A Look At The History Of Airbrush Art

Airbrush Arts - Photo: Flickr

Airbrush art is a popular form of painting various designs on various types of surfaces. Everything from skin, clothing, canvas, and automobiles are being used to show fantastic works of art using airbrushing. Motorcycles and building murals are also a target for an artist to show off their creativity with airbrush art. 

The history of airbrush art is just as fascinating as the creative designs that artists are using airbrushing for. Experts believe that a primitive form of airbrush art was used by ancient civilizations. The method believed to be used in this primitive form of airbrush art was the use of a hollow bone in which to spray the paint out of by blowing through it. While this is a very primitive method compared to modern day forms of airbrushing, it does still work. Take a look at children's airbrush art kits that require the child to blow through one end of the tube to create the airbrushed art. Now ancient forms of airbrush art have bled over to modern day children's crafts.

In 1893 the world has seen a more modernized version of airbrushing when Charles Burdick patents the first airbrush device. This device would be used for retouching photographs until around 1920. 

During the 1930s airbrush increased when advertisement agencies jumped on the bandwagon to create an advertisement for new products. Soon airbrushing would be used to paint Pin-Up girls on to the American planes during WWII. This is where airbrushing started showing up in the more modern world in the form of art. 

In the 1940 Walt Disney would show the world a new use for airbrush art. Walt Disney would take airbrush art to the animated screen. The backgrounds for Walt Disney's animated movies were created using airbrushing. Airbrushing allowed them to create shadows and lighting tricks to achieve a more realistic looking background. While even this seems primitive compared to what we can do with animated movies as well as for airbrush art, this method did pave the way for both the improvement on animation and airbrush art.

The 1960s brought us even closer to what we now know we can do with airbrushing. Airbrush art in the 1960s made its way into the music world. Album covers were done using airbrush art to create the whole hippy style images. The wild psychedelic artwork that was popular with that era was done thanks to the use of airbrushing. Tie-dyed looks and large hippy flowers and even the peace signs were making their way onto vehicles during this era. Airbrushing the artwork on took a lot of time out of painting the vehicles overdoing the designs by hand. Thus airbrush art was being experimented with on vehicles at this point. 

The way we use airbrushing now to create art surely has come along way from the primitive methods used by our ancestors and even our parents. Nowadays we can see airbrush art almost everywhere on almost every type of surface. The only limits nowadays with airbrush art rests in the limits of the individual artist.

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