You know we have a hippie van, right? Well, essentially, it’s an old Chevy Express 3500 V8 work van that I bought from my brother-in-law about a year ago. It was the standard work van color – white – with the normal gray undertones in all the places where the paint had chipped off. Go ahead and look around next time you’re driving. I’ll betcha anything you see at least 2 white vans and both of them have that same look of peeled paint with gray undertone. It must have been a standard defect in all the Chevy work vans at some point.

Anyway, after getting it, we thought, hey, why don’t we paint it like a hippie van? We’ve always wanted one – I mean, who doesn’t, right? At first we were just joking around, but then, I got serious. “Look”, I said, “it can’t get much uglier than it is right now, right? So, let’s do it. For real!” Gail agreed, but I’m pretty sure she assumed I would forget about it, and it would never really happen.

So, without knowing the first thing about painting an automobile, and not caring much either, I headed down to Walmart to buy some cans of spray paint. I bought one in each of the rainbow colors, and came home.

• I didn’t wash the van, and it was very dirty.
• I didn’t sand the van.
• I didn’t check to see if it was a windy day or not. It was very windy, by the way.

I just went outside, where the van was parked in the driveway, shook a can of paint, popped the top off, and started spraying. Keep in mind that I’m no artist – not even close.

• The wind sprayed 3/4 of the paint out into the breeze, to be lifted off to other realms.
• The paint that made it onto the van was too thick, and dripped a lot. A lot!

Occasionally, a car would pass down the road and blow the horn in encouragement. That was enough for me to keep going.

About an hour later, my masterpiece was done. And yes, I know it looked amateurish. But as far as I was concerned, it was darn near perfect. (Note: Gail painted the front with the butterflies!)

The Original Hippie Van Paint Job

Now, however, some of the early mistakes are making themselves felt.

Because I didn’t wash off the dirt first, or sand the already peeling white paint, the rains and winds and subsequent wear and tear are making some of the new paint come off. In addition, sitting out in the hot Louisiana sun day in and day out, has really faded the colors.

So, today is the day we’ll go buy more cans of paint and do a full touch-up. This time, we’ll wash the van first. But more than likely, all the other mistakes will still be made. I mean, why not? Worked out pretty well the first time, right? 🙂

Ready For The Results Of The New Hippie Van Paint Job?

Turned out the weather conditions were all basically the same, but this time, we definitely started out with a clean van. (Gail insisted on that!) It was a little windier today, but not by much. Still, that meant it took even more effort to get the paint to actually go onto the van, and not just everywhere else in the world. I tried to make the passenger side a little brighter, and of course, just by virtue of accident, much of the “design” across the entire van had to change. I couldn’t trace over it exactly, so I just went with the flow and did whatever made sense to me at the time. Very hippie-ish, I think. 🙂

It’s not the same, but it’s still perfect. Perfect enough, anyway. 🙂