Pinstriping by Julie Fournier

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:...