Basic Airbrush Lesson:
Edges (Part One)

For this airbrush lesson you'll need the following equipment:

• your airbrush equipment
• transparent paint in any color
• exacto knife
• pencil
• scrap white paper
• small piece of cardstock (any scrap card material will do)
• six pennies

The skill we will be focusing on is - you guessed it - edges!

Why Edges?

Beginners typically choose one of two paths when they first start painting... either they try to paint everything free-hand, or they try to use masks for everything.

With free-hand work the results tend to be fuzzy and loose with no crispness.

With masks, all the edges are crisp and the piece looks sort of like a jig-saw puzzle.

The truth is that every painting, no matter what medium you are working on has a variety of edges in it.... there are soft, medium and hard edges and everything in between. Being able to identify different edges and reproduce them will produce much more believable results.

Scroll down when you are ready!
(P.S: This is an easy one)

Step 1

Gather all your materials if you haven't already. Trace around one of the pennies onto the cardstock material and use the exacto knife to cut out the small circle. This piece of cardstock will be your "shield".

Step 2

Place the shield onto your white paper and hold it down firmly. Use your airbrush to spray through the hole in the shield as shown.

Step 3

Remove the shield and examine the resulting circle. See how the edges are crisp.

(Mine has a few jagged edges from doing a poor job cutting the cardstock).

Step 4

Now we are going to use our pennies to raise the shield a small distance off the surface of the white paper.

Place two of the pennies on your paper a few inches apart.

Step 5

Now place the shield on top of the two pennies and hold the shield firmly in place with your fingers. When you have it in place, use your airbrush to spray in the area again.

(Note that adding the pennies is purely for demonstration purposes in this airbrush lesson... when doing a painting you would just hold the shield away from the surface.)

Step 6

Now remove the shield and examine this circle....see how the edges are soft and blurry? See how the overspray snuck underneath your shield?

Step 7

Now try it with two layers of pennies, and then three... See how the effect varies slightly the farther you get from the paper?

Below is the completed demonstration piece for this airbrush lesson.

Step 8

Seeing as how you have all the equipment you need out anyway - you might as well give Basic Airbrush Lesson: Edges (Part Two) a try!