Yesterday in amongst the rain showers, I got the car painted. It looks really good now with surface prepped, two coats of primer, and two coats of BB paint. We are SO ready for First Fridays. I have been telling everyone about it and can't wait to see who all shows up. Hopefully you will!

WOW! SO I am using Google Analytics to track this webpage and it says that 18 people looked at the site yesterday! For my first website, that isn't too bad.

The car is in various stages of primer right now. It rained last night, so I am waiting till I get home tonight to paint it. I pick up my wife, Fay, tonight from the airport! She has been gone for two weeks in Guatemala. So I may not get back to the blog for a couple days.

Thanks for the support!
mikey

I just found a great little cartoon about chalkboard cars
http://www.dislocate.org/archives/early/fiction_folders/bernardy/bernardy_chalkcar.htm

pretty funny and thought provoking!

UH OH! I found another chalkboard car on Flickr. I guess I'm not the only genius out there. Oh well. It was still my idea originally. Just goes to show you, if you can think of something, chances are that someone else has already done it!

Continuing on!

So,, it appears I may have my first gallery opening! I was talking today to the director of the Leedy-Voulkos gallery and she said she will let me park in front of her gallery on August 1st, next First Fridays. I am trying to get the car in tip-top shape for the event. I would appreciate any other ideas for making this a cool event. I was thinking some cool lighting effect? Maybe inside the car. A really subdude light? maybe some nice music in the background? Any other ideas?

mikey

Clear coat: bad idea

So, tonight I decided to go and start over the chalk board. I took the car up to the carwash and started blasting away the lovely artwork. Unfortunately, by the time I got to the hood, the clearcoat which had the blackboard paint on it, decided to chip away. Pretty bad actually. Almost the entire hood was turquise again! SO I got it home and lightly sanded the entire car to get any remaining clear coat that was chipping off, and to roughen the surface. I bought two cans of primer and primed the entire car. I will respray the blackboard paint tomorrow and see how that stays on. I did find that instead of just blasting it, the foamy brush at the car wash works almost better and is far less harsh on the paint. So, lesson to those who may follow my footsteps, prep the area, primer, and multiple coats of BB paint.

cell pics

So I finally got around to taking some pictures. Unfortunately, my wife has our nice camera, so I am reduced to my cell phone camera. I knew that would come in handy some day. So here they are before it rains or I have to go wash it. Someone paintballed me over the weekend as well. Not what I had intended.

Silly idea

So I started this project with an idea. I used to work at the Home Depot and spent many boring nights thinking of cool uses for all of the 5 million products. 1 of the products I saw had great potential: blackboard spray paint. It only costs $4 a can. The beginning!

Last December, my aunt gave me her 91 Geo Metro. I love/hate this car. It gets 42 MPG which is awesome, but every time I turn around something has fallen off. The doors don't work very well, the door handle broke (inside and outside), rust has consumed a major portion of the passenger side door. But, this all added to my resolve to do something fun with it before it finally dies.

It only took two cans of the paint to create a VERY matte black finish. My friend Scott came over and we bought a bucket of sidewalk chalk and started drawing on the car. My final addition was an open invitation to any and all passerbys to add their artist expression to the car. I drove to Westport to see my cousin Ian's band, Echo of the Elms, and more people had added to the car. While sitting at my house, some neighbor kids came over and tagged it with their names and a giant face for the front.

I will begin by taking pictures of the car and continue to update this blog with new additions. Each time it rains a blank canvas will emerge for a new group of street artists.

Watch for it in and around Kansas City.