Art shoes!

The Pandoras, my local fiber arts group, met today to make art shoes. We followed an excellent tutorial on painting shoes on artist Lyric Kinard’s blog. Basically, you strip the finish off an old pair of shoes, then gesso them, and paint with acrylic paint. I only have one of my shoes finished so far; it is shown above. I’m pretty excited about the results!

Michele, Grace, DeLane and I gathered around DeLane’s brightly lit table and got to work. 

Grace, dressed all in red (her favorite color) was painting her shoes red – what else? — and orange.

DeLane’s shoes were also red, with some pretty purple swirls and dots.

Here are the results of a few hours of painting (well, truth be told, I was so excited to try this that I did one shoe last night!). Michele and DeLane already have the acrylic sealer on theirs; that is why they look shiny. Mine look shiny because I used metallic paint. And you can see the white gesso still showing on my clog that is in progress. Grace is still working on her pair, too, adding some nice details on the red sections. 

DeLane’s ruby slippers

Michele’s gray clogs

Grace’s red-and-orange swirly shoes

This photo shows how I started out on the gessoed shoes, penciling in the basic areas to paint. The shoe on the right is almost done, but still needs a coat of acrylic sealant. These are several-years-old Dansko clogs that had started to get a bit scratched up. I considered painting cheapie shoes, but after having a painful foot condition (plantar fasciitis) that lasted nearly 18 months, I have to be very careful to wear well-constructed shoes with good arch support. And I figure if you are going to spend the time to make a pair of shoes a work of art, you might as well start with good shoes, right? I can’t wait to finish these up and wear them!