CREATING YOUR FIRST PAINTING

We are at the point of painting. We have our design that we have created or gathered from books magazines or internet. As mentioned, if you can use an image editing software in goes a long way towards visualizing your mural before you even start painting. I use these composites to show the customer what the mural will look like from all gathered reference materials. I have a tattoo design site and I have cool designs there you can use as a resource. liquidskyn.comSet up your airbrush and mix your paint. Depending on the type of paint your using mixing ratios will vary. I use a test sheet to test the flow of paint. if you see a grainy flow the paint is to thick, thin it a little more. If it splatters it is too thin. High pressure on your compressor will also do this. Make sure it is set between 40 and 50 psi. Experience will tell you if yuor paint is mixed properly. Using an exacto knife and cutting board, carfully cut your design out. Start with the basic shape first. Tack it with masking tape and spray in the basic shape. Be careful to not build an edge on the shape. Cut out various other parts to get the basic shape and lines. Once you have up your general sgape you can start to freehand all of you details in.

Wicked Trunk Mural by Magik

I posted this Video some time back on you tube. Watch my hand movements and how guide my airbrush.  it is important to be relaxed and fluid. 

Well I discussed a bit on getting started if you have drawing abilities.  But if you are a little lite on the drawing part of it it disn;t mean your out of the airbrush game.  With computers it is easy to design and print out your own airbrush stencils.  You can pick up Photoshop CS3 a lite version of Photoshop for around a hundred dollars.  Or you may already have less sophisticated app to re size crop and composite photos and artwork in your computer.  Many times they are bundled with you printer software. You can use an online photo editor to create your stencils.  A good one I found is at  http://fotoflexer.com/

You can then print out the design you have created and using an xacto knife cut out you stencil from standard paper.  This can be used as a lite stencil.  You just want a lite shape, you don't want any hard edge build up.
So you can get by with less ability, but my best advise is to practice practice and more practice. Airbrushing is an art form and must be understood as so. 

Many get the idea since it is a spray gun it is like using a spray gun to paint a house or car.  The better the artist you are, the better the finished project will look and the better the chance you will succeed becoming an airbrush artist.

Your First Project

Now your ready to go!  Well you have no customers right now, because you have no samples to show.  Everyone has a different level of ability and talent,  I'll assume if you are really interested in airbrushing you have been drawing or painting a for some time.  If you are at this level than it will be a matter of making up some sketches for some ideas.  You can also go online and look at some great airbrush art.  Now your creative juices are cooking.  Your first airbrush paintings can be fairly simple just to get the feel of painting with an airbrush.  Depending on how realistic you want your work to appear it will depend on your knowledge of light and shadow.  How ti get textures with airbrush also can prove to be a challenge.  But that challenge and others can be overcome.  You can use illustration board to create your samples on, and then spray a little gloss over your work to get rid of spray patterns that occur on your work.   If you are doing T-shirts than just create some sample T-shirts. If you want to show how your work will look on metal than a trip to the auto dismantling  yard.  Now get painting!

Choosing Airbrush Paint

Alright you got your compressor, you picked out your airbrush, but wait there is something missing....paint.  Depending what you going to paint pretty much dictates what you going to use.  If your planning on painting T-shits, than you will need a good textile paint.  If you going to paint a sign, a durable enamel will do.  A custom vehicle, automotive paint you will need.  Now I started out with  One Shot which is a sign painter and pin striping paint.  It had great flow and was relatively inexpensive, we're talking thirty years ago.  It is a solvent based paint and you need a well ventilated area and should wear a industry approved paint mask.  I was concerned about the health risk using this kind of paint. In the early 90's I switched to the new water based enamels. I loved them! I enjoyed painting so much more. Easy to use, easy to clean up, and much less clogging. I started with a brand called Deka. It had a great flow and worked well with free handing. I used it for about ten years until it was discontinued.  I was upset over this and I had to find to a suitable replacement.  I tried Auto Air from Createx which I could buy locally.  I was not happy with the flow of the paint.  Then Createx came out with Detail Colors as part of their automotive line. It was a new formula, and it had a great flow, I was a happy camper again.

Createx has since discontinued the Detail Colors line and they incorporated the new formula into their standard Auto Air line.

Begining to airbrush.

Image via Wikipedia

When you first pick up an airbrush it feels a little different then what you are use to, as with a pen or pencil. With a single action airbrush you will use it more like a spray gun to paint small areas like model cars and such.  But with a double action you can use it like a pen and spray gun.  This is the power of a double action airbrush.  For the novice it will take some time getting use to the trigger action.  Pushing down for airflow control and pulling back for paint volume. Now you can start by painting dots of various sizes and placing them at equal distances.  Making dots smaller you will learn about volume control. You will probably splatter a few but that's alright you need just to get use to trigger. Next you can start to arc your spray pattern to get a shaded effect. Move the airbrush close to the surface to get a sharp line and pull away and pull back on the lever to to widen to a shaded effect. A slight flick of the wrist will go a long way here.  Once you feel comfortable with the triggering action of your airbrush you are ready to paint something simple.

