MySpace Featured Artist - Airballin
The Bay Areas Airbrush Don is here. Only this Don is Owner/Artist De Andre who sells locally, nationally and internationally, thru his website airballin.com. Formally the owner of “The Ave” an urban airbrush shop located in Oakland, California opened in 2004. He got his reputation by doing t-shirts for and networking with the who’s who of the hip hop community.
He has been featured in Black Beat, Vibe, Showcase, Mass Appeal and Hoodstar magazines, and The Oakland Tribune, VBLAZIN Magazine online and other online art and hip hop sites. His work has been featured and displayed on BET’s Rap City, MTV’s My Block and KRON 4 News segments, along with countless stage shows and music videos.
Known for his high detailed portraits, self taught with no formal training De Andre has been drawing and into art for about the past 10 years, he has been making his living from art for the past six years. He began with drawing pencil portraits for friends and family for fun which turned into a small business. In 2003 he saw and met another local artist who showed him the ropes of airbrushing. Nine months airballin.com and “The Ave” was launched.
He prefers Aqua Flow black and white. And for colors he uses a mixture of Createx and Aqua flow, for the most part whichever is most convenient to obtain when needed. He probably owns over 100 airbrushes and he uses mostly the Thayer Chandler Vega 2000 airbrush guns for his t-shirt works. Often criticized for the use of those airbrushes amongst his peers who tend to use higher quality airbrush guns, his response is “it’s not the airbrush, its the artist. Simply because I am running a business, airbrush guns are disposable to me. So Vegas become that low maintenance disposable gun that gets the job done and I just buy new ones when they don’t perform as I like them to do because they are so cheap” For fine detailed high end automotive work I will bring out the Iwata airbrushes!”
 of body_paint_saints.jpg)
Pretty much in a self imposed retirement from airbrushing. “The Ave ” has closed. He’s even limiting the online orders to a minimum. He has gotten into body painting in 2008 and he is currently teaching art and airbrushing at Berkeley Tech High school.
He has begun tattooing and hopes to be able to accomplish the same artistic credibility in tattooing as he did in airbrushing.
You can contact De Andre or view his work through one of his many sites or links:
• airballin.com
• MySpace.com/airballinattheave
• MySpace.com/immortal_images
• ModelMayhem.com/airballin
LINKS | A.D. COOK FINE ART | MYSPACE
ADVERTISE | CAFEPRESS | RECOMMENDED READING
AIRSOURCE: The Official AirbrushTour Store
