DLTK's Crafts for Kids
Moon Landing on Digital Nebula Art Piece (Tutorial)

This relatively easy acrylic paint and ink tutorial combines acrylic paint techniques with ink sketching to create a unique and adaptable art piece. The colour palette for this work is mutable, so feel free to use whatever colours are your favourite. (This also includes the colour of the paper materials you use, too!)

Painting and drawing are great for those who enjoy creating things to share with loved ones, for those who love to learn new skills, or even for those who want more art hanging on their walls!

Materials

Acrylic Moon:

• a sheet of cotton canvas, pastel paper, or another thicker and blendable paper material
• small mixing bowl
• pen or pencil
• scissors or X-Acto knife
• paintbrushes: 1 small, flat brush, 1 medium-sized angled brush, 1 large buff brush
• white and/or black heavy acrylic paint (should be mixable with water)
• another colour of acrylic paint (I used a shade called “Prussian Blue Hue”)

Ink Nebula:

• large piece of cardstock
• large mixing bowl
• tape or glue (depending on permanency and what you decide to do with your project... will you frame it?)
• fine-tip black ink pen (I used a MUJI pen)

Instructions

• tape your sheet for acrylic paper on a hard, flat surface;
• add the tiniest bit of water to your acrylic paint and rougly blend your paint from top to bottom, from dark to light (TIP: to blend, adding white is much easier than adding black);
• let dry;
• put your large piece of cardstock on a hard, flat surface;
• place large mixing bowl where desired and trace out half the shape of the bowl using dots instead of a single line with your fine-tip pen;
• with your fine-tip pen, now move your pen out from the first dot and back in to the next dot (TIP: do not draw your free-hand line outside the surface of where the mixing bowl would have been; you are trying to create a dissipating circular shape with sporadic lines!)
• continue moving back and forth within the area of what is to become the circle, "connecting" the dots you have traced;
• set aside;
• return to your acrylic paper and trace the shape of a small mixing bowl with a single line;
• blend the top of the moon with bright white paint with your small brush for the fine line and your angled brush to buff out the harshness of the paint;
• add more water to your white acrylic paint, take your small brush, and drag some of the white paint down in rough, random shapes;
• IMMEDIATELY blend these shapes out with your angled brush and your buff brush (TIP: only add a tiny bit of bright white paint each time and do not overdo your blending!)
• let dry;
• once dry, cut out the shape of the acrylic moon and tape/glue in the desire position on your large ink drawing;
• feel free to cut the size of your cardstock down to fit into the appropriate large frame.

Video Tutorial for Instructions

Tips

• the less white paint you add to your moon, the more mysterious it will look once you've cut it out;
• the smaller the acrylic moon, the larger and more detailed the ink nebula will look!

Printable version of this tutorial