Today, many young artists find their way to airbrushing via social networks or YouTube. There are many tips and tricks available, but a structured introduction „from scratch“ is usually missing. Mistakes and problems are often predestined. The new English-language basic book „Airbrushing 101“ by the two American airbrush artists and instructors Maryellen Vettori and Bob Keeling from „The Airbrush Institute“ offers exactly this in-depth approach to learning the airbrush technique on 192 pages.
The book begins with a brief but important overview of the various ways airbrush equipment works, as well as cleaning, maintenance and repair tips, and brief info on colors and substrates. But already on page 15 the heart of the book starts: the practical lessons. There are 54 of them in total, each with its own pre-printed practice sheet – to spray on directly or to be used as a copy template – in the back of the book. Starting with dots and lines of all shapes and widths, the airbrush beginner is learning increasingly complex shapes and motifs such as hair, trees and stars. Combined with color gradients, he will finally arrive at spheres and first animal motifs and portraits with shading. Finally, numerous textures are practiced until all the acquired skills are used in combination in the last 4 final projects.
For such a colorful subject as airbrushing, it seems kind of strange at first glance that the whole book is printed only in black and white. However, this is not at all a hindrance to learning the basics and how to use the airbrush, since the stroke and gradient patterns to be learned technically work in any color. “Airbrushing 101″ is primarily about the correct handling and control of the airbrush; the creation and design aspects can be learned at another occasion. Possibly they will become a topic in the already announced 2nd volume of the book, „Airbrushing 102“.
„Airbrushing 101“ (ISBN 978-0-359-80754-3) is produced by print-on-demand and can be ordered for $49.99 from bookstores or directly from