Sometimes you have to break out the

Airbrush for Mural Projects

Since I had a couple of days to work on the studio mural I decided to speed up the process by breaking out my set of airbrushes and do the

Shading on The Balustrades

Now I am no expert with the airbrush but I have decided to use it a little more often when creating some

Trompe Loeil effects

because to me you can just get more realism out of your mural projects when using an airbrush and being that I have a mix of different mediums I figure why not use different tools as well

We may even have a 4 day Airbrush Class in January

I have been working on my studio mural off and on with hardly any reference which I know is risky but with the Florida sunshine and plenty of landscape right outside I really shouldn’t be to far off on color

I still have more detail to add to the foliage but using the airbrush for murals projects will bring in some nice touches of realism. I thought about finishing it off with artists oils but since I needed to refresh myself with the airbrush I broke out the compressor and went to work.

It isn’t really difficult to learn the basics it’s like anything else you have to practice with it and get the feel of it. I use a double action Iawata siphon feed for the larger shading.

An overall view gives the mural a sense of realism but yet still has the “painterly effect” which is what I want to achieve. If I wanted total realism then I would use another application altogether to create that effect

On the right side of the mural I have not added any of the foliage other than bringing more grass detail and blocking in more of the hedges….Yeah yeah I know, I still have more floor to finish and I will do that before finalizing the balustrade details

As you can see just with some basic knowledge the realism starts to come alive on these balustrades. Of course you have to make a few shields to prevent overs praying the darks over the light areas like over on the left side of this set of balustrades.

For the ledge and the left side of the bases  I just used a little tape to create the hard edge and didn’t spend a lot of time worrying about making the shadows consistent in value on each individual balustrade because there will be more foliage coming in around them. We just want the effect for now to give us an idea of where the the other values will fall when it comes to bringing in the midtones and high lights of the hedges and vines that I will be bringing in later…

One of the tricks is to keep your mix thin with the “medium to paint ratios” and “build” on the shadow but don’t go to far and “opaque” it out because that will distort the Trompe Loeil effect and will make the shadow come forward. On the backside of the balustrades I should have left a faint line for the reflected light but the nice thing with an airbrush is I can bring it back in later.

I am getting ready to launch some classes and will be showing some basic techniques for the “Do it Yourself” kind of individuals to get them started in the right direction. But I am in the process of talking with a renowned airbrush artist for possibly having a class in January of 2011 providing I can get enough interest in the medium. This artist has a studio of his own and he is usually to capacity when he holds his classes.

I thought it would be an opportunity for artists of Southwest Florida to expand their knowledge and also for decorative artists to incorporate another tool into their bag of tricks to further the quality of future projects.

As everyone knows who follows my blog I am about expanding into many art forms other than just decorative art because to me the more versatile you are the more choices you have to get away from the “Starving Artist” scenario which is one of the reasons why I have been studying many different marketing techniques for artists which I will be posting about also, but this will be done on a separate blog that I am in the process of launching.

at any rate if you are interested in taking an airbrush class on “Photo Realism” or any other airbrush class at my new studio in Bonita Springs Fl sign up below for more information and you will be sent an email with a link on who this renowned artist is.

This class is open to everyone and I think artists who are currently working in the auto mural industry would be very interested in this class