Back in the 'old days', yes, before my time, there was something called an apprenticeship. If you wanted to learn to make furniture, use machine tools, fix cars build brick walls or paint signs, you found someone to mentor you. That person would take you on as an apprentice and show you the ropes, passing down the trade, craft and tradition.

The only people who knew how to do certain things, and properly, were those who wanted to learn the craft/trade bad enough to work for it, for nearly nothing, until they were ready to go out on their own. If you didn’t have what it took to turn the trade you were encouraged to find another line of work.

Fast forward...

Save for a few instances these days, that tradition is gone, largely in my opinion, due to our fast food, disposable culture, the explosion of the information superhighway and the Internet. Now you can 'teach yourself' how to do just about anything. And now everyone wants to be a Pinstriper.

It’s just not that simple.

I happen to come from a really weird rift in the generational split. Most people my age and younger are from the disposable generation. I happen to fall in with the value side.

My father was a craftsman tradesman. my grandfathers were craftsmen and tradesmen. If they weren’t dedicated to their craft/trade, they didn’t eat. They had to be good. They taught me about craft, about not just learning how to do something the right way, but about the right way to learn doing something.

That’s where most amateur/hobbyist stripers fall short.

With nobody standing over their shoulder they are left to their own devices and bad habits, just like 'home tattooists' 'self taught hair stylists' and 'the local handyman'.

They look at the Internet at all the jokers and rat stripers posting junk and say..."I can do that”, and they're right. They can, and the work still sucks.

I say all that to say this. If you are new to this, please understand that you are not magically going to start laying down the most bitchin stuff in the world just by accident.

If you are struggling with designs or line consistency, stop. Just stop what ever you're doing.

If you don’t care about actually being good, stop reading now. If you do, continue.

There is one thing that cannot be substituted for in any craft. Practice. If you can’t stripe 10 straight lines, you haven’t practiced enough and you have no business trying to make designs.

Find, learn and live the 100 line drills. When that becomes second nature, then move onto simple designs. One thing at a time, ask questions, go to shows, panel jams and letterhead meets and watch someone who actually knows what they're doing. Learn a new stroke every week or a new trick once a month. Don’t jump in with both feet. It is both detrimental to your over all progress and can be quite frustrating and demoralizing also.

There was always one kid in wood shop or ceramics that wanted to carve or sculpt the next Venus di Milo but couldn’t turn a simple bed knob on the lathe. He usually wound up smashing his work piece with a hammer out of frustration, not because he wasn’t capable, but he was impatient and over ambitious and didn’t want to go thru the process of learning. That’s exactly what I keep seeing in post after post.

Maybe its just fun for you and you don’t care and you think I'm full of hot air. That’s fine.

Maybe you're just a super gifted bad ass and you think I'm full of hot air. That’s fine too.

But if you fall into the same category as the other 99% of us, and really want to be good and kill'em at the shows and sell a million panels, and sell all the purses and rockabilly paraphernalia you can come up with, and paint a hundred mail boxes and tool boxes, and old beer bottles...oh...wait...does anyone stripe cars anymore?

If you want to get good, you're going to have to learn the way they did in the old days. Practice, practice, practice.

Back when, part of the apprenticeship process, much like in today’s tattoo world, involved being forced to do a lot of menial crap that didn’t make any sense at first but later you realize it was forming good working habits. It involved being challenged by your mentor, being over seen, guided and corrected by someone with more skill, talent, knowledge and experience than you, and being told when you're ready to start doing customer work. You didn't go solo until you were ready because it’s more difficult to repair a damaged reputation then to build a solid one.

Without those checks, and the addition of the wonderful internet, the level of work flooding the marketplace has diminished to the point that any kook with some 1-shot and a Mack is a pinstriper. I don’t know how many real train wrecks I've seen with two pages of "that looks great", "I'd let you stripe my car", "looks good to me" and all kinds of other reinforcement that only hurts the 'striper'. To the uninitiated, I'm sure it looks great, but they probably don’t know Von Dutch from Van deKamps.

Simply put young striper....

Aspire to greatness.

Do not settle for mediocrity.

Do as much as is within your power to advance your mastery of the craft.

Don’t rush.

Be patient.

Learn.