Airbrushing as a fine art
digitalw...@yahoo.com
I was wondering what everyone thought about airbrushing as a fine art.
It seems to me that their is some sort of cultural bias against it.
That it is considered "tacky" to use airbrushing. Or even "cheating"
to combine airbrushed work with other handpainted effects on a support.
Does anyone think it likely, or even possible for a young "Picasso" to
emerge with airbrushing as his/her medium, or are feelings in the art
world too set against it. Are there practical challenges as well? Such
as limitations on what sort of supports can be used or on the life-span
of the colors??
-Steve
Paul Mesken
>I was wondering what everyone thought about airbrushing as a fine art.
My take on it is this :
It's a tool. But I think a lot of the airbrush artists restrict
themselves too much. They make everything smooth all over, using the
work as a platform for the medium instead of vice versa. It's too much
about the effect that the airbrush can yield and too little about the
work itself.
This is boring because takes away from the dynamics of texture (the
texture of the paint is the same all over). Airbrush artists, like
Olivia (the "male Vargas"), now mix the use of the airbrush and the
regular brush. This brings more life to the work. Her later work is
far more interesting than the "all airbrush" work she started out
with.
Things like pencil lines or brush strokes can bring a lot to a work.
They can be used as very explicit "marks", standing out clearly from
the rest. A lot of airbrush artists don't exploit this because they
only use the airbrush and not the regular brush. The range of the
airbrush is far smaller than that of the regular brush and thus the
range of the work made with the airbrush is smaller in range.
>It seems to me that their is some sort of cultural bias against it.
If I think of airbrush art then the image of photorealistical, shiny
cars springs to my mind (and, thus, is used for my judgement about
airbrush art in general). Everything done high key, gay colors, lots
of reflections in chrome and all-over smoothness.
The elements of this image are not consistent with, what I believe to
be, the prevalent ideas of what naturalistical fine art should be
like. A lot is, of course, prejudice. But not all.
- Shiny cars (the subject) : this has no psychological depth. For a
(naturalistical) work of art to resonate deeply with its audience, the
"human condition thing" should be present. Surely, shiny cars are nice
to look at but "niceness" doesn't cut it for fine art. Take an old,
rusting car in some backyard (for which the airbrush is NOT the tool
of choice). This has more depth because it is about decay, which is
one of the many elements of the human condition. We can sympathize
with that old defunct car. It's the "Empathy" versus "Abstraction"
thing. Shiny cars can work on an abstract level but the problem is
that it is often depicted as a naturalistical thing. And
naturalistical work is expected to work on the empathy level.
- High Key : things go flat in high key. Naturalistical fine art
should create visual depth (and a lot of the airbrush work is
naturalistical). It's also harder to accentuate things when doing
everything in high key.
- Gay Colors : this is a problem of saturation contrast. In real life,
most colors are quite muted. When a strong color is used amongst muted
colors then it really pops out. But if _everything_ is done in "candy
colors" then no color has real strength because a color draws its
strength from the weakness of the surrounding colors (it's the
difference, the contrast, that makes colors work). Color has no real
strength by itself (even Cadmium Orange looks weak when it is used
surrounded by Cadmium Red).
- Reflections : this is considered a "gadget". No fine art work should
revolve around a gadget. It's meaningless even though it looks
interesting (and it isn't hard to do).
- All-over Smoothness : the problem with this is that shape is mostly
created by shading in a painting (texture gradients are another way
but this is hardly ever employed in painting). The edges between
regions of different value are very important for rounded objects (for
straight edged objects it's, of course, always some kind of hard
edge). I feel that a lot of airbrush artists employ only soft edges
(after all : this is where the airbrush is best at). But soft edges
only work when there are also harder edges to set them off against.
It's all a relative thing (as usual). Edges in round objects show how
quickly a shape turns. Soft edges are used for slow turning shapes,
harder edges show a shape turning more quickly. But since this is a
relative thing, both types of edges should be used. In airbrush work,
it seems to me that only soft edges are used and no real hard edges
are employed. This takes away from the clarity to discern quick and
slow turning shapes. The difference is simply not big enough with an
airbrush. Add to this the "high key" and it becomes quite difficult to
discern shapes. A regular brush should be employed.
