How to Paint A (Specific Spectral Class of) Star

I said in my previous post that I don't like revealing projects in progress, but my current project is so cool that I can't resist. Plus, it's more like a series of projects so I don't mind revealing one that I've completed.

I've decided to do a series of seven paintings of the various spectral types of stars. I'm only doing main sequence stars for now, as this allows me to paint them all to scale and I love those kinds of visual comparisons. (People keep asking me about other types of stars such as white dwarfs or supergiants, and my response has been a firm “We'll see.” I can't really paint those to the same scale so I don't think I'd be able to do them justice, but perhaps something will come up.)

This past Wednesday I painted the second star in the series, a B-type star, and had the idea of filming the process to make a time lapse video of it. It came out so well that I decided to add some commentary explaining my creative process, since it's informed by things like thermodynamics and stellar structure (while still retaining a fair amount of artistic license, of course).

Anyway, here's the video! Painting while conscious of being filmed was an interesting challenge, but I think the finished product is pretty good. Enjoy!