Protist in Space!

I wonder how they made a space helmet this small...

This little guy happened earlier today. It was inspired by a conversation on twitter with @PsiWaveFunction who I had the pleasure of meeting last week at Science Online. The few of you who have seen it before will recognize my Earth painting in this protisty mashup.

I'm beginning to notice a pattern of sending little critters into space. Maybe I should continue with this apparent trend. Any suggestions for the next critter I should send to space?

It's Bigger on the Inside

At the insistence of many of my friends, I have given in and started watching Doctor Who. Yesterday I finished this painting as a Birthday present for my friend who so graciously offered to accompany me on my journey through the Dr. Who universe.

TARDIS - watercolor and pen

Ah hah!

So it turns out that trying to graduate by next May has kept me so busy that I have been very neglectful of artistic times. This means I have very few drawings/paintings to show for the past few months. I have taken a few hours here and there to create a few things, most of which are currently still in my "Need to be finished" pile.

Last night I had an "Ah hah! moment when I realized that throwing around paints and graphite is probably a much more therapeutic way to unwind than obsessively refreshing Facebook or getting lost in the archives of Tumblr (yes, I am guilty of both). I am going to try to remember this and hopefully have pictures to post here more often.

In the meantime, here are a few of the limited creations I've made this semester (Please forgive the incompleteness of most of them).

Stegosaurus in Space! This little guy hitched a ride on a rocket. Graphite.

Barn owl from the 2012 NC State Fair. Graphite.

A little root flower that popped into my head one night while drawing before bed. Pencil and Photoshop.

First portrait I've done in years. It was a fun experiment.

Painting through the Universe: Earth

It's been a while since I've worked on my Painting through the Universe project, but have no fear! I have a new installment to continue our journey through the solar system. This one should be very familiar as it is our very own planet Earth. The planet that we share and inhabit together; the only one we have.

Earth in watercolors

Painting through the Universe: Eskimo Nebula

I've been taking a little break from planets for a bit and have gotten very excited about painting nebulae. At first I just played around with some different methods of painting them but last week I attempted my first real nebula.

I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of beautiful nebulae to choose from and so sent a quick request out to twitter for suggestions. The Eskimo Nebula came back as a suggestion from Adam P. Knave. I have to admit, at first I was not very confident about attempting this particular nebula but I decided to just go for it and see what happened. This is the result!

Squids in SPACE!

This little guy is a bobtail squid that I painted yesterday. Squids like this one are currently on their way to space on Endeavour's last mission to the International Space Station!

Painting through the Universe: Venus

After many attempts at Venus, I am finally somewhat happy with this one. I may or may not have several "practice" (aka failed attempt) Venuses laying around all over the place. But this project is about more than just making pretty paintings, it's about learning and trying new things too! That definitely happened while painting Venus...

Venus is a pretty awesome planet. Super hot, crazy atmosphere. Check out the NASA Venus profile and a Windows to the Universe Venus page.

I hope you like it!

Note: Venus isn't really purple. I found some false-color images in which the planet was purple-ish. Once I saw them, I knew I had to paint my Venus purple.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts, comments, and suggestions!

Painting through the Universe: Mercury

I've been hesitating about posting my latest Mercury painting for a number or reasons.

Initially I had a hard time getting started on this one. The source materials were quite varied and I couldn't decide what look to go for. Finally I decided to just start something and see what happened.

After a few watercolor washes and a couple of details were added, everything started to go a little more smoothly. Until mud happened. That oh-so-easy-to-achieve state where all the colors start to turn into brown/gray mush. I kind of panicked, made a spur of the moment decision, and in the process of trying to cover up the mud, just ended up with a bigger mess. Think mud on top of mud. 

The result is below. I did not originally plan for the background to be black or for the shadow to be there. They are both byproducts of the panicking and covering up process.

I was so intent on fixing the "mud" issue that I paid no attention to the correct placement of the shadow. If you're thinking to yourself that something about the shape is off I totally agree. I would like to go back and fix it, but I think I need to just step back from this one for a while before trying to "fix" things again. In the spirit of continuing my project and not getting stuck on Mercury I am going to go ahead and share it.

Thoughts and suggestions are most welcome!

Onward to Venus!

Painting through the Universe: About Mercury

Up next on our artistic journey through the Solar System is, you guessed it, Mercury! Here are a few quick links to learn more about this planet and get inspiration for this week's painting:

Nasa Mercury Profile

A Few Mercury Images from MESSENGER (on Bad Astronomy Blog)

National Geographic Information on Mercury (be sure to check out the Size Comparison tab)

Happy art times!

Painting through the Universe: The Sun

As I mentioned in my last post, the first subject for my Painting through the Universe project was the Sun. I was really excited about this one because I am often struck by how amazing our Sun is; without it we wouldn't exist! 

In my initial searching about the Sun I found two very helpful pieces of information. One, many NASA images are not copyrighted and are available for use by the general public. More on that can be found at the "Using NASA Imagery and Linking to NASA Websites" page. I was concerned about where I was going to find source materials for my Painting Through the Universe project because, like many people I'm sure, I don't have my own copies of space photos. The NASA policy on using images will be a great thing to keep in mind for the future.

The second piece of NASA awesomeness is this page all about our star. 

After all of that, here is my Sun painting! A lot of the process was me just experimenting with watercolors. I wanted it to "glow" but still have a crust. Several times throughout the process I thought I had completely messed up the whole thing. I grew up watching Bob Ross and his "happy little accidents" so instead of scrapping the painting and starting over, I left the mistakes. Sure enough most of them turned out to be "happy."

I'd love to hear what you think about it and see your Sun-themed art!

Painting through the Universe

Since I was very little, I have loved the solar system. I read as many books on the planets as I could find, and in the second grade I memorized the composition and size of each. When we went to the planetarium for a planet-themed show I thought I was the luckiest kid in the world; I'm pretty sure my face hurt afterwards from smiling the whole time.

My fascination with our Solar System has not changed but has grown into a fascination and admiration of the universe and everything it contains. Being always on the look out for ways to combine my interests with art, I stumbled on an idea: why not paint my way through the universe? What better subject material?

My goal is to choose a subject each week, paint it, learn some interesting tidbits about it, and post it on this blog. I would love it if you or anyone you know would like to join me in this artistic endeavor! I'll post the week's subject in advance and then we'll all get to work on our creations. 

I'm going to start with the Solar System and within the Solar System I am going to start with our beloved star: the Sun. 

Take some time this week and draw/sketch/paint the Sun with me!

P.S. I'd love to see your Sun-themed art! Send me a link to or an e-mail with a picture of your art and (if you want) I'll include it here in the Sun post. E-mail address: katyannc [at] gmail [dot] com