Airbrush

Tips for the Airbrush Artist

Keep It Clean – Your air cap, that is. If you’ve used an airbrush you likely have seen bubbles appear in the color cup/paint reservoir.  This can happen whether it’s a bottom feed, side feed or gravity feed airbrush.  The bubbles are caused by dried paint on the tip and/or the needle at the front of the brush.  Another indicator of this is a change in the shape of the airbrush spray from round to flat.  Both of these mean that a cleaning of the airbrush tip is in order.  Unscrew the air cap at the tip of the brush and inspect the needle.  You will see a tiny bit of dried paint or thick pigment.  Gently remove this with your finger or wash it off with a stiff paint brush and the appropriate cleaner.  Then simply screw the air cap back in place, snug but not too tight, and the airbrush should then spray like new.

Different Tips for Different Sprays – Many airbrushes—internal and external mix, single action and dual action—have interchangeable paint tips (head assemblies) and needles.  There are usually two to three tip sizes available for a particular model airbrush.  These are designated fine, medium and wide or numbered 1, 3 and 5, respectively.  The needles/tips are normally not interchangeable among manufacturers and, in some cases, not interchangeable among a given manufacturer’s models.  The finer the needle/tip, the finer the airbrush spray will be.  When changing from one size to another, the paint tip is replaced as well as the corresponding needle. If damage to just one of these parts occurs (e.g., a bent needle), only that specific part needs to be replaced.

Cautious Cutting 101 – Frisket is cut directly on the surface of your artwork; so, when cutting, do not bear down too hard with the stencil knife.  Allow the weight of the knife and the sharpness of the blade to do the cutting for you so the surface of the artwork doesn’t get damaged.  Be sure to exercise caution when using frisket knives because they are extremely sharp.  In reality, any knife that you use to cut frisket could be called a frisket knife, but generally they are the pencil-shaped, lock-blade stencil knives that use a #11 blade.  Blades can be purchased in bulk, because frisket cutting can dull the blade tip very quickly.

Copyright ARTtalk Vol. 22, No. 1 — November 2011