A city on the line between endless day and nightThe low sun never moves, so every shadow points the same way. Warm light on one side, blue dark on the other.
The Cassini Division in Saturn's ringsA gap 4,700 km wide between rings A and B. One thin dark ellipse inside the bright one does it.
Earth half in shadowSwirl the cloud first, then fit land and sea under it. Keep the line between day and night soft.
The eight planets lined up by sizeJupiter and Saturn dwarf the rest and Mercury is the smallest. Sort by size, not by distance from the Sun.
Enceladus spraying jets of waterSaturn's moon Enceladus sprays jets of water into space. Light the spray from behind so it shows on black.
Europa's cracked ice shellWater ice crisscrossed by dark reddish-brown cracks, with few craters. Long crossing lines on a pale, smooth ball.
The Great Red Spot up closeA storm bigger than Earth, watched for more than 300 years. An oval with the bands bending round it.
Jupiter with its four big moons in a rowIo, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Four dots strung out beside a striped disc.
Jupiter's belts and zonesThe dark orange stripes are belts and the light ones are zones. They flow opposite ways, so ruffle the edges.
Mars with a white polar capThe red is rusted iron, and up close it is more brown, gold and tan. One small white cap at the pole.
Mercury, cratered like the MoonThe smallest planet, only slightly larger than our Moon. Grey-brown, with bright streaks called crater rays.
Neptune and the Great Dark SpotVoyager 2 saw a dark storm big enough to hold Earth in 1989. It has since vanished, so you are drawing history.
Olympus Mons seen from orbitThe largest volcano in the solar system, with a base about the size of Arizona. A wide low shield, not a cone.
Phobos and Deimos, the potato moonsMars's two moons are lumpy, not round. Phobos is heavily cratered and scored with deep grooves.
Pluto and Charon as a double planetCharon is about half Pluto's size, close enough to call the pair a double planet. Draw them face to face.
Pluto's pale heartNew Horizons photographed a lighter heart-shaped patch in July 2015. A reddish ball with one pale heart on it.
Saturn tilted to show its ringsThe rings are one flat ellipse. The back half passes behind the ball and the front half passes across it.
Saturn's hexagon at the north poleA six-sided jet stream about 20,000 miles across. Look straight down on the pole and nest it inside the rings.
Uranus rolling on its sideTilted almost 98 degrees, it orbits like a rolling ball. Blue-green from methane, with 13 faint rings.
Valles Marineris cutting across MarsA canyon system about 2,400 miles long. Draw a dark scar with side canyons branching off it.
Venus wrapped in cloud bandsNo surface shows. Curve soft bands of white, tan and orange cloud round the ball.
Moon, Sun and night sky 18
A full Moon rising behind a bare treeTrace a coin for the disc. Ink the branches across it last so they stay crisp.
A meteor shower from one radiantThe streaks all seem to fan out from a single point in the sky, like rails from a vanishing point.
A partial eclipse as a bitten SunThe Moon covers part of the Sun and leaves a crescent. Draw the crowd below in eclipse glasses.
A prominence curling off the Sun's edgeA snakelike ribbon of cooler, denser material held above the surface. Let it curl off the edge of the disc.
A red Moon in total lunar eclipseEarth's air filters the sunlight, so the Moon goes red, as if lit by every sunrise and sunset at once.
A sun and a crescent moon as two halves of one circleGive the sun half short rays and the moon half a sleeping profile. Split them with one S curve.
A thin crescent Moon with earthshineSunlight bounced off Earth dimly lights the dark part. Tone the whole disc faintly and leave the crescent bare.
A total solar eclipse with the coronaThe Moon is a flat black disc. Round it the Sun's outer atmosphere makes a ragged white crown.
An annular eclipse ringThe Moon looks smaller than the Sun, so a bright ring is left round it. Two circles, one inside the other.
Aurora curtains over a snowy cabinGreen is the most common colour, with red higher up and blue or purple at the lower edge. Fold it like cloth.
The Big Dipper pointing to PolarisSeven stars: four make the bowl, three the handle. A line through the bowl's two front stars finds Polaris.
Craters along the Moon's day and night lineCraters show where the light is low. Each one is a bright rim on one side and a black crescent of shadow inside.
Earth's umbra and penumbra as a diagramThe umbra is the dark inner shadow and the penumbra the faint outer one. Sun, Earth and Moon in a line.
The eight phases of the Moon in a rowNew, waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full, waning gibbous, third quarter, waning crescent.
One landscape split between sun and moonOne horizon, two skies. Left half at noon, right half at midnight, and the same tree lit two ways.
Orion with his belt and swordSeven bright stars make an hourglass. Betelgeuse is a red shoulder, Rigel a blue foot, and the belt is three in a row.
The Southern CrossCrux is the smallest of the 88 constellations: four bright stars in a cross, often with a fifth beside it.
Sunspots on the Sun's discThey look like dark holes but are only slightly cooler patches of surface. Keep them small on a big disc.
Nebulae, galaxies and comets 17
A barred spiral like the Milky WayA bar of stars crosses the centre. The Milky Way and Andromeda are both barred spirals.
