|
Airbrushing
An airbrush is a small, air-operated tool that sprays various media including ink and dye, but most often paint by a process of atomization. Spray guns developed from the airbrush and are still considered a type of airbrush. more...
Home
Art
Basketry
Bead Art
Candle & Soap Making
Ceramics, Pottery
Crafts Wholesale Lots
Crocheting
Cross Stitch
Decorative, Tole Painting
Drawing
Embroidery
Fabric
Fabric Embellishments
Floral Crafts
Framing & Matting
General Art & Craft Supplies
Glass Art Crafts
Handcrafted Items
Kids Crafts
Knitting
Lacemaking, Tatting
Latch Rug Hooking
Leathercraft
Macramé
Metalworking
Mosaic
Needlepoint
Other Arts & Crafts
Painting
Acrylic Paint
Airbrushing
Canvases
Easels
Oil Painting
Other Painting Supplies
Paint Brushes
Paint by Number
Palettes
Paper
Watercolor Paint
Paper Crafts & Origami
Quilting
Ribbon
Rubber Stamping & Embossing
Scrapbooking
Sewing
Shellcraft
Spinning
Upholstery
Wall Décor, Tatouage
Weaving
Woodworking
Yarn
The first airbrush was invented in 1879 by Abner Peeler, in Iowa, USA.
History
This first airbrush invented by Peeler used a hand-operated compressor, and the inventor patented it "for the painting of watercolors and other artistic purposes". It was rather crude, being based on a number of spare parts in a jeweller's workshop such as old screwdrivers and welding torches. It took 4 years of further development before a practical device was developed. This was marketed by Liberty Walkup, who taught airbrush technique to American Impressionist master Wilson Irvine. The first modern type airbrush came along in 1893, presented by Thayer and Chandler art materials company at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, invented by Charles Burdick. This device looked like a pen and worked in a different manner to Peeler's device, being essentially the same as a modern airbrush. Aerograph, Burdick's original company, still makes and sells airbrushes in England.
For more a detailed academic study, the University of Wales Library holds a detailed PhD on Airbrush History. Likewise the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia retains a copy - authored by Dr. Andy Penaluna.
Design
An airbrush works by passing a stream of fast moving (compressed) air through a venturi, which creates a local reduction in air pressure (suction) that allows paint to be pulled up from an interconnected reservoir at normal atmospheric pressure. The high velocity of the air atomizes the paint into very tiny droplets as it blows past a very fine paint-metering component. The paint is carried onto paper or other surface. The operator controls the amount of paint using a variable trigger which opens more or less a very fine tapered needle that is the control element of the paint-metering component. An extremely fine degree of atomization is what allows an artist to create such smooth blending effects using the airbrush.
The technique allows for the blending of two or more colors in a seamless way, with one color slowly becoming another color. Freehand airbrushed images, without the aid of stencils or friskets, have a floating quality, with softly defined edges between colors, and between foreground and background colors. A well skilled airbrush artist can produce paintings of photographic realism or can simulate almost any painting medium. Painting at this skill level involves supplementary tools, such as masks and friskets, and very careful planning.
Some airbrushes use pressures as low as 20 psi (1.38 bar) while others use pressures in the region of 30-35 psi (2-2.4 bar). Larger "spray guns" as used for automobile spray-painting need 100 psi (6.8 bar) or more to adequately atomise a thicker paint using less solvent. They are capable of delivering a heavier coating more rapidly over a wide area. However certain spray guns called, High-Volume Low-Pressure (HVLP) spray guns, are designed to deliver the same high volumes of paint without requiring such high pressures.
Read more at Wikipedia.org
|
|