Pinstriping by Julie Fournier

Every year I am fully committed to my work on the carousel at the Henry Ford for the entire month of March. Sometimes the weather is good enough I can start in Jan, or February, but that's rare. Most years I work through March, and into April, especially if I am asked to paint a piece of farm equipment in addition to my work on the carousel. So I never schedule anything else for March, and tell callers that I will contact them mid April, once I wrap up at the musuem. I do all my carousel work in an unheated building, so you can understand why weather play such a big role in my scheduling. In spring and summer and fall I do all my pinstriping work outside in full sunlight - the best light!- and again, weather plays a crucial role in my scheduling. I simply can't schedule a pinstripe job one or two months out, since I have no way to precict what the weather will be like. I generally look at the forecast for the week, and schedule for a sunny day, leaving the next open just in cas...

Like anyone else, there was a learning curve and I wound up with two separate blogs, oopsy. This one has a lot of subscribers, so if you'd all plase head over to my Julie Fournier's Art blog, that's the blog that I am writing and posting in these days. You don't want to miss out! Here's the direct link: https://juliekfournier.blogspot.com/ Thanks, and enjoy!

We're all thrilled to get a new car, whether it's new from a dealer, or just new to us. Once we get our new ride home, we want to really make it our own. One of the easiest ways to do that is to have it customized with paint, namely, pinstripes. That's where I come in. I listen to what my clients want, what they like, and then I creatively come up with ideas uniquely suited to them as individuals. My job is to make people happy. When they drive away, or pick up their newly painted item, I want them to enjoy it for many, many years to come! I want them to look at the customized painted artwork I did especially for them, and SMILE. Some people have a "less is more" outlook, and I like to share my view that pinstripes are like diamond stud earrings with a little black dress. Others want something bold, and I say, go bold or go home. I like to give people what THEY want, to their taste and style. Check out the variety of my work on my website, juliefournier...

Today I spent most of the day fighting with wet paint not drying on the carousel cat I've been working on. I painted an area yesterday, and today it was still wet, in spite of being left in a 90 degree room for an hour last night. The ambient temperature is about 64 1/2 degrees, and One Shot Lettering Enamel doesn't like to dry if it's under 65. Which means...major frustration. I tried anyway today to get some work done, but when I put black next to pale blue they feathered together at the edge, no good. You just can't let wet paint touch a different wet color - they run almost every time. Nothing I can do but wait, only I need to get this job done because another is in queue, and I doubt they'll be ok with why I have to make them wait (it's a background wall for the Gene Winfield exhibit for Autorama, not a job that can be put on hold, really, since the shows are coming up soon). No pressure or anything, noooo. Gah! Both jobs were scheduled for me to do in...

I've sure been keeping busy, yay! Even before I finished the tender tank at The Henry Ford Museum at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, MI, they asked if I'd be interested in restoring their carousel animals. They said that I'd be asked to restore about two per year, that it was an ongoing job. The first one I got to restore was a zebra. The museum dropped it off at B&B Collision in Royal Oak for me, where I could sand it and paint it and not have to worry about anything. How nice! I love B&B Collision, they are SO good to me! I spent a day sanding off the old chipped and cracked paint, then I started repainting the white stripes. I used a paintbrush to get the blending on the eyes, ears, nose, tail and hooves. Then on the fourth day I did the black stripes. For some reason the black didnt want to lay down cleanly next to the white, even though I'd wiped it with wax and grease remover. I spent a fifth day with a thin striping brush going over the black and white...

Where to start? Winters have usually been my rest period since I usually don't get a lot of work then. There aren't any art fairs, or car shows, not a lot of weddings, it's just basically an historically slow period for me. Not this winter! I was asked to do some restoration lettering and striping at The Henry Ford Museum at Greenfield Village in Dearborn Michigan on a tender tank that used to be owned by Henry Ford. What's a tender tank you ask? I didn't know what one was, either, until it was explained to me. It's the train car right behind the locomotive that holds water. In this case, 18,000 gallons of water. Apparently Henry Ford used to like to drive a real, full sized train around for fun. Now it's at the museum and after ten years of restoration work, it was ready to have the finishing touches put on it. I was lucky enough to have been in the right place at the right time, as well as having the necessary skills, to be asked to do this incredible job:...