Air Brush Practice

[flying_silverad]

For those of you who are pretty good at airbrushing, what would you suggest a good regiment of exercises should be?

 

[sandman]

John,

Practice with just water in your airbrush on a piece of cardboard.

Easy cleanup and no mess! Just til you get a "feel" for the brush.

sandman

 

[OKTurbo]

Signmakers commonly use a piece of glass to practice on. Wipe clean with thinner while it's still wet or scrape off with razor blade if it dries...

John

 

[flying_silverad]

Originally posted by sandman
John,

Practice with just water in your airbrush on a piece of cardboard.

Easy cleanup and no mess! Just til you get a "feel" for the brush.

sandman

Once you do that, aren't you committed to water base paints?

 

[Austin]

You could also practice with alcohol, which will give you a good idea of how to set up the brush for enamels.

Carl

 

[limd21]

Originally posted by flying_silverad
Once you do that, aren't you committed to water base paints?

I have heard advice along the lines that if you've shot oil/organic solvent based "enamel" paint through an airbrush, you should keep it dedicated to that medium, dedicating another to water/alcohol based acrylics. However, this just makes no sense to me at all. For all of the airbrushes that can be completely dissassembled, one can thoroughly clean all the parts so there is no significant remaining trace of the previous paint/solvent. Once that's done, why can't you then proceed to shoot whatever medium you choose?

This may not work with the Aztek/Testors airbrushes that have plastic modular nozzle assemblies that one is not supposed to dissassemble, so I could see in that case that some residual solvent/paint might always be left behind.

What also might be contributing to this myth (OK, I'll call it that now) is the somewhat common practice of not really doing a thorough cleaning. Some just shoot a bunch of their favorite solvent till it comes out "clear" and call it good. In my book, that's not a good cleaning. It's OK for a quick color change as long as the paint is compatible, but it's clearly not good enough for longer term needs.

Also, even if a miniscule amount of water or solvent is left behind, it will eventually evaporate completely.

 

[graylensman]

Originally posted by CTulanko
You could also practice with alcohol, which will give you a good idea of how to set up the brush for enamels.

Carl

Put the alcohol in the brush or you?

 

[Micromeister]

Originally posted by OKTurbo
Signmakers commonly use a piece of glass to practice on. Wipe clean with thinner while it's still wet or scrape off with razor blade if it dries...

John

We sign man use Glass to test and practice color consistency, viscosity, and overlay.
John,
We sign painters usually use old ratty newspaper or scrap paper, sho-card or any junk paper with water tinged with a drop of india ink, or just pain water for the apprentice airbrusher starting out.
Try starting with a #3 Medium needle/nozzle set up, or the one your brush supplied if there are no options.
Paractice making short straight lines 1 to 3" long vertical, horizontal, and diagonals left and right When your comfortable starting and stopping your lines and they are coming out fairly straight. Try printing upper case letters "HOWS" in varoious sizes. These strokes well use every movement your hand will need for any letter of the alphabet as well as smooth out your curves and arches. Practice starting with the nozzle closed and adjusting on the fly from a fine mist to a solid wet line with minimal side splatter. Once your confidence is up, try some cheap black water color, tempra will work to make some shapes and lines then use the edges of cardboard to make very straight edged lines and/or quick stencil shapes for shadow object. ie a ragged torn piece of card stock make a very quick horizon line on a background piece while that same ragged edge could be used as a branch line for a tree, edge of a road ...
Hope this helps

 

[Micromeister]

Speaking of Signmen!
I heard this one today:
Sign on a chinese Pet store
"Buy a Dog...Get one Flea!"

Walked by a woman with a printed sweat shirt that read
"Guess"
I said "implants?
she smacked me

 

[flying_silverad]

Thanks Micro...just what the doctor ordered. I liked the dog joke too!