Furthermore : texture of the paint itself is important. For airbrush
work, this is uniform and, thus, everything looks like it's made from
the same smoothness of material (it's all smooth because it should be
fine enough to not clog up the airbrush).
In oil painting it is easy to manipulate texture. There's the
brushstroke itself which can be very smooth (using a soft filbert with
a leveling medium like stand oil) or very pronounced (using thick
paint, perhaps with some ground glass in it, applied with a flat hog
brush). The pigment itself can also be a major contributor (at least,
when making one's own paint, tubed paint from manufacturers is often
"over-mulled"). There are very fine, uniform pigments (like the
organics) but also coarse, speckled pigments (like the natural earth
colors).
Also, Oil paint has an advantage over acrylics. After all : it was the
medium of the "Old Masters" (if I think "Oil Paint" then I think
Rembrandt). It's, of course, a somewhat unfair advantage (although oil
paint is capable of more than acrylics). I've heard some stories of
painters doing work in both acrylics and oils. The oil paintings sold
consistently for more than the acrylic paintings, even though the same
artist did it and the quality was the same.
So, the very medium itself can be an element in the judging of the
artistic value of the work. It's not very fair, but then again : the
world ain't fair ;-)
In the end, I believe the airbrush to be simply a tool, not a medium.
Just like brushes. It has strengths (the ease at which soft edges can
be created and uniform surfaces) but also weakness (no texture, thin
film, no hard edges, no brushstroke). I think it should be used in
conjunction with regular brushes for naturalistical works. In abstract
work it could be used on its own, after all : in abstract work one can
choose to concentrate only on a limited set of visual elements.
Andrew D
digitalw...@yahoo.com wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I was wondering what everyone thought about airbrushing as a fine art.
Depends entirely on the product. Heck, if stapling keyboards to cows'
backsides is fine art (I'm sure someone's done it by now) then anything
goes.
> It seems to me that their is some sort of cultural bias against it.
There's bias against (and for) every form of art.
> That it is considered "tacky" to use airbrushing. Or even "cheating"
> to combine airbrushed work with other handpainted effects on a support.
The airbrush, like a hoghair brush, sable brush, palette knife or dog's
furry backside covered in coloured-custard, is just another tool for
applying media to a support. The tools do not determine the merit of the
finsihed product. In fact, in the modern art world there is no way of
determining the merit of a finished piece since "eveything is art".
> Does anyone think it likely, or even possible for a young "Picasso" to
> emerge with airbrushing as his/her medium, or are feelings in the art
> world too set against it.
If you think Picasso was good at art then I can see no reason how you
could hold concerns about using an airbrush. In fact, you could hold the
airbrush in your teeth and use it to smear thick pigment across a surface
- this would represent a novel way of using the tool (rather than spraying
stuff out of it like those sheep-like people unable to think outside the
square) and is more likely to impress contemporary curators and
collectors.
> Are there practical challenges as well? Such
> as limitations on what sort of supports can be used or on the life-span
> of the colors??
Lifespan is largely determined by the support and the medium. If you use
artist's quality acrylic, watercolour or oil on artist quality paper,
board or canvas (or elephant) then longevity shouldn't be an issue unless
you do something weird with the product. But, as I understand it, Picasso
held little concern for longevity and I'm told someof Pollock's
multi-million dollar pieces are falling apart. They used house paint and
if you look around town you'll see that most houses are re-painted often
within a single generation.
Don't let anyone else tell you what is art... but rest assured, they will
tell you anyway - even if you DON'T ask. Decide for yourself what your aim
is (fame and fortune, notoriety, wealth, expression, seclusion, exclusion,
drug-filled fun, peer respect, museum recognition, popular
recognition....?) and do what it takes to achieve it.
Every day you spend wondering if you're making real art is a day lost on
your artistic journey.
--
Andy D.
pigsm...@hotmail.com
said, almost all airbrush art comes out looking like Coca-cola cans...
even flesh looks like Coca-cola cans. However, Audrey has used
airbrushing to its greatest advantage. In general, I don't think very
much of photorealists, and Audrey is a photorealist. However, some of
Audrey's pieces are simply wonderously wonderful.