to enhance that hello. Time to take off those tape to see what we've got working for us so far. I'm just going to quickly fix this corner which SO primer. So if you have any bleeds, you can go ahead and do the same. Looking at my bookmark, I felt like I wanted to enhance the lighter green more to add a pop of color to the northern lights. So I'm going back in with green and white and adding streaks of that color in-between. Few of those bands we have. It's always a good idea to take a step back from any painting that you have done. Take a few seconds, look at your painting from a distance and figure out if you want to add any extra detail. Last but not least, I went ahead and added a tiny half-moon to the first bookmark for that extra detail. There we go. This completes our fall edition, galaxy bookmark painting for today. Hope you enjoyed, and I cannot wait to see what you'll come up with, share your projects. I would love to see them and do not forget to leave this class. Preview. Ask me any questions in the discussions tab below. I invite you to explore the different classes I had created for you. Classes and watercolors, as well as acrylics are available if you want to learn more. So do consider following me so that you do not miss out on future painting classes from me. Thank you so much for your support over at my website and also my Etsy shop, you can find original art prints and much more. The links are below. As always, follow me on Instagram to keep up with latest updates given days and all that fun stuff. Thank you once again and happy painting.