Rising star: Custom auto painting melds passions for young artist

Custom auto-painter Josh Jones practices free-hand pinstriping (Photos by Jeff Layton)

When Josh Jones was in school, there were only two things that appealed to him: cars and art.

At age 12, he found out those interests could be merged. A family friend noticed Jones' artistic talent and introduced him to the world of custom auto painting. The friend loaned Jones some brushes and taught him a few of the basics.

The encounter changed Jones' life. By the time he was 16, the Puyallup resident had taught himself to airbrush by practicing on mailboxes and toilet seats.

"I painted everything I could," he says. "Online sources, car magazines, other artists and just plain trial-and-error helped me broaden my style. It's really how I learned my airbrush technique."

Now, at 25, he is starting to make a name for himself in the Northwest auto-painting community. He says the best-paint awards he's won at local car shows are nice, but getting featured in national magazines -- he's been featured on the cover of Mini Truckin' Magazine, among others -- is more meaningful.

"Car magazines are still where I get a lot of my inspiration, so I feel like I'm giving back in some way," he says.

A project featuring airbrushed skulls sits in Josh Jones' studio. (Jeff Layton)

Custom paint is one of a vehicle's most eye-catching elements. It's also often the most expensive part of a restoration or upgrade, costing anywhere from a few hundred dollars to $200,000 on high-end projects, according to Jones.

"The exterior of the car is the first thing you see when driving down the road," Jones says. "The motor, interior and everything else is after-the-fact."

There are around 50 custom painters in the region, Jones says, and more than half of them have been refining their craft for decades. Custom painting had its heyday in the '40s and '50s when teenagers personalized their hot rods. Today, Jones says his clients come from a wide array of ages and backgrounds.

Jones, whose work often features ghoulish skulls and wild, colorful flames, uses a combination of pinstriping and airbrushing techniques. But it's the more creative tricks of the trade that set an artist apart from the pack, he says.

For example, on a 2005 Chevrolet Silverado, Jones dragged sandpaper over wet silver paint, giving it the appearance of raw metal.

On a motorcycle, he sprayed glass cleaner over a base coat. When the cleaner dried, it left little bubbles that he coated with paint from a spray gun. When that was wiped away, the surface featured an organic bubble pattern.

"I like to get ideas from the '50s, '60s and '70s and put a modern twist on them," he says. "Developing different techniques, faux finishes or graphics is what it's all about when it comes to keeping things fresh."

Jones not only works on hot rods and motorcycles, but has painted wedding shoes, bowling pins, kitchen appliances and even a burial urn.

His customers often clamor for macabre artwork (like the angel of death a motorcyclist recently requested), but Jones has a soft spot for the old hand-lettering techniques.
"Not many guys my age are doing it," he says. "The old guys didn't use vinyl plotters or stickers. They had a hundred fonts in their heads. They could just pick up a brush and do the whole alphabet in a different font."

Jones says these old techniques are coming back into fashion, though, and he's glad.
"The scene changes fast," he says. "That's why I'm always learning and trying new things."