10,000 hours

It is said that it takes around 10,000 hours to master something, that being the case I have 9988 hours to go with this new direction.

Choosing the airbrush, which arrived at the middle of last week, was a painstaking search not only through the many websites that exist to provide but also the choice of airbrush amongst many, as if that were not enough the compressor had to match the airbrush;  with my pre-planned requirements, borne of many hours of ''video airbrush tips'' from U-Tube, my job was made somewhat easier.
The new airbrush arrived and resembled something  more akin to a carefully crafted surgical instrument than a simple tool for art it begs to be used in the best possible way, I had already had a video tour of an airbrush factory in the States so I knew that it was all hand made making it all the more special to me.


The first job of course was to pull it apart which I did several times, this is important partly because the care and maintenance of the tool reflects on its longevity and reliability, secondly as part and parcel of familiarity that helps to both understand how it works and, if something doesn't work, either on the canvas or with the tool familiarity will help enormously in hoping to solve the problem, one thing I did discover that was new to me was that there is a small sealed resevoir in the needle tip part that, if not drained when cleaning, would eventually become filled with dried medium; it was only found by complete accident when I rested the tip on some tissue paper and watched, amazed as the ink just bled out.

At first it was cumbersome in my hands, partly because I ''did not want to break anything'' in actual fact the most fragile part is the actual needle so, once comfortable with this I was able to operate it more freely.

I started with paint but proved to be a bit of a pain having to continually 'water down' the medium each time I wanted to change colour, a task all the more tedious with enamel paint, I finally tried inks which did the trick, I was able to not only change colour immediately, with only a slight clean inbetween, but in the manner of a great discovery, I found I could change the hue of colour by adding another directly to the cup.

Work-wise I had decided in my early plans of a destination that was well beyond my abilities but a destination nonetheless, to get there I ignored the creations of other artists and just set about to 'play' with the airbrush and ink, to follow my own directions, it works, for me at least and sets me on a journey of discovery, of mistake and errors not forgetting that a mistake is only a mistake if it remains unrectified.

At the end of week one I feel fulfilled and have found justification in my intent to find something new and exciting, something that had some learning that could only be borne of practice, practice.... practice.

I have a couple of other works posted in the airbrush album on my facebook profile, log in to Andrew Charles on facebook or follow the links in this BLOG.
take care and have a good december.
andrew



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