STEP BY STEP | Tradition and Modernity
56 AIRBRUSH STEP BY STEP 03/19 E
17
Refining
In this step I now start to enhance my highlight area and evaluate the
overall look and aesthetic of my artwork. I want my fire to have a “glow”. So I
pick and choose both from the reference as well as my own intuition which areas
I’d like to enhance with that omnipresent glow that fire tends to give off. It is
those areas that I enhance with my Neutral Grey 9. My mix at this point may be
more along the lines of 40% paint to 60% reducer (in this case 4011) by volume.
That number again can fluctuate up and down depending on my motive. It is al-
ways important to mix your paint evenly, but just as important to find your own
comfort zone with regard to your mix and air pressure. However, to paint along
the lines of what is being described in this article, it is recommended to keep your
air pressure a bit higher (40-60 psi) almost all the way through. I will however thin
my paint out in a more traditional manner right toward the end where I may have
a mix that is predominantly reducer and my air pressure below 20 pounds.15
Adding highlight
By this step I may have pushed back my mid-to-
ne and mid-darks as well as shadow areas with color, while
pulling forth my mid-tone, mid-light and highlights with
more opaque grey passes a few to several times. By not thin-
ning down white for this and trying to select similar values
I stay consistent with my approach since the beginning, but
also have maximum control over the building of body and
form in my painting as well as detail. I am free to add detail
in a more fluid manner and no mark is a determent to the
next – easy to get rid of or manipulate to suit ones needs.
Here I have also used some CMYK Cyan illustration color
(also in the kit) in my mid-tone areas in the skull, as well as
some of the flame areas surrounding it. I chose blue specifi-
cally because it complements the orange I already have, as
well as I could find multiple uses for it in both the fire as well
as the skin tones of my female model.16
The skull
Step 16 again reveals an overview of our entire
painting through the prior process, and the detail of the
skull gives the image a bit more clarity as far as what those
steps are doing for our image. The same formula is applied
repeatedly pushed back with color pull forward with lighter
gray value.
The process being applied here dates back as far as the1300s A.D. by Proto Renaissance Master Giotto (1277-1337)
and made more famous by artists such as the Baroque ar-
tist Rembrandt Van Rijn (1606-1669) to as recent as Pablo
Picasso and his epic work “Guernica” painted in 1937 and
considered one of the 20th century’s most notable master-
pieces. The technique clearly transcends that of just realism
and can be applied in both more abstract and contemporary
art forms just as effectively.