Space Art: How to Draw and Paint Planets, Moons, and Landscapes of Alien Worlds

by Michael Carroll

Space... the final art frontier... What is it like to walk through an alien world? Artists have been imagining otherworldly landscapes for hundreds of years—but only in the past few decades have we started to see what other planets and moons really look like. These exciting scientific discoveries have led to ever more "realistic" space art. Space Art shows artists how to capture and create these partly real, partly imagined vistas by combining the latest facts with traditional landscape drawing. Put the two together and the results are memorable, dreamlike, haunting. Author Michael Carroll, one of the country's most distinguished astronomical artists, explains how to use washes and texturing, how to paint water and ice, rocks and geological formations, craters and alien skies. Linear and atmospheric perspective, color, composition, color, value, and shading are also covered as they relate to showing otherworldly landscapes. Fourteen paintings, building in complexity, are presented step-by-step, accompanied by NASA photos and the author’s own photos of mysterious landscapes closer to Death Valley, Iceland, Alaska. For everyone who has ever wanted to travel to far-off worlds... or just show what they’re imagining... Space Art is a rocket to the stars.

Genres: Art

144 pages, Paperback

First published July 10, 2007

About the author

Librarian Note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Michael Carroll (also Michael W. Carroll), a renowned astronomical and paleo artist for more than twenty years, has done work for NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His art has appeared in many magazines, including Time, National Geographic, Sky & Telescope, and Asimov’s Science Fiction. One of his paintings flew aboard MIR; another is resting at the bottom of the Atlantic, aboard Russia’s ill-fated Mars 96 spacecraft. He lives in Littleton, Colorado.

Reviews

[Parka · Rating 5 out of 5]

(More pictures at parkablogs.com)

Here's a instructional art book for those into traditional painting. It's one of how to paint space environment.

The author Michael Carroll is a renowned astronomical artist. In this book, he presents the concepts and background knowledge needed to create authentic looking space landscapes.

The step-by-step tutorials, with multiple work-in-progress photos, are explained clearly on the technique involved. I don't do traditional painting but they look easy enough for me to follow. Tips from guest artists are also included.

This review was first published on parkablogs.com. There are more pictures and videos on my blog.