How to Airbrush: Birth of an Airbrush Artist

Back when I started airbrushing in the late seventies, there was very little information on airbrush techniques.  Badger had a small thin book out that showed a few step by steps, but it was limited.  I pretty much had to teach myself back then.  Today, with the Internet information is at your finger tips. You can check out you tube for for some great how to's and you can watch other artist from all over the country work on projects.  Here is a resource to check out.

http://www.howtoairbrush.com/

Choosing an air compressor

What kind of air compressor are you going to need? To airbrush your going to need at least 30 to 45 psi. Some of the small airbrush compressors made for airbrushing barely meet this criteria.  Many have no tanks, so they must run continuously.  Not good if you airbrushing for several hours strait. I would burn them out.  So they are only good for the model car hobbyist.  Not for a power user.  I've also had bad luck with the oil less types too.  A good oil type can be picked up at your local Home Depot.  12 gallon tank and up will serve your purpose.  Make sure to have a moisture trap too.

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Choosing an airbrush

One of the first questions I am usually asked is what airbrush do I use.  As an artist, I feel the airbrush is a tool to paint with, nothing more.  Your talent, experience, and abilities are what really counts.  If you have a expensive top of the line airbrush model don't expect your work to be that much better.  Some of my best work was done with basic entry level airbrushes.  Just make sure it's a double action airbrush in the $80 to $110 range.  A medium tip is fine.  You can fine line very well with it. Now a double action airbrush means you can control the airflow and paint volume with the trigger.  This is very important when you need to freehand details.  All of the work you see in my pictures were down free handed with a double action airbrush with a medium tip.  When started in the late 1970's I used a siphon fed airbrush with a bottle.  Today, I prefer the gravity fed type for easy handling and getting in tight areas.

Birth of an Airbrush Artist

It's been a long day for me, just finnished painting. I am living my dream and it is worth the hard work. I have a bit of time to reflect on how I began airbrushing. I am often asked this question. As a teen I saw a movie about lowriding, and a lowrider with a mural was in it. I thought "Hey I could do that, and maybe make some spending money too." With the money I made on my summer job I bought a compressor and airbrush and paint. I had read a couple of books on airbrush art and graphics. I dove into it, I painted on an old stove door, my first attempts were fustrating because the airbrush is a little difficult until you get enough practice with air pressure and paint mixture, and thinning it to the right consisitancy. A friend of mine told one of his buddies about me and he hit me up for a mural on his trunk. Being my first paying job I charged him only $50.00. He wanted a mexican girl with a mission in the background. It came out very well, even I was surprised. He loved it and spread the word. By the time I was 19 I had already painted over thirty murals on lowrider cars, trucks and bicycles. My business was born, I never thought I would still be doing it today.

Artist in development

Once I had a pencil in my hand, I realized the power I could wield with it. I saw the affect I had on others with my drawings. Every day I would draw to entertain myself. I could create a whole new world for my imagination to grow and mature. I had found a home in a 2 deminsional land of castles and dragons. I could travel to other planets to which I could explore. Dive to the depths of the ocean in a submarine or fly through the heavens on a high speed futuristic plane. I can remember collecting my first comic books before i could read. I would get a new one every time we would visit my grandmother because she lived right next to a market. They would have all of the comic books on racks outside the store. I would just look through them trying to decide which one I could get. I would go home and start to draw looking at the comic books, studying them how to draw the anatomy, how to draw trees and buildings. Later I started to create my own comic strips using what I had learned.

How I got started in art

I had grown up on comic books and sci-fi movies as a kid. I was blessed with a very good imagination, and art provided that outlet for my imagination. At around 4 years of age I started drawing on anyting I could get my hands on. I can clearly remember drawing on paper bags at my grandmothers's because she had no paper. My mother brought home a giant roll of butcher paper; I went wild! I drew a whole battle scene measuring 7feet in length.

In first grade I made my first money for my art work at school. I would sell drawings of super heroes for a quarter to the other kids. The day I realized I had a talent, was when my second grade teacher had the class draw a portrait of her. While everyone else was drawing a stick figure, I was drawing a realistic anatomically correct portrait of her. She walked around the classroom checking everyone's art work. When she got to me she stopped dead in her tracks let out a gasp, she ran out of the classroom and quickly came back with several other teachers. The next thing I knew I was sitting in the principal’s office. Luckily, he only wanted to see my drawings, I thought for sure he was coming out with his big thick belt, in those days they could whip kids. Soon I began making my own comics to entertain myself and anyone else who would look at them.