A comet with two tailsOne tail is dust and one is gas, and both are blown away from the Sun. The glow round the head is the coma.
A spiral galaxy face-onWinding arms in a flat disc round a central bulge, like a pinwheel. M101, the Pinwheel galaxy, is the model.
A spiral galaxy seen edge-onFrom the side the disc is a thin streak with a bulge in the middle, like two fried eggs back to back.
An elliptical galaxyNo arms and no disc: a glowing ball, round to oval, brightest in the middle. Pure soft gradient.
Blue reflection haze round the PleiadesReflection nebulae look blue because blue light scatters best. Fog the cluster's stars, Merope most of all.
The Cat's Eye NebulaAnother planetary nebula, named for its look. Build it from overlapping ovals round one bright central point.
The Crab NebulaThe expanding remains of a supernova seen in 1054. Keep the outer edge torn and uneven, never a clean oval.
The first black hole image, M87Released on 10 April 2019: a dark shadow inside a lopsided bright ring, brighter on one side than the other.
The Horsehead as a dark nebulaA dark nebula is an opaque cloud seen in silhouette. Lay the glow first, then cut the horse's head out in black.
The Milky Way arching over a desert roadFrom inside, our galaxy is a pale band across the sky. Flick white paint off a toothbrush for the stars.
The North America NebulaAn emission nebula named for its outline. Sketch the continent's shape in red mist on black.
The Orion Nebula as a red glowAn emission nebula, red from glowing hydrogen and one of the brightest in the sky. Smudge it; no outlines.
The Pillars of CreationColumns of gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula where stars are forming. Treat them as sea stacks lit from above.
The Ring NebulaA planetary nebula in Lyra: the shell thrown off by a dying star, with a white dwarf left in the middle. A smoky oval.
Stars with six spikes, Webb styleBright stars in Webb telescope images carry six strong spikes and two faint ones. Rule them with a straight edge.
The Trifid Nebula, red and blue togetherIt has an emission part and a reflection part, so one cloud gives you red glow beside blue haze.
Rockets, probes and missions 17
A cardboard rocket in a back gardenBox flaps, parcel tape and a colander for a helmet. Draw the corrugated edge wherever the card is cut.
A Saturn V on the launch pad363 feet tall in three stages, it launched Apollo and Skylab between 1967 and 1973. Stack the cylinders.
A Shuttle orbiter with its payload bay openDelta wings, white tiles on top and long doors along the back that opened in orbit. Curve the Earth below.
The Apollo Lunar ModuleBuilt only for space, so no streamlining. An octagonal base on four legs with footpads, foil blankets and a ladder.
Earthrise over the lunar horizonPhotographed from Apollo 8 on 24 December 1968. A half-lit Earth above a grey, cratered edge and a black sky.
Five F-1 engines seen from belowThe Saturn V's first stage had five engines in a quincunx: four in a square, one in the centre. All ellipses.
The Hubble Space TelescopeA cylinder 13.2 m long and 4.2 m wide, launched in 1990. Shade it as a tube: dark, light, dark.
Ingenuity, the Mars helicopterTwo rotors stacked on one mast, a small box body, four thin legs and a solar panel on top. It made 72 flights.
The International Space Station from outsideA cluster of modules crossed by a 94 m truss that carries the solar arrays and radiators. Block in the cross first.
The Lunar Roving VehicleApollo 15, 16 and 17 took one. Woven wire wheels with chevron treads, two side-by-side seats, a mesh dish on a mast.
The Pale Blue DotVoyager 1 pictured Earth from over 6 billion km on 14 February 1990: less than a pixel, sitting in a band of light.
The Perseverance rover in Jezero CraterCar-sized, with a camera mast for a head, a 2.1 m robotic arm and cleated aluminium wheels. It landed in 2021.
Rover wheel tracks in red dustCleated wheels leave a patterned track. Two ribbons running back to the horizon are a lesson in perspective.
The Space Shuttle stack at lift-offAn orbiter, an external tank and two solid rocket boosters. The tank is orange because of its spray-on foam.
Sputnik 1, a polished ball with four antennasLaunched on 4 October 1957: a metal sphere 58 cm across with four radio antennas. Reflect a window in the polish.
The Voyager Golden Record coverA 12-inch gold-plated copper disc. The cover shows how to play it, a map of 14 pulsars and a hydrogen atom.
The Webb telescope's hexagon mirror18 gold-plated hexagons make one 6.5 m mirror, mounted on a five-layer sunshield. Draw one hexagon, then tile it.
Astronauts 14
A spacesuit glove holding a daisyThe glove is thick and jointed, the stem is one thin line. That contrast is the whole drawing.
A spacesuit hung on a coat hook by the front doorHelmet on the shelf, boots on the mat, umbrella beside them. Get the slump of an empty suit.
A spacewalker with red stripes on the suitSuits are white: it reflects heat and shows on black. Red stripes tell one astronaut from another.
A whole landscape reflected in an astronaut's visorThe visor is a convex mirror. The horizon bends, the ground wraps round, and the photographer sits tiny in the middle.
