Airbrush

An airbrush uses a process of nebulization which allows the air operated tool to spray various media including ink and dye, but most often paint onto surfaces. An airbrush works by passing a stream of compressed air through a venturi, which creates a local reduction in air pressure that allows paint to be pulled up from an interconnected reservoir at normal atmospheric pressure. The high velocity of the air atomizes the paint into very tiny droplets as it blows past a very fine paint-metering component. The paint is carried onto paper or other surface.

    Margaret Leighton as Flora Macdonald,    by Anthony Wysard,    published 1949,    NPG D279,    © reserved; collection National Portrait Gallery, London Margaret Leighton as Flora Macdonald
by Anthony Wysard
airbrush, published 1949
10 7/8 in. (278 mm x mm)
NPG D279
© reserved; collection National Portrait Gallery, London