"Airbrushing a Stipple Effect"

By Don Johnson
www.airbrushartistmagazine.com
www.airbrushtechniquemagazine.com

This is a very old trick used to create a stipple effect which can be used on T-Shirts, license plates, sheet metal, illustrations, etc. For this you will need a cloths pin or business card, airbrush, air source, paint.

Pictured above: You can see I have one half of a wooden cloths pin which the airbrush is directed at the end of the cloths pin. At this point I'm several inches from the paper using 25 psi with illustration type airbrush paint. If I where using textile paint the psi would be 40 to 60.

If you leave the air cap on your airbrush (which I do not) you could actually rest the end of your airbrush right on the cloths pin. This technique can also be used with a big spray gun as well by using a surface larger than a cloths pin to bounce the paint off.

Pictured above: As you can see I'm directing the paint flow onto the end of the cloths pin. The paint bounces off the cloths pin creating the stipple effect on the paper.

Pictured above: Creating different stipple effects can be accomplished by adjusting the angle your airbrush is positioned at in relationship to the cloths pin and by how far from the surface the cloths pin is. Vary the distance the cloths pin is from the surface you'll vary the size stipple produced.

Pictured above: Play around with this simple technique and you can learn to control the effect fairly well. To contain the stipple to one area masking will be needed in most case's.

Pictured above: A business card can be used also to create the same kinds of effects.

Pictured above: By folding the business card in half and using it in sort of a V shape you might find you have better control than with a cloths pin.

Pictured above: As with the cloths pin direct your airbrush near the end of the business card.

Pictured above: As with the cloths pin you can vary the stipple effect by varying the angle of your airbrush and the distance you are from the surface you are spraying. Bottom is a licnse plate with multi color stipple effect applied as out lined above.

Play around with both a cloths pin and business card and see which you have better control with.

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I hope you found this article helpful.
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