Just Got A Wonderful Airbrush System For X-Mas Now What?
Decorating By HipnotiqGlamour Updated 31 Dec 2008 , 2:32am by tiggy2
Okay so I got what I was hoping for, for x-mas and that was a airbrush system.
SOOooOOo My question is for those of you who airbrush how in the heck did you figure out what your doing. What psi's should I be spraying at? How far away etc etc
Let me know how you learned please
Thank you all and happy Holidays
All I can say is read the directions with your particular airbrush and practice. I wanted to throw mine out the window for quite a while. Now I'm quite fond of it.
Well, I just played around with it. And I looked all over You tube at air brush videos. But the best thing you can do is practice on your own.
I've got the same problem and mine didn't even come with instructions. I've been busy so I haven't had a chance to play with it yet.
Okay so I got what I was hoping for, for x-mas and that was a airbrush system.
SOOooOOo My question is for those of you who airbrush how in the heck did you figure out what your doing. What psi's should I be spraying at? How far away etc etc
Let me know how you learned please
I use:
18 psi is plenty to airbrush a cake, lower if you are doing little pieces that blow away
about 10-12 inches away for an overall spray, closer for lines etc.
airbrushing cakes is the opposite from shirts so layer your colors from light to dark, you get a better look with layers of color
(see my apple pic, thats 4 or 5 different colors from golds, greens, reds, in that order.
don't spray black fondant with luster or pearl dust it turns grayish.
get Americolor airbrush (Amerimist?) (not gel) in the little bottles, there is a place on ebay that sells all 41 mini bottles for about $40 bucks then just replace the ones you use all the time.
white is great but it tends to clog the airbrush, and you can't spray a color with white and expect it to be white, it will just dull/soften the color you had
make sure you clean your airbrush when you are done. you can use Windex instead of airbrush cleaner, it is basically the same. I use vodka to "rinse" the airbrush between colors.
mix vodka with colors to water them down so to speak
mix white airbrush color with paints to soften them
airbrush with water on fondant if you want a shiny look to your fondant
airbrush with vodka all over to get rid of cornstarch marks and give a more uniform appearance.
I keep plain paper near my airbrush so I can check colors as I'm mixing them
cover everything near the airbrush and behind it, the paint sort of goes everywhere, and it's a good idea to wear a mask, even though its just food color, you will end up with pink boogers for a week if you don't. Have fun, experiment, I love my airbrush!
Wow thank you everyone and thank you very much Tinygoose.
trust me I need all the hints and tricks I can get
Thank you all and I look forward to posting some of my photos or airbrushed cakes soon!!!!!!
i taught myself, using frances kuypers books and video.. carol faxons books.. and roland winbecklers books... then i took some demos at ices convention... was proud that i could do a good a the person doing the demo... practice... practice.. practice.. these cake decorators have taught all over the world their way of airbrushing and at the conventions.hth
Sheesh, I thought I had answered this question but the answer didn't appear! Anyway, go to www.howtoairbrush.com and they have some awesome instructions for beginners. There are a couple of airbrush DVDs out there (GSA has one) and Roland Winbeckler has an awesome book (and demo if you ever have a chance to see it.) Also as was already brought out get some coloring books and practice staying in the lines. If you stay at for an hour or two a day you should get the hang of it in about a week. Then practice, practice, practice!
If you're going to airbrush a large surface, take it to another part of the house. I was a doofus and airbrushed a military ball cake (the blue one in my photos) in my kitchen instead of in my storage room because I was rushing (I had to get ready because I was also attending the ball). Needless to say the amount of airbrushing I had to do "contaminated" my entire house with a blue mist. My kids had blue snot, every horizontal surface in my house was covered with a blue dust and everyone kind of gave me this, "Thanks a lot!" look.
If you're going to airbrush a large surface, take it to another part of the house. I was a doofus and airbrushed a military ball cake (the blue one in my photos) in my kitchen instead of in my storage room because I was rushing (I had to get ready because I was also attending the ball). Needless to say the amount of airbrushing I had to do "contaminated" my entire house with a blue mist. My kids had blue snot, every horizontal surface in my house was covered with a blue dust and everyone kind of gave me this, "Thanks a lot!" look.
Yeah, I have a special counter space in my garage that is solely for airbrushing.
That's what I get for being lazy and not wanting to walk the 3 yards to the storage room! I ended up cleaning the house for the rest of the weekend. That stuff got everywhere!
That's what I get for being lazy and not wanting to walk the 3 yards to the storage room! I ended up cleaning the house for the rest of the weekend. That stuff got everywhere!
Lol Tita, that funny, I did the same thing the first time I used my airbrush. I was so excited that I just whipped it out and started spraying, fortunatly it was only Lucks pearl color, so the kitchen just "shimmered" for a few days.
Earlene has instructions on her web site to build a paint booth to contain most of the spray. I'm going to try it out as soon as I finish unpacking (we just moved).
tiggy2 is there anyway you can send me a link to the paint booth you were talking about. I cannot find it anywhere.
Thank you
Here's the link to the instructions http://www.earlenescakes.com/AirbrushCabInst.html
I'd love to have an airbrush. I'm doing a guitar hero cake for my Grandson this weekend, and it would look so much more authentic if I could airbrush it. Oh, well. I guess I'll keep dreaming!
Has anyone tried this one?
http://www.intotheoven.com/p1593/Magic-Mist-AIR-973S-Airbrush-Kit/product_info.html
I made a very rudimentary airbrush booth that folds up for easy storage. It was SO simple and it really cuts down, though does not totally eliminate the overspray. I just taped three pieces of foam core together (it was on sale at Michael's for a buck a sheet). I used packaging tape and left a small gap at the joint to form a hinge that will allow the boards to close up upon themselves for storage. Here's a picture. I could probably tape another board to the bottom of the center board to make a bottom, too.
If you use the air brush when your furnace is on, (if you have hot air) the air seems to get sucked into the furnace and then blown through the registers all through the house. Wait for the furnace to go off, I found it was much better. I made a air brush booth using plastic from the sewing dept at Walmart, and pvc pipe. Used velcro to attach the plastic to the pipe, that way I can take it down for storage. Works fine, I even put a top on so that the over spray really stayed in the booth area. I would attach a picture, but I lent it to my daughter, 200 miles away.
I printed the picture out tiqqgy posted and im having my father in law build it for me haha.
Okay next question I just bought a big set of food airbrush colors it came with bottles the same size but it says Gel paste....Am i able to mix this with vokda or water to spray with for practice? If so whats the ratio?
The paint booth on Earlenes site has a fan to carry the spray out so it doesn't go into the furnace.
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