If you’ve followed our flame article series, you’ll
appreciate that there is a lot of planning, creative energy and
pure talent involved in laying down a COOL set of HOT licks. We’ve
been fortunate to see it all in its entirety and to photograph
the entire process.
Speaking
about the entire process, there is one critical step remaining.
Specifically, outlining the flames with pinstriping. While this
is not a mandatory step, pinstriping provides definition and an
edge to further define the boundry of the flames. As you’ll
see, it will complete the design and help to emphasize the shadow.
Pinstriping flames is also a traditional way to finish the flame
job.
Like
the colour of the flames themselves, the pinstriping can be any
number of colours. However, Ron has suggested process blue as
the correct accompaniment and we agree.
When
you reflect on the entire process so far, you could, in theory,
have 3 artisans involved in the process. That is, the designer,
the layout artist and the painter. The pinstriping artist would
be the fourth.
Equipment
for this step is minimal – a small Russian squirrel pinstriper’s
brush and the House of Kolors striping urethane paint. We should
mention that before the pinstriping went down, the flames were
sealed under a coat of clear by Dave Bell and then sanded.
Ron
loads his brush with thinner then paint and then brushes the paint
out on phonebook paper to distribute the paint into the brush
and get rid of excess. With a very steady hand, he contacts the
surface and lays down a stripe in one continuous movement. He
reloads his brush and the process continues. As
with the other steps, this is amazing to watch. With few corrections
Ron moves from lick to lick and inner to outer curve.
