These Ontario pinstripers turn vehicles into works of art with the help of a thin brush and steady hand
To some people, cars, hot rods, trucks and motorcycles are things of beauty. To Ron Gibbs, Rollie Guertin and Dan (Danno) Drouin, they are canvasses for creating art.
All three specialize in pinstriping: a method of drawing thin lines into various designs on a hard surface using a fine brush that is made from Russian squirrel hair, which has the right consistency and can drag paint to form a long line. It is precision work. You need a steady hand and an imagination.
There are only about 20 individuals in Canada doing this type of work, and only a handful in Ontario.
Gibbs, who lives in Burlington, is the most experienced and famous of the three artists. The 66-year-old is considered a “triple threat” in the world of custom artwork because he can do pinstriping, air brushing and graphics, and is one of the few in the world adept at all three.
In 2018, he became the first Canadian to receive the Prestigious Painter Award at the annual Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) show. He is also the only Canadian among a group of 12 airbrush artists and custom painters from around the world who call themselves the Air Affair Group. The group was invited by an automotive spraying company to participate in a weeklong series of demonstrations and classes in Salt Lake City, Utah, where some of the members’ work also hangs in a gallery.
Gibbs has been dubbed the “Canadian Rat Fink” as an homage to the late Ed (Big Daddy) Roth, who was one of the originators of pinstriping and custom car designing. Roth created the hot rod cartoon character Rat Fink, who became a commercial success and was the subject of a documentary by Toronto filmmaker Ron Mann. Roth’s widow has given Gibbs permission to use the moniker.
Gibbs grew up loving art and custom cars and vans. After graduating from a Burlington high school that had an art program, he worked at Ford Motor Company for a year to earn enough money to buy a van that he custom designed. He became so good at it and others took notice. It evolved into a career.
“I consider myself a custom painter, not just a pinstriper or an air brusher because it combines all of them,” Gibbs said. “I learned it from the start and dove right into it. I just used my artistic background and I had to read up on everything because there wasn’t anyone teaching you.”
Eventually, Ford asked him to do three designs to hype its new Focus cars that were being unveiled at auto shows in 2001. One of the shows was SEMA, where Gibbs was able to meet some of the giants in the custom design world. Since then, he has appeared on numerous TV shows, is booked regularly for automotive shows and his work has appeared on numerous magazine covers.
He has expanded his talents to do illustrations, – including automobiles and other objects – which he turns into prints.
“You are one of the best around at what you do, and there’s a lot of hoopla around that, but you still have to make money every day and every week,” Gibbs said. “You have to grind it out sometimes. There isn’t the volume of work. You do one a day or two a day. I’m fortunate I do air brushing, pinstriping and custom painting.
“It can be very, very good, but you aren’t doing that 24 hours a day. If you have prints online, those things are happening 24 hours a day. There’s other opportunities as I get older that I want to explore that will supplement all of that stuff.”
Guertin and Drouin
A resident of Guelph, 67-year-old Guertin has been doing pinstripe artistry on and off for 46 years. He is the only one of the three who didn’t pursue a career as an artist. Instead, he completed a museum technology degree at Algonquin College in Ottawa and moved to Milton in 1976 to work at the Ontario Agriculture Museum.
Before the museum’s sign painter left to work at the University of Guelph, Guertin asked him specific questions about paints, thinners and brushes. Guertin then began doing the sign work for the museum for four years. He learned to do pinstriping and combined that with his passion for cars to do it full time.
“What I like about it, and what I tell people, is I get to work on million-dollar cars and 90 per cent of the time it’s the finishing touch. It’s what they needed,”’ Guertin said, who is known for his work with collectible vehicles. “I’ve striped antique cars for people that had the car for 30 years and said they wouldn’t believe it made that much difference. It really finishes a car off.
“I can pinstripe forever. I’d be happy at that. I dread the day I get the shakes, or my eyes go or something and I can’t do it anymore. I just love doing it. It’s always something different. Every day is different. I worked on a car that sold last year at auction for $1.6 million. Not a lot of pinstripers can say they’ve ever striped a Duesenberg. I’ve done five or six of them now.”
Drouin, a 53-year-old from Brantford, is a late entrant into pinstriping, with less than 15 years of experience. “I’m not an artist, I’m not a pinstriper, I’m a sign painter,” he said.
He loved art growing up and when a high school teacher asked him if he wanted to make some money sign painting during Christmas, he took the job and his interest snowballed. After graduating from the graphic design program at Mohawk College, he pursued a career in hand painting and later became interested in pinstriping.
That interest peaked some 13 years ago when friends invited him to go to a car show where there were various pinstripers. He met Guertin, who also happened to be a sign painter, and they became good friends. That’s when Drouin decided he wanted to make a living doing both and giving up a career in computer graphics.
“I really wasn’t aware of that stuff because I wasn’t a car guy,” he said. “I was just doing something on my own because I thought it was cool and fun to do. I didn’t really think I was going to do it on cars because I was just painting on panels, just making artwork to hang on the wall.
“Once I found out there was this custom car culture going on, I just got really passionate again,” Drouin said.
Keyword: Fast lines