What is a glow board?
A glow board is a glow-in-the-dark plastic board on which you draw with UV light instead of paint. The areas you light up glow green in the dark. After approx. 1–2 hours the picture has faded and you can start a new design. The board comes in DIN A4 and DIN A5, each approx. 2 mm thick. A4 offers more space for large pictures, A5 is smaller and easier to handle.
The glow board is made for drawing, writing and experimenting with light in a dark room. Because every picture fades by itself, you need neither paper nor an eraser.
How to draw with light
Drawing with light works in a darkened room with a UV torch, in three steps:
- Darken the room and wait until the board no longer glows.
- Draw, sketch or write with the UV torch held close to the board. The longer the light stays on one spot, the brighter it glows.
- Switch off the light and look at the picture. The glow is strongest right after drawing and then gradually fades.
Which lamp do you need?
A UV torch with a focused beam, for example 400 nm, is suitable for drawing. The boards are supplied without a lamp. A normal white torch charges the board only very inefficiently. We show our former glow drawing sets with lamp on the page Things we used to make.
Good to know
- If the board lies in a bright room, it charges across its whole surface and glows as a whole.
- Never shine UV light into the eyes.
- Glow boards are craft and art supplies, not a toy.
- Want a design that stays instead of fading? Then printable glow paper is the right choice. How afterglow works is covered in Afterglow explained.