An astronaut chasing floating breakfast cerealEvery flake is its own small object. Overlap a few, shrink the far ones and let the spoon drift off as well.
An astronaut getting a haircut in orbitWith nothing to pull it down, hair stands out all round the head. Float the barber upside down.
An astronaut hanging washing on the MoonThere is no air, so nothing flaps. Let the clothes hang dead straight and that becomes the joke.
An astronaut looking down through the CupolaSeven windows frame the Earth. Draw the figure from behind, small, against one big curve of cloud and sea.
An astronaut napping mid-air beside a drifting bookLoose limbs, an open hand, the book a little way off. Nothing in the picture should touch a surface.
An astronaut painting at an easel on MarsThe canvas shows a blue Earth sky and the scene round it is tan and rust. A picture inside a picture.
An astronaut waiting at a bus stopOrdinary street, ordinary bench, full white suit. Reflect the shelter and the timetable in the visor.
An astronaut walking a dog in a tiny spacesuitGive the dog its own bubble helmet and let the lead float in a lazy curve between them.
An astronaut watering a houseplantFull suit, small watering can, one windowsill. The plain domestic prop is what makes the suit funny.
Bootprints leading away over a lunar hillRibbed oval prints in fine dust, each with a sharp shadow. Shrink them and close the gaps as they go back.
Alien landscapes 14
A city on the line between endless day and nightThe low sun never moves, so every shadow points the same way. Warm light on one side, blue dark on the other.
A crashed probe half buried in an alien desertOne dish, one bent leg and a drift of sand up the windward side. Add small footprints that are not human.
A dust storm rolling in on MarsDust storms there can cover much of the planet. A tan wall swallowing the horizon under a hazy red sky.
A greenhouse dome on MarsTan ground, hazy red sky and one dome of wet green. Save your only saturated colour for the lettuces.
A lake shore on TitanSaturn's moon Titan is wrapped in haze and has lakes of methane. Flat dark liquid, dim light, no hard shadows.
A planet with two suns settingEvery rock and figure throws two shadows at different angles. That one detail sells the whole world.
A village under a ringed skyFrom the ground a planet's ring would be one bright arch from horizon to horizon. Put lit windows under it.
An alien forest where the trees are glassGlass is drawn by what is behind it. Bend the far trunks where they show through the near ones.
An alien sea under three moonsThree moons, three phases, three reflections on the water. Make each moon a different size.
Earth seen from a cave mouth on the MoonFrame it with the cave's black edge. No air means no haze, so far hills stay as sharp as near ones.
Ice mountains on PlutoBlocks of water ice 2 to 3 km tall on a reddish world. Hard-edged blocks and very long shadows.
Standing on Europa with Jupiter overheadCracked ice under a black sky. Let striped Jupiter fill a third of the page and light the ice from above.
Sunrise in the west on VenusVenus spins backward, so the Sun comes up in the west. The cloud would hide it, so this one is pure invention.
The view from inside Saturn's ringsImagine floating among the ring particles with Saturn filling half the view. Big chunks near, specks far.
How it works
These space drawing ideas name real things: a planet, a moon, a nebula type, a spacecraft. Each of the 100 has a hint saying what to get right, checked against NASA or Wikipedia, so Saturn's hexagon has six sides and a comet's tails point away from the Sun. Subject and level combine, so you can ask for easy planets and get eight.
Read the full guide
Eight planets, each with its giveaway detail
A circle is any planet until one detail names it. Mars gets a white polar cap. Jupiter gets belts and zones with ruffled edges. Uranus rolls on its side, tilted almost 98 degrees. The Planets and moons group holds 20 space things to draw, and each hint names that detail. Most cool space drawing ideas start from a fact: Saturn's hexagon at the north pole is about 20,000 miles across.
Six subjects and three levels
The 34 easy space drawing ideas are a few plain shapes, such as An annular eclipse ring: two circles, one inside the other. The 22 hard ones ask for ellipses in perspective or a curved reflection. Rockets, probes and missions plus Hard holds six. For sun and moon drawing ideas, Moon, Sun and night sky has 18.
Work white on black. A white pencil or gel pen on black paper suits nebulae and star fields better than shading a whole sky.
A ring is an ellipse. Draw the full oval lightly through the planet, then erase the part that passes behind the ball.
Deal from Astronauts for figure practice. A suited figure doing a chore is a gesture drawing with a helmet on.
Questions and answers
Which subjects suit a beginner?
Saturn tilted to show its rings, which is one ball and one flat ellipse, and The Big Dipper pointing to Polaris, which is seven dots and a ruled line. Both are among the 34 in Easy, and both work in plain pencil line.
Why does a comet have two tails?
One tail is dust and the other is gas, and both are blown away from the Sun. So decide where the Sun is first, even if it sits off the page, and point both tails away from it. The glow round the head is the coma, the atmosphere a comet grows as it warms. A comet with two tails is in Medium.
What should I draw space with?
Pencil handles planets and spacecraft, which are spheres, cylinders and ellipses. Nebulae and galaxies have no edges, so they suit a smudged soft pencil, pastel or a wet watercolour wash. For stars, flick white paint off a toothbrush over a dark ground.