By Luc Boivin

Airbrush, paints and other materials: Iwata HP-SB Plus, HP-C Plus, Eclipse SBS. Acrylic paints: Createx opaque and transpar- ent (mostly transparent used), Createx Extender. Paintiing sur- face 100% cotton medium white t-shirt. List of other material/ accessories used: Clear acetate for hand made shield, stencil

cutter, standard masking tape (beige), 3’’ and 1’’ in width, X- acto # 11 blade, Artograph Tracer projector, spring type paper clips. Note that an air mask was not used because work was done mostly outside in open air.

Using a projector and a good clear photograph, I transferred the main defining lines onto the fabric using a 6B lead pencil, making sure not to press to hard since you don’t want the lines to show thru the light coloured paints. Another good practice is to use water based colouring pencils, choosing one that matches the colour of the element you are tracing. (To verify your tracing progress, especially if the lines are drawn light, and to make sure you don’t overlook tracing some important features, an easy thing to do is simply turn the light back on) The t-shirt is stretched over thick rigid cardboard with the sleeves nicely folded in the back to avoid creating unwanted bulges. Take the time to align the collar with the center of the board. Make sure not to over stretch or you’ll end up with a distorted image when you unclip it at the end. I stretch it to the point that when I run my hand over the fabric with a slight pressure, the fabric is tight to the board, not loose and not making any creases. Make sure, the fabric is stretched equally on all 4 sides. I used standard office paper clips to pinch the fabric onto the board. Prior to penciling in the main lines, the fabric was prepped using a 50/50 mixture of Createx Extender and water to spray the entire area to be painted. It is then dried and heat set for five minutes using a hot iron over a pillow case; careful to keep the iron moving. This helps eliminate, as much as possible, the unwanted ‘’fuzzies’’ resulting from overspray catching on slightly raised fabrics hair.

Using a long straight edge I draw lines to set the boarders of the painting area based on the refer- ence dots previously placed during tracing with the projector. This creates an invisible box outline around the subject. Using masking tape and following the straight lines, I then proceed to cover the entire perimeter of the painted area to protect from overspray and to give a crisp painted edge.( Make sure to press down hard on the tape edge to avoid paint bleeding) Don’t install the clips over the masking tape like I did on the sides; as this will result in glue from the tape transferring onto the fabric. This is especially true if your project will last a couple of days and if the weather is warm.( which is what happened in my case, I got a scary surprise when I removed the masking tape at the end) Luckily, I was able to remove all of the glue using some lighter fluid. It gave me a good scare, but this can easily be avoided if the clips are on the fabric directly and the tape goes over like I did at the base of the shirt. If your subject is small enough or self-contained like a sport logo for example, the above steps are not required. If you want to obtain very clean and straight edges to frame your work, then masking is a must.

I started off by using flesh colour paint with some extender (2 drops approx. for 6 drops of paint. I always used this mixture for all my colours to create the shapes and to start giving a sense of depth. I apply more paint in the darker areas. I prefer starting off with this very light colour be- cause I find it helps me build my subject and if I’m slightly off for whatever reason I can easily fix things at this point. I work with more or less 45 PSI of air pressure. Because I’m using a very light colour no mask is being used to protect from overspray. The dark colours of the background will allow me to redefine the contour of the face at a later stage even though I try to stick to my lines as much as possible. I work close to the fabric with my airbrush to do the edges, and I always work with the crown cap removed, allowing me to get very fine lines and allowing me to see where I’m aiming. Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32