THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 29, 1994 TAG: 9407270155
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY ERIC FEBER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 148 lines
ROBERT J. HITT'S watercolor ``landscapes'' look so real that he is often asked the same question.
``People ask me if these paintings are photographs,'' the Chesapeake Planetarium's director said with a chuckle. ``I say, `Yeah, I've been to all of these places.' ''
What makes Hitt's statement just a little humorous is that he paints wonderfully real scenes of Mars, Jupiter, Jupiter's many moons, Saturn, Uranus, asteroids, meteors, comets, eclipses and other spheres, worlds and objects hurtling through outer space.
The Virginia Beach resident has many hobbies, including photography, model building, pottery and making stereoscopic slides. But his painting is most closely related to the main love of his life: astronomy and outer space.
He has been the director of the Chesapeake Planetarium for close to a quarter of a century. The dome-shaped building that's his domain is one of the most visited public buildings in Chesapeake.
School groups from across the city and the region come to benefit from Hitt's presentations, knowledge and special effects. When not teaching youngsters about the wonders of space, he's giving presentations to the public every Thursday evening, featuring programs about other-worldly subjects ranging from the mysteries of Stonehenge to the ``Seven Wonders of the Universe.''
Hitt knows the universe like you and I know our own neigh-bor-hoods.
When not traveling to Ohio or Africa or Back Bay to look at eclipses and other heavenly phenomena, when not peering through telescopes with friends or colleagues and when not reading up-to-date books and periodicals about new heavenly discoveries, he produces about two dozen canvases a year.
During the past 28 years, he has painted hundreds of space scenes. He makes no prints. Once he sells an original, it's gone except for the slide he makes of each work.
Examples of his work have appeared on several space/nature calendars; the cover of the Jan-u-ary-/-May issue of Spare Time, the Chesapeake Parks and Recreation Department's leisure brochure; and the cover of the Chesapeake Planetarium's 1994 program guide.
He regularly exhibits at the Stockley Gardens Art Festival and the Ghent Arts Festival and has participated in the Boardwalk Art Show. His paintings are owned by art collectors/dealers and space-/astronomy aficionados from Texas to Europe.
It seems his paintings sell faster than space suits at a shuttle launching.
``They don't last long,'' he said. ``I sell quite a bit, usually most of them. I guess I sell enough to keep me in paint and brushes.''
A former editor of Sky and Telescope, the top national magazine for astronomers, told Hitt he should send his designs and slides to the publication's new editor, who would use them in a Mercury minute.
Kelly Freas, the graphic artist who created the Mad Magazine character Alfred E. Neuman and has painted countless covers for science fiction magazines and books, suggested that Hitt take his creations to some of the big annual science fiction conventions.
``He told me dealers and fans would gobble 'em up,'' Hitt said. ``But I just don't have the time, I'm so busy with the planetarium and classes.''
His out-of-this-world realism comes from using a combination of techniques. The detail of rock textures, comet trails, planet clouds and asteroid surfaces, for example, come from using small, sharp hand-held brushes. Each scene's sculpted, defined three-dimensional look comes from using an airbrush.
He prefers watercolors because of their vivid colors and they can be easily blended and washed together.
``It gives my paintings a sharper image,'' he said. ``Besides, watercolors don't clog an airbrush the way acrylics do.''
Hitt said his artistic bent and his love of the heavens sort of grew up together.
``I was always interested in both,'' he said. ``I could always draw. I come from a family that paints very well.''
Hitt said his mother and her sisters were all adept at painting, especially one of his aunts who has the ability to copy the works of the masters with uncanny accuracy and skill.
His only formal art training came in the form of drawing classes, something he took as an elective when not studying science at ODU. He finally earned his master's degree in earth and space science from Old Dominion in 1976, six years after he began at the Chesapeake Planetarium.
During his first few years as director, Hitt discovered his art skills came in handy.
``My space art was born out of necessity,'' he said. ``At first we had few slides for the programs. So I would paint my own scenes, backgrounds and sky-scapes.''
Hitt also decorated the planetarium's walls with black and white galaxies, novas and nebulae. And when entering the facility, visitors are greeted by a mural of Saturn as seen from one of its moons. The eerie-looking view is painted in black and white using touches of luminous paint for dramatic highlights.
Some of Hitt's paintings are created at his Kempsville home, which used to be his grandmother's farmhouse, but the majority of his creations come to life in the small studio at the planetarium.
The small room seems to be a manifestation of Hitt's restless, creative mind. The cluttered studio is a jumble of space models and cutouts with posters, pictures and photos of planets, rockets and other space scenes lining the walls. There's photographic and electronic equipment lying everywhere, plastic dinosaurs on shelves and drawers full of slides, most of them shots of his paintings.
In the middle of this controlled chaos sits a small table under a work light. There is where he creates his extraterrestrial scenes.
``I usually start with a sketch of an idea,'' he said. ``In using an airbrush, you have to carefully plan, mask, prepare an area.''
Hitt said his ideas come from his extensive knowledge of astronomy and space coupled with his imagination.
``I try to think about what would be visually exciting,'' he said. ``I like to create my own scenes using scientific facts. I base my views on something that could actually exist in the universe.''
Hitt tries to incorporate recent discoveries and knowledge using data sent back from NASA space probes or taken from current scientific research.
``Several years ago, I was working on a scene of Uranus,'' he said. ``About the same time, they discovered rings around the planet. I was in the process of putting asteroids around it, so when I learned about the discovery, I just blended the asteroids into a ring.''
Currently, Hitt is working on a scene of a comet slamming into Jupiter as viewed from Io, one of its many moons. The painting will depict the haze of a comet as it approaches the planet with impact flashes visible on Jupiter's surface.
``It's a little science fiction, I suppose, but it will be based entirely on fact, on what we learned from the recent comet collision with Jupiter,'' he said.
Whatever the outcome, the painting will look real. Almost as if Bob Hitt had vacationed on Io. ILLUSTRATION: [Cover]
SEEING STARS
[Color] Staff photo by STEVE EARLEY
Artist Robert Hitt's out-of-this-world work is owned by art
collectors and astronomy aficionados from Texas to Europe.
Staff photo by STEVE EARLEY
Robert Hitt decorated the walls of the Chesapeake Planetarium with
black and white galaxies, novas and nebulae.
Staff photo by STEVE EARLEY
In 28 years, Robert Hitt has painted hundreds of space scenes. He
makes no prints. Once he sells an original, it's gone except for the
slide he makes of each work.
Hitt likes his artwork to reflect recent discoveries, using data
from NASA space probes.
by CNB