lotr_crafts | Painting a Star Ceiling (Reply)

NOTE: Link to Glow, Inc. corrected 11/11/07. My apologies to Glow, Inc.!

So many people asked about painting a star ceiling that I wrote up this guide. It ISN'T hard - you just need to know the basics and practice.

How to Paint a Star Ceiling

You will need (recommendations at bottom of list):
Glow-in-the-dark paint
A strong, sturdy ladder
Latex gloves to protect your hands
Cheap craft paintbrushes
Small bottle of Elmer’s Glue, twist-top cap – clean out glue, fill with paint
Small squeeze bottle with small round hole and tight cap – fill with paint
Roll of blue painter’s tape
Tarp or old bed sheet – not plastic tarping
Blackout curtains to tack over windows (or paint at night)
Electric or battery-operated planetarium toy
Small pen flashlight or flashlight on head strap
Black light bar – not bulb
Extension cords
Old clothes and shoes you don’t mind glowing in the dark

One thing – this paint is NOT invisible during the day. The blue paint shows up on your ceiling as faint green circles. The other colors show up too – just very dimly during the day. You can paint a star ceiling on any color ceiling, over any paint. It looks coolest if the ceiling is deep blue, but most are white. You can even paint it over popcorn ceilings – if you have a popcorn ceiling, e-mail me and I’ll tell you how.

Recommendations:
PAINT - You can buy glow in the dark paint at any hobby shop, but if you want a nice star ceiling, you need to buy paint especially made for this project. I buy mine from Glow, Inc, at http://glowinc.com, who also publishes on their website a guide for star ceilings and several other outstanding projects. The star ceiling guide may be found at:
http://glowinc.com/glow-in-the-dark/glow-in-the-dark-stars.aspx

For your first ceiling, start with Ultra Blue Glow. You might be asking – why not white? Ultra Blue lasts hours longer than the white, and looks more ‘real’ when the lights are out. The white should be used sparingly, just for highlights, like part of a comet. As you become more proficient, you can add nebulas using other colors – purple, red, green, blazing white … the effect is really spectacular. This paint is expensive – one quart is $282.98 (other colors cost more) plus shipping. But for one or two average sized rooms, if you are very careful, you can use just the ½ pint size at $37.98.

LADDER – use a good-quality ladder that will not tip. I recommend buying a Little Giant, if you don’t have one and want the best.

PLANETARIIUM TOY – sold at www.discovery.com and many other places for around $30 (or on eBay for less). If you want to make this a business, as I have, you can invest in a $350 professional-level planetarium – e-mail me and I’ll tell you where to get it. You really don’t need this, but it helps on the first few ceilings. You only need the toy if you want to paint an astronomically correct ceiling, or one that shows a special night (like the client’s birthday). This toy has a light inside it and projects ‘stars’ on the ceiling that you can use as a guide.

Julie – your other questions are answered in here somewhere, but I wanted to address the two that weren’t. You do follow a ‘template’ if you use a planetarium toy, but you don’t have to. Sometimes the free-hand ceilings turn out the best. And it takes me about four hours to paint a 10 x 11 room, setup to finish. Plus, a client gets one free ‘follow-up’ visit so he/she can tell me if he wants more stars here, or less there, or another comet, or whatever.

Notes on tools:
Small Elmer’s glue – empty out all the glue. Wash inside of bottle thoroughly. This is your main tool for applying the paint.
Tarp – use cloth, not plastic. And DO use one – this paint is very drippy and once fallen on a carpet, is very hard to get out. The reason you don’t use plastic is that the paint dries very fast and flakes off of plastic. So it falls on the carpet anyway and will not vacuum up easily. Nor will it come off clothes.

Please practice before starting on a ceiling. Use the peel-off blue painters tape to cover what you don’t want painted. Make sure you can reach above your head and apply the paint properly (it does take practice). You can have a very dim light source in the room, and use your pen flashlight for seeing exactly where you are painting on the ceiling. Your first star ceiling should be a small area like a bathroom. You can always go back and fix something, or if you don’t like it, just paint over it with the original ceiling paint. I always have a client give me a small bottle of the paint they used.

Use the black light bar (available at Wal-Mart for about $18) to charge the stars and let you see how it looks on the ceiling. Position it on top of the ladder (tie it down, these things are always falling off). You really must have this and use it while working.

Painting the star ceiling:
The ceiling must be dry and clean. Tack up the blackout curtains to cover the windows, or paint the ceiling at night. Choose one corner (I start by the door) and work backwards, moving your ladder when you need to. If the client wants an astronomically correct ceiling, use the planetarium toy. Many people just want a few of the major recognizable constellations and stars – you can wing it then. First you are going to paint the large stars that make up the constellations.

Looking at the ceiling (it helps if you lie down in the middle of the room, either on the bed or hopefully, the client has moved their furniture) and plan what you are going to do. Get the dimensions of the room and find out what the client wants to see. Using the squeeze bottle, squeeze out a round dot of paint and touch it to the ceiling. You must have the bottle held up to the ceiling; brace yourself with a finger or part of your hand. Your stars should be as round as possible. The largest stars are between ¼-inch and ½-inch in size. Larger rooms can use larger stars, smaller rooms need smaller stars.

If you are using a planetarium, adjust it so it projects where you are painting and squeeze a star over the star on the ceiling. When you have done all the large stars in the area you are working in, do the medium using the Elmer’s glue bottle – the cap is twisted half-closed to make the medium stars. You will need to figure this out before hand – how to adjust the cap for medium and little stars. A tip – don’t practice using your glow in the dark paint – it’s too expensive.

Last do the small stars, using the Elmer’s bottle with the cap twisted almost closed. You want just a little round dot.

TIPS: Don’t put any stars inside or too close to a constellation. Constellations should be easy to pick out.
Before painting, think about black spaces. The night sky is solid with stars, but we can’t see them. You want fairly large, irregular shaped patches of darkness. This is the major error beginners (and me!) make: Do NOT paint the stars in a pattern. No nice lines, no squares – we are taught to even things up and we do it without thinking. But nothing makes a star ceiling look fake faster than a ‘neat,’ patterned sky.
You want a round star like half a ball, not a flat star. The thicker the paint, the longer and brighter it shines.
If you do a comet (let me know if you want directions) or want a little extra sparkle, Wal-Mart sells a little bottle of ‘glitter-paint.’ This paint has silver glitter in it, and looks fantastic in the tail of a comet. Wait for the paint to dry, then apply this last.

When you have completed that section of the sky, climb down your ladder and move it to the next. Be careful you don’t have divided areas – put a few stars to merge the areas together. There are several advanced effects you can do, like painting nebulas using different colored paints, painting comets, rings around planets, painting the Milky Way, how to handle painting rooms with ceiling fans … if you really want directions, I’ll write them out for you.

Safety stuff – do not get this paint on your skin if you can help it. Work in a well-ventilated area (often not possible). This paint is very drippy and if you get it on you (almost impossible to avoid when using the glue bottle), get it off quick. It won’t wash off – you will need paint thinner. You can vacuum it out of carpets when it dries … but trust me, you don’t want to.

The trick is to practice. You just have to learn how to judge a ceiling, how to mix stars with emptiness, so it looks real. This is hard on the body (standing on a ladder with your arms above your head for hours), so you will hurt for a while. But it is so worth it.

Or send me a plane ticket and I'll come teach you!
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