Acrylic Galaxy Lettering Tutorial

A few weeks ago I was asked by a friend to create a piece of art for a fundraiser – playing around with some liquid acrylic paint I created a galaxy with brushlettering on top.

It was a hit and turned out better than I could have hoped! So here is a little tutorial of what I did to achieve the look on canvas.  The video will help you the most, but here are a few stills as well – play around and enjoy!

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SUPPLIES

• Canvas
• Liquitex Liquid Acrylic
• White acrylic (I’m using white gouache just because)
• Old Toothbrush
• White Derwent colored pencil
• Water mister
• Finetec paint
• Round 2 paintbrush
• Hairdryer

ACRYLIC GALAXY LETTERING TUTORIAL

First, I choose a few “galactic colors” – pink, violet, turquoise, and blue.

Second, lay out some newspaper – ideally you’d cut open a plastic trash bag and lay that down at least underneath because the liquid will soak right through (my desk will attest….)

I start by dropping the lightest colors first to give them more time to “settle” in the canvas. You don’t need to use as much as I did, since you can add more paint later on after you move the ink around.

Tilt the canvas around to get the ink to run together – I’m also blowing air all over the ink to move it around and cover the canvas.  This is EXTREMELY messy.  I like to make sure I push the ink to the edges.  If there are big white spots I drop more of the lighter colors into it since the dark colors take over pretty easily.  If it doesn’t move as easily, spray some of the water onto it.

Notice in this photo I added the teal back on top – then I gently blew that ink across to overcome the dark colors mixing together.

To soak up some of the excess ink, I slightly wet a paper towel and dab at the ink to add some texture and help dry the canvas. It really adds to the galaxy look!

Using a hair dryer, I gently blow the canvas dry on a “warm” setting.

Using some white acrylic on my toothbrush, I wet it with a little water before flicking paint on it with my thumb.  If it’s not creating some bigger white spots, you can use a white Uniball Signo pen to thicken up some of the dots.

Once again, I used a hair dryer to dry off the paint.

To sketch out the phrase, I use a white colored pencil to lightly letter it to space it out.

Using the Finetec paint and a Round 2 brush, I wet the palette to get into the silver paint.  If you’re looking for more on how to letter with a brush pen, I talk through it here.  Just remember to press harder with the downstrokes and lighter pressure on the upstrokes.  With paint, you go over it several times to get the right opacity.

This was such a fun project, I hope you have a great time playing around with it.

Yours,

Jessica