ASET Air Affair East 2007

The 2007 Air Affair East as reported by Donn Shanteau.

The inaugural Air Affair East custom painting workshop is the natural extension of the wildly popular Air Affairs that have taken place in Salt Lake City, Utah, over the past years. The Air Affairs consist of the top airbrush painters in the country sharing their extensive experience, painting tips and secret techniques with students who desire to practice airbrushing in the highly competitive custom painting world.

The venue is the most-excellent Penn State Technical College in Williamsport, PA. The College features state of the art paint mixing and spraying facilities along with an accomplished staff of auto painting and customizing experts (most notably co-host Al Thomas), making it the perfect choice to host this top-notch teaching event.

On hand to share their considerable knowledge with attendees are; Steve Driscoll, Jason Doll, Bob Soroka, Bones, Pamela Shanteau, Ron Gibbs and Paul Quinn. All of these accomplished airbrush gods and goddesses were gathered by the ASET Group which distributes Iwata and Artool products. With all of this talent in one place, one might conclude that egos would abound. Not the case here. All of the instructors are very down to earth and dedicated to delivering the professional instruction that the students expect.

Hosting the ASET event is the talented and energetic Sheri Candland, and what an event it has started out to be. Thursday night kicked off with a reception where the students got a taste of some fine food and refreshments along with a sampling of what the weekend had in store for the dozens of eager students. As the food and drink flowed, so did the paint. All of the artists started painting panels that demonstrated their personal painting styles.

Throughout the weekend the panels will continue to evolve into works of art that ASET will use to promote future events. After the official mixer ended, the party didn’t stop. Artists and students alike did the “Pub Crawl” in the College town, ending in the wee hours of Friday morning.

The first 8:00am class on Friday morning rolled around too early (it seemed), but everyone made the bell and were welcomed by a cadre of eager learners.

Instructor extraordinaire Steve Driscoll was first-up. His airbrushing introduction covered the essential elements of airbrush painting that every student had to understand to get the most of their experience. Everything from basic airbrushing techniques to painting jargon was explained by Steve in his usual jovial style, setting the tone for the event. Once Steve finished his demonstration, the students got their hands onto the airbrushes and into the painting process, emulating the lessons learned from Steve’s demo.

The infamous “Bones” from Fort Lauderdale was next up with some “skull-duggery” demonstrating the use of Artool stencils to create the gruesome images that we all have come to know and love. Bone’s straight ahead teaching style is very easy to follow while being totally comprehensive. The focus of the project is melding stencils with freehand painting. It looks like everyone is getting the idea and the class is moving forward as I write.
Look for more from the Air Affair East soon.

Story and photos © Donn “Too Tall” Shanteau 2007
Air Illusions Inc., Swanton, Ohio (419) 644-5147

Stay tuned to AirbrushTour as we bring you more from ASET’s Air Affair East, or visit ASET online to learn more about upcoming events.

For more instructional information about automotive airbrushing, look for Pamela Shanteau’s upcoming book Custom Automotive & Motorcycle Airbrushing 101.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 27th, 2007 at 3:50 pm and is filed under Industry, Classes/Workshops. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.