How to Paint Celestial Art With Stars Appearing to Glow

Glow-in-the-dark paints create celestial art that seems to light up at night.


If you've ever had the opportunity to see the sky on a clear night, far from man-made light sources, the sight of so many stars may have invoked a sense of wonder. This view might not be available to you all the time and certainly not while you are indoors, but celestial art can remind you of just how beautiful that night sky really is. Luminescent and glow-in-the-dark paints help recreate that vision or bring to life a fantasy space scene of stars, nebula and galaxies off in the distance.


Cover the work surface in newspaper. Set the artist's canvas atop the paper.


Squirt several shades of dark blue and dark purple onto a paper plate or scrap piece of cardboard for an "outer space" background. If preferred, squirt a large pool of one color of paint onto the plate.


Dip a wide artist's paintbrush into one or more of the dark colors on the plate. Brush the paint over the surface of the canvas. Continue dipping, mixing colors and brushing them onto the canvas until you have covered the entire canvas including its visible sides. Blend color variations on the canvas, if desired, with your brush so they appear more gradual; these shades represent various emanations of light from the stars and celestial bodies in the painting. Allow the paint to dry completely.


Squirt small pools of paint for a nebula, a gas and star cloud, onto the paper plate. Try reds, yellows, blues and greens as potential nebula colors; use luminescent paints if you want the nebula to glow under black light. Mix acrylic glaze into each shade to achieve a minimum 50-percent glaze mix; the more glaze, the more transparent the effect.


Dip your finger into one of the mixed glaze colors and smear it in an arc or somewhat circular shape on the canvas, with thick paint on one side and almost invisible shapes on another. Wipe the tip of your finger or a brush through various thick areas of the paint to spread the colorful "gas" effect inward or outward, depending on your chosen design.


Repeat Step 5 with a second color applied to the same general area to represent the layers of colors visible in a nebula. Add yet another color if you wish. Allow the nebula paints to dry completely.


Squirt a bit of glow-in-the-dark paint near the pools of mixed glaze paints on the plate. Poke the tip of the handle of a small brush into the glow paint and dab it a few times in and around the nebula and in various dark places on the canvas. These large circles represent large or closer stars.


Repeat Step 7 several times, using one or more of the other glaze mixtures to add the colors elsewhere on the art and represent other colors of large stars.


Dip a flat-tipped artist's brush into the glow paint. Flick the brush over the nebula area of the painting to add flecks of paint dots near the nebula. Continue until the nebula contains quite a few stars.


Dip a toothbrush into the glow paint. Hold the brush over the painting with the bristles angled toward the painting. Run your thumbnail across the bristles to release tiny "star" dots over the painting. Continue this process, moving your arm as you release paint dots, to create star clusters in various areas on the painting. Allow the paint to dry completely before handling.

Things You Will Need

  • Newspaper
  • Artist's canvas
  • Paper plate or cardboard scrap
  • Acrylic paint in night sky colors, indigo, phthalo blue or navy blue, purple
  • Acrylic glaze
  • Glow-in-the-dark acrylic paint
  • Luminescent paint, one or more of yellow, blue, green, red
  • Artist's paintbrushes
  • Toothbrush


  • Create a band of stars, similar to the appearance of the Milky Way on a very clear night, by creating a thick band of stars with the toothbrush bristle paint speck method from Step 10. Repeat with both standard paints mixed with glaze as well as luminescent paints for an ethereal effect.
  • Paint celestial art on ceilings, walls or furniture for a large-scale space art theme.
  • Luminescent paints have a bit of a glowing quality to them without black lights, but seem to light up under black light. Use quality paints and position a black light near the art with minimal other light sources in the room for maximum effect.
  • Some glow-in-the-dark paints are not very visible during daytime viewing; mix them with a little white or yellow if you wish to see all the stars during the day, rather than just have a glowing stars effect.

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