Airbrushes use the power of air pressure and finely engineered spray paint heads to create misty scenes and fade patterns. You can paint almost any design with an airbrush. The technique requires a light touch and some artistic ability. Once you have learned it, you can apply the skill to different projects, including designing your own t-shirts and custom car graphics.
Instructions
1. Tape a piece of cloth onto a canvas stand or white board stand. You can also pin it in place with a clothespin or needle.
2. Practice your strokes. Fill your airbrush gun with any paint color, preferably one that is dark and easier to see, like navy blue or gray. To achieve gray, reduce black paint down by adding water or mixing it with white paint. If you want a pastel color, mix white with a solid color like blue or red.
3. Test the airbrush by depressing the trigger and spraying a small amount of paint onto a solid surface. If you want a wider or thinner stream, turn the gun tip nozzle to open the hole (in most guns turning the nozzle right creates a smaller opening and turning it left makes a larger hole).
4. Hold the gun about 5 inches from the medium. Depress the trigger while moving the gun slowly and steadily in an arc across the medium. This creates a crescent shape with faded edges. Apply this to areas you want shaded and on backgrounds for buildings and the sky. Repeat this step several times to get a feel for the equipment.
5. Try new shapes like circles and heavy horizontal lines, and then begin to experiment with colors. Create horizontal lines of various shades of orange by reducing the paint with each pass to create a sunset fade, for instance.
6. Use different types of nozzles, including both double action screw-in tip nozzles and floating nozzles. Begin to draw hard lines to add more detail to your designs.
