The Great Orion Nebula

I have always been fascinated with astronomy, to the point of wanting to be an astronomer at one point and starting college to learn physics. Unfortunately I took a painting class to fill my schedule and realized that I loved painting more than math – and was better at it. Anyway, when I was young I spent a lot of nights outside with my dad’s binoculars looking at the stars, trying to spot nebula and galaxies. My favorite area became the constellation Orion. There you have Betelgeuse, Rigel, a number of galaxies and nebula, and the Great Orion Nebula.

The Orion Nebula was the one you could see best through binoculars. Even more impressive were the photos of this nebula in Astronomy magazine. I decided to set myself a project to see what would give me the most satisfying results painting this nebula: airbrushing or glazing. I did both paintings. The glazed oil painting was the one that I feel gave me the most realistic results. I didn’t save the airbrush version. The glazing technique gives you the feel of the gaseous glowing strands of a nebula far better than airbrush does. I love airbrushing, but reality is never that smooth, never that perfect. Even clouds and nebulas have a sort of stringy imperfection when you look closely. I feel this is one of my most successful paintings so far.