By Jeff Sanford
Glen Mills, Pennsylvania — October 20, 2015 — Axalta Coating Systems has announced its 2015 Paint Outside the Can contest winners. Professional painters from Canada and the US were invited to unleash their creativity using any Axalta-brand paint to decorate an unused, standard one-gallon paint can.
A panel of six celebrity judges scored the entries on creativity, execution and degree of difficulty. The Grand Prize winner was Mike “Splash” Burton. The owner of Color Splash Creations, a custom paint shop that specializes in airbrushing, pinstriping and gold-leaf, Burton’s creation, “Paradise Pipeline,” utilized Axalta products to create an incredible 3-D effect.
The other winners as chosen by the celebrity judges: Asher Emerson, “Sakura Temple”, Joe “Frost” Espinoza, “Open at Your Own Risk”, Pat Napolitano, “Tiki Man”, Adam Stone, “The Art of Color”, Travis Wilson, “Music Icons” and Brandon Esparza, “Taste of Candy.”
In addition, six “fan favorites” were chosen by fans based on the number of photo “likes” that were posted on Axalta’s Instagram website. Winners in this category: Mike “Splash” Burton, “Paradise Pipeline” Joe “Frost” Espinoza, “Open at Your Own Risk”, Johnathan Mercado, “Lowrider”, Pat Napolitano, “Tiki Man”, Adam Stone, “The Art of Color”, Brandon Esparza, “Taste of Candy.”
The celebrity judges included Sam Bass, the first officially licensed artist of NASCAR, Ron Coan, a reality TV star and one of the leading painters in the industry (known for his show-stopping creations with Detroit-area company, Mobsteel), Danny “Danny D” Galvez, a well-known custom automotive painter and pinstriper, Paul Quinn, a renowned airbrush and pinstriping artist and instructor in the custom paint industry and Danny Taylor, a pinstripe master with a 39-year history in custom artistic automotive design.
“It’s as much about thinking outside of the box as it is painting outside of the can,” said Quinn. “First and foremost, as a judge for this contest, I am looking at the quality of the artwork. Judging this was a whole lot harder than I expected it would be as the best entries were all of very high quality.”
The winning submissions will travel on tour to custom car shows in 2016. Axalta will also display select submissions at its booth at the 2015 SEMA Show, as well as at other events.
You can get a close-up view of the winning can here. Please click here to see the complete gallery of entries.
