“Shirt Portrait” by Leon Knook


Leon Knook (46) started airbrushing twenty years ago. His eyes blinked when he saw the great airbrush artists demonstrating their skills at painter’s exhibitions. The special effects that can be achieved with that tiny gun, gave him a feeling to do something totally different than other artists. In a short time he became a member of a very small airbrush scene in The Netherlands. “It was fun doing airbrushing, but what I did was constantly copying subjects from others. After a few years I threw my AB in a corner. I experienced that people did not qualified airbrush as Art”. He became a father of four beauti- ful daughters and worked as a printer and later as a Graphic Specialist at a School for Higher Education. “A few years ago, while surfing on the internet, my flight of thoughts came suddenly on airbrush. What I saw was really great. I decided to try airbrushing again, but this time in a different way, my own way! My goal in airbrushing is to make designs that catch everyone’s eyes. I will stick to black and white paintings and shirts. For me black and white gives a feeling of the old days, putting a piece of paper in the developer and wait for that great miracle. In this ‘How to’ I want to show you how I make a black and white shirt. My main goal is that the person I want to paint must look exactly like that person. Therefore it is very important to put exact reference lines on the shirt. This man has showed the world what can be done when you have a strong belief. With my added text he could say to us “now SHOW ME what you can do”.


Every design begins on the com- puter. I work with Adobe Photoshop and Indesign CS2; when the design is ready I print it on laser film. I can use paper also but when I want to make another shirt, the film stays in a good shape allowing me to use it over and over again.


With a hot soldering iron I melt tiny holes in the laser film. The holes must be wide open enough to spray some paint through on to the shirt. I spend a lot of time on this one, a greater number of refer- ence lines make the final results a success.


The picture above shows you a close- up of the holes.


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