Kustom Kulture Kommunities

[Lazy Leo]

Hey ho ink and paint slingers,
This is my first ever Blog, I been around on the WWW but always as a lurker, never participated much, apart from some less than sensible comments here and there, sorry for that !
I am a not so young but aspiring pinstriper and a hopeless midlifer haha
You know, "been there-done that-was that all?" kind of guy, and now whats next.....
I rediscovered pinstriping years ago when digging through the Hotrod scene, I was reaccainted with the art of it and found a lot of references to the world of pinstriping.
Its kind of a minimal art, no pretences, no tricky high-end aparatus to invest in before you can start.
I decided to buy some brushes and some paint and what the heck give it a try !
WTF, can something that looked so simple be so hard to do????
You bet, it took me weeks just to learn how to load my brush, then how to get the paint at just the right consistency.
I've done tatooing for a living in the early 80s, that was easy compared to pulling a straight line with 1shot....
But what really hit me after a couple of months of almost dayly practice sessions was something I never expected;
there is a certain aspect of meditation involved, not volutarily, but it just happens, you have to concentrate very much on what you are doing, especially long straight lines.
While focussing on the few inches ahead I experienced a sort of .... I don't know how to put it....Weightlessness
I didn't see anything around me anymore, lost my periferal vision, i wasn't aware of my body anymore, I was completely focused on my hand and the 00Mack in it, I felt the slight drag, heard the soft squeek of my fingers on the fresh and clean paintjob, but not the radio that was playing in the shop.
Heck I didn't even want a smoke !
And after I finished the job I didn't even feel the slight cramp in my muscles from standing in an awkward position for over an hour (Hey i'm not 18 anymore, cut me some slack)
But even beter, my head was completely empty, nada, zilch, nothing !, I felt like I been on vacation for a week or so !!
I was hooked right there and then.
Grtz and CU next time
Lazy Leo