Portrait of a little girl

Recently I started experimenting with a combination of airbrush and color pencils. I prefer the oil-based pencils because they're not affected by paints and lacquer. In addition their coverage is quite good and they leave light-fast colors. The Surface of this particular portrait was Canson's linen textured paper, which is not the ideal surface for color pencils when attempting to create realistic art, since the bumps and dents of the surface results in grainy lines and coloured surfaces. When the pencil tips are sharp this problem is reduced.

I tried the whites of Faber-Castell Polychromos and Caran d'Ache Pablo (which are oil-based), but the graphite Derwent GraphiTint gave the best result and is probably the cheapest of the three as well. The Derwent has the same feel as the oil pencils, perhaps even a little bit more oily - smooth movement over the surface - and its coverage was absolutely great. I haven't tested smooth surfaces yet, but will do so in the near future. My guess is that the Faber-Castell and Caran d'Ache will do better on such surfaces, but I have to experience that to be sure.

The reference photo does not show the top of the girl's head, so I created some more hair there to be able to position her face better on the surface. The photo also lacked detail, but fortunately child's faces have less accents than that of older people. Airbrushing those requires good concentration, because subtle accents are easily messed up. The girl's hair was a different story, half messy (which is what it should be with children) and also difficult to interpret due to the lack of fine detail. This where the Derwent pencil saved me a lot of time.

I started using the Iwata HP-BH and it behaved badly. Checking the needle tip under a looking glass showed a slight kink in the tip. I straightened and polished it after which it performed well again. For the hair, I used the Iwata Custon SB after first polishing its needle. Since I always spray freehand, this top of the bill airbrush was necessary (saves time). The Inspire H2O paints in combination with the Createx 4012 Reducer currently are the best paints /reducer available to spray fine detail. It took me four days to spray - doing all sorts of other chores in between airbrushing.

Oldest stages at the bottom, newest on top as usual.

Virtually framed (using Rhinoceros 3D)

Johan Cruijff airbrush portrait

I started airbrushing this portrait in December 2015 before Cruijff passed away in March 2016. Then didn't touch it for months until July 12 2016. Airbrushing on linen textured paper is more difficult than on smooth paper. Textured paper is wrinkled - furrows and ripples - which causes the jet from the airbrush to miss the lower parts while depositing more paint on the higher parts. To avoid inconsistencies the airbrush has to be moved slow and mix ratios of reducer and paint require more attention, generally spraying with more diluted mixtures in more layers to obtain the required colour intensity. Difficult as it may be, the surface texture gives the airbrush a traditional atmosphere.

In last December I still favored the Iwata HP-BH to spray with. That changed when I focused more on using Inspire H2O paint, which is process perfectly in the Iwata Custom SB that has a slightly smaller nozzle and a sharper needle point. When airbrushing a lot of detail on difficult surfaces, such properties matter. The SB and the H2O are an ideal combination that make it possible to effectively airbrush on textured surfaces. Especially since the SB is a syphon type gun that has the paint cup on a side (the SB is interchangeable). It results in an unobstructed view to the paper, while this positioning of the cup shortens the distance between trigger and nozzle tip, which means the artist has a more accurate control over the placement of the spray. The H2O paint has wonderful characteristics; it barely clogs and flows excellently while drying quickly after hitting the paper. I used Black Smoke once more with allows to spray any grey hue necessary between white and (almost) black.

Oldest stages at the bottom, newest on top.

I'll stop here before I ruin it...
Virtually framed in 3D