I paint my ceramic horses using overglaze chinapaints airbrushed on. I don’t use maskings of any sort. White markings have to be removed using a flat paintbrush. I swipe away the paint, dip the brush in water to remove the paint on the brush, wipe off the excess water from the brush and do it again. Always moving the paint into the white area and working the edge to make it crisp. Here’s how a dark bay tobiano looks after I’ve roughed out the pattern but not done all the cleanup in the white areas:

And here’s what he looks like all done:

When I first started into glazing, I was over-careful. I would apply each color shade with the airbrush, fire it, then add the next. That meant I had to clean up the overspray in the white areas each time I added a new layer! Talk about tedious, and it is difficult to “stay within the lines”. If I make a mistake, the underlayer color will show up lighter than the current layer being removed. I have since learned I don’t have to be that careful with firing on the color layers. Now, I blend all the colors on the horse at the same time in one airbrushing session. I paint each shade, starting with the lightest, slowly covering them up with the darker ones. Because the glaze stays wet during all airbrush applications, the colors merge together far better than the old way of firing each on top of the other. And I only have to do the whites once!!

I’ve had to re-shuffle my glazing commissions and work only on non-dappled colors this month. The part for my air compressor is on order and not in yet. Apparently the compressor was made in Italy and the electrical relay is proving an exclusive part to get hold of. Thankfully I can do basic airbrushing of solid colors and pintos, with my Dad’s loaner compressor.

I also worked on Clarity a little bit. Now I think the legs are all too long. But when I shorten them, they look too short. AAARGH!