Welcome to Airbrush Painting Techniques .com

Anybody can learn airbrush painting techniques. You don’t have to be able to draw, or be good at oil painting, to become a very good airbrush painter. It’s a very unique style of painting that really stands alone against all other forms of painting. Mistakes in airbrush painting can be quite unforgiving, but you can master your techniques quickly and avoid such mistakes. A steady even hand, and good hand to eye co-ordination is all you need to become a good airbrush artist. The following YouTube video demonstrates a few excercises to help develope your hand to eye co-ordination.

Care with your surface

One of the first things you’ll find out is that the surfaces you prepare for painting need to be handled in a careful manner. If you should accidentally touch the surface, then the oils that are ever present on your fingertips will come off on your surface. This will cause you problems, because your airbrush paint is water-based acrylic, and the two will not mix. So handling your surface carefully will be something you learn right off.

Spray Control

Whenever you begin to do airbrush painting, you’ll find that technique is very important to the overall process. You need to get a really good feel for your airbrush and how to control it. This takes practice just like anything else, but it’s not that difficult, and you should be able to master it in very little time. Controlling your spray is the goal. You control your diameter by moving the airbrush further away or closer to your painting ground, or surface. It’s best to go from far to close when you’re starting.




After you’ve picked up a few airbrush painting techniques, you’ll have a better understanding of how to build your paint density slowly. Diluting your paint can be a big help in many instances. The best type of airbrush to use is the ‘Double-action’ airbrush. These airbrushes can handle the color quantity and the airflow regulation simultaneously. And you should always make sure that you have a strong enough compressor to do the job you want to do.

Painting Shadows

When you want to paint shadows, you’ll learn that it’s very easy. You simply take your black paint and dilute it so you can get a fine color spread. The when you begin to spray it on, make sure that you’re back a good distance from the painting ground. This will help you to not lay it on too darkly too fast. And when you paint highlights, light edges, or reflections, you simply lay on less paint and allow your white paper to shine through some.

Masking

Once you decide on what to paint, and you want to paint one of the objects within your painting ground, then it’s time to break out the masking film. This clear film will allow you to see what’s underneath. So if you’ve taken a pencil and sketched something like a cube, you can see it, and then take a cutter and cut along the outside of it. Now you lift the film from off the cube, and paint the cube. Afterwards, you replace what you cut off the cube onto the cube to protect it while you paint other parts of your picture. The following Video gives an excellent example of using a mask to build up your picture.









Another great way of creating and building up your picture is by the use of Stencils. Check out our Airbrush Stencils and Masks page for more information and Videos.

Graduated Color Tones

To create some gradual tones, you will begin by first laying a dark line of your color. You use a good amount of paint, and start with your airbrush about 20mm distance from your painting ground. Then you lay it down, from right to left. As you move, either up or down, you gradually move a farther distance away, laying down a thinner layer of the paint, and you overlap this layer with your first layer at about half the width of the first layer. And as you progress, you apply less paint. Soon you’ll see that you have a gradual tone from dark to a lighter shade.

You can Airbrush too

Anybody can learn airbrush painting techniques, and you can really have a lot of fun with it. It’s very different from any other types of painting. Even if you can’t draw at all, you can become good at airbrush painting. With stencils and pictures anyone can pick up this form of art and learn its techniques.