AIRBRUSH LESSON ONE

by Don Johnson/airbrushgallery.com

No matter what you want to airbrush be it finger nails, Harley's, illustrations, helmet's any type of surface the basic airbrush skills needed to achieve good results are the same. The following exercises will help you achieve good results by teaching you how to apply color where you want, when you want, giving you the desired affect. Put aside one or two hour's per day for a week to practice these basic lesson's and in no time you'll be airbrushing like a pro. 


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What you will need to complete this lesson: A good double action airbrush , either gravity feed or bottom feed, air hose , air source be it a compressor or CO2 tank, pad of news print ( this you can buy at most art or hobby stores get the largest size pad you can) , one bottle black airbrush color either Golden Airbrush Colors, Dr Ph Martins airbrush colors, Comart will work the best for this lesson, an easel or something to lean your pad of newsprint against ( you might find these easier to do standing up , an easel is a great help if you have one)

Pictured above you can see Cody is holding his airbrush much the same you would a pen, relaxed and loose in his hand at this point. Please use airbrush ready paints while learning either DR Ph Martins, Golden Airbrush Colors or Comart will work for this. You will learn much faster and enjoy it more if you didn't have to hassle with paint that's hard to use. The paint mentioned above are the best to use, craft paint, textile paint, hobby paint are all fine to use after you learn the basics. Make life easy on your self in this respect, trust me use the colors I suggest, please.

Newsprint is a great inexpensive paper to practice these lessons on and can be purchased at most art stores or hobby stores.

1. air on
2. start motion
3. pull back on trigger for paint
4. push forward on trigger to reduce paint flow
5. follow through with air on off edge of paper

You will notice that the size, width of the line you are airbrushing is directly affected by the distance that the tip of your airbrush is from the paper. The closer you are to the paper the smaller and thinner the line will be. The further away from the paper you are the larger the line will be.

*AIR ON FIRST THAN START MOVING YOUR AIRBRUSH THAN APPLY COLOR. 

here

(1) air on 
(2) pull back on trigger just a little making a nice round dot 
(3) push trigger forward paint off 
(4) air still on move to the right a little make your next dot.

4: PUTTING THEM TOGETHER: So you have now mastered dots and lines, let's put the dots and lines together. Airbrush nice round dots all over your page, in no order just all over the place. Now connect all the dots with nice straight lines. With the air on all the time, even between lines airbrush a line from one dot to the next dot, stop on that dot before going on to the next dot. Nice straight lines from one dot to the next, do not change the shape of the dots as you go. Again notice how the distance of the tip of your airbrush from your paper affects the line you are airbrushing. Close - small tight line, far away - big fuzzy line.

Pictured above we'll cover shading. I realize these basic lessons are not the most fun but hang in there once these techniques become second nature you'll be able to painting pretty much anything you want.

5: SHADING: Next we will work on shading techniques with the airbrush. We will start on the left side of your paper with the tip of your airbrush several inches back from the surface. Start moving your airbrush straight across the page and lightly apply color as you go. Remember to start moving your airbrush with the air on than gently pull back on airbrush trigger to apply color, as you near the opposite edge of the paper start pushing the airbrush trigger forward shutting the color off and follow through with air on only. Now with the air still on go back to the left side of the page and start all over again. Your goal is to have nice shading (color) all the way across and down the paper with no signs of starting or stopping. Nice even tone all the way across and down the page.

Now put your airbrush shading skills to work with this circle. First consider which direction your light source will be coming from than apply shading as the light source would indicate it to be. By pointing the tip of your airbrush in towards the center of the object you can contain most of the over spray within the circle. Make sure to follow the shape of the object, in this case the circle. Do not try shading the circle by going straight across the circle but around with the shape of the circle. Going straight across the circle will produce a flat round dot on the page not a nice round looking circle. Imagine it to be a ball and try to bring it to life with your airbrush. Put your shading skills to work on other objects as well, a child's coloring book is the perfect place to test your shading skills

Below is my the vide that covers Lesson #1. 

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