Zen Kid Glow in Dark Space Mural Page

Zen Kid Glow in the Dark Space Mural Page

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Glow in the Dark Space Mural Page

Glow in the Dark Murals

Whether you are eight or eighty, glow in the dark paint schemes are just really cool. And luckily they are simple to do.

Paints

Hobby Glow (now at Glow inc ) - paint and powder

Murals and Examples

glowforum.com

glowforum


Normal Light	UV Light	In the Dark

http://www.glowforum.com/showthread.php?t=473&page=4

http://www.glowforum.com/showthread.php?t=187&page=2 - note that the images show the room lights on in each room and sun coming in through the windows - a very nice Photoshop job with some technical flaws

http://www.glowforum.com/showthread.php?t=217&page=8

http://www.glowforum.com/showthread.php?p=2121#post2121

http://www.glowforum.com/showpost.php?p=2124&postcount=81

http://www.glowforum.com/showthread.php?p=2205#post2205 - might be a bit photoshopped - may have UV light under the molding just under the ceiling.

http://www.glowforum.com/showthread.php?p=2560#post2560

http://cartercustompainting.com/html/space_mural.html

http://www.sacredart-murals.co.uk/Mural-Gallery/cinema-space-mural.htm

http://www.absolutearts.com/cgi-bin/portfolio/art/your-art.cgi?login=smassucci&title=Space_Mural-1187382966t.jpg

How To

Glow Cones

http://www.glowforum.com/showthread.php?t=187

The following instructions will not work with solvent-based paints. It will only work with Glow Inc's new water-based paints. I suggest the Ultra Green v10. (note: see sales the thread under "General Projects")

Go to a drug store like CVS and get a syringe designed to give babies medicine. Fill the syringe with the water-based paint. Place light pressure on the plunger and dab the ceiling at every spot requiring a star. After some practice, you can add about 40 stars per minute. Heavier pressure on the plunger creates thicker, brighter stars.

Others use an Elmer's glue bottle for smaller stars.

Recharging lights

A compact fluorescent lamp (CFL), also known as a compact fluorescent light or energy saving light do a much better job of recharging glow in dark paints than regular incandescent bulbs. This may be due to greater emitions of UV light. Glow in the darkers have recomended "cool" or "daylight" bulbs.

UV Blubs (AKA black lights) are another option.

Photoshopping

If you don't have an expensive Photoshop program - download the free GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program

Mapping the Stars

http://www.glowforum.com/showthread.php?t=217&page=2

http://www.stellarium.org/ - free open source planetarium for your computer

Small Brush

A nail brush seems to work for small stars. You may wish to trim the brush so that the stars aren't all rectagular.

Splatter Technique

Use a nail brush or toothbrush to fling paint onto the wall or ceiling. Adjusting your distance will change the splatter pattern.

Lessons Learned

http://www.glowforum.com/showpost.php?p=2168&postcount=82

What things do I need to consider before painting a mural?
What Color ceiling/walls were painted.
The best color is white. Followed by shades of white then light colors. The worst colors are dark colors, although tan and sandy colors apprear to be rather bad too.

I'm not sure why certain colors are worse than others though. I'll take a stab and suspect that certain colors absorb rathter than reflect the light emitted by the GID paint.

For example my master bedroom has a white ceiling and tan walls. The stars on the ceiling glow great but the stars on the wall will only glow if charged by a strong UV lamp. The tan walls are by no means dark though.

Whats the light source?
A ceiling fan with a light fitting works very well because it is usualy centered in the room providing consistent coverage. Wall mounted lights and corner lamps will provide localized light and will take longer to charge up a room. Recessed lights will not charge the paint effectively due to the light having to reflect off surfaces back to the ceiling. The general rule of thumb is: Imagine yourself laying on the ceiling looking down. If you can see light bulbs then you'll get some charge. The more bulbs that can be seen and the more even they are distributed in the room the better.

What type of light source?
Well those 60W incandescant bulbs will charge the paint but it's going to take a while. A UV strip light will charge the room pretty much from anywhere but paint at the other end of the room will take longer to charge than paint nearer the bulb. Placing a UV strip in the middle of the ceiling is not usually an option. However, CFL bulbs actually emit UV light, they have a coating that is excited by UV light and emits light in the visible spectrum. So by swapping out your bulbs for CFL's not only will you reduce the engery used but they will charge the paint up very well.

I changed out the bulbs in my kids ceiling fans for 9W CFL's. Now when the main light is turned out the stars are clearly visible even with the night light on. Something that did not occur with incandescant bulbs.

What color GID paint?
OK this one is fairly obvious but it's still worth a mention. If you're looking for bright stars then use V10 or Ultra Blue. Anything with a lower brightness of the Ultra Blue will not shine very bright or for as long. Red, Violet, Yellow, Deep Blue and White are all very nice but they need UV to work well. My violet paint will not even charge using incandescent light unless I leave it next to a lamp for an extended period of time. Even under UV it takes a few minutes to load up.

What size stars?
The final variable I can think of. Using V10 or Ultra Blue you can get away with some rather small stars that shine really bright. As the brightness of the paint diminishes you can buff up the visibility by making larger stars or by grouping many stars together. I typically paint 1/4" to 1/2" stars for constellations and down to 1/8" for background stars. Now painting larger stars to overcome paint and background color issues has it's limitations. A mural is going to look odd with dinner plate sized stars. Also this method will not make the stars brighter, it just provides more light of the same brightness so that you're eyes can see it.

Final thoughts.

While most any mural can work under UV light be aware of the lighting conditions and the color walls/ceiling that you'll be painting on. Most if not all of us work under UV and that can give the impression that the mural will work after the job is done. This might certainly not be the case. Knowing this ahead of time will enable you to inform your client that a UV lamp or other lighting might be required to enjoy the mural.

Dark or Black Ceilings

First paint the stars white and then use the glow in dark material for the best dark effect.

Milky Way

http://www.glowforum.com/showthread.php?t=252

Space Stencils

http://www.stencilkingdom.com/catalogue/space/catalogue_body_space.htm

http://www.wwsco.net/catalog/index.php?sel_category=45

http://www.wwsco.net/pia/space02.htm

http://www.wwsco.net/pia/space.htm

http://www.stencilwarehouse.com/acatalog/Sky_and_Space.html

http://www.stencilplanet.com/funspaceborderstencil.aspx

http://www.stencilplanet.com/browseproducts/Fun-space-stencil.HTML

Please feel free to link to this site so that others can find it. It's easy to link to this site, just copy one of the texts below onto your web page:

Zen Kid Page