Artspark Giveaway Day 9!

HOORAY!!!

I've been waiting and waiting, so excited for my turn in the 

ARTSPARK Hot! Hot! Hot! summer giveaway.

This has been wonderful fun for all of us and we hope you're having fun too.

With much gratitude to Interweave Press two fabulous goodies will go to one lucky winner!

A downloadable copy of my DVD workshop

Surface Design Sampler Platter

It's full of fun techniques such as screen printing, foiling, stamp carving, and photo transfer.

 And a copy of

Art + Quilt: Design Principles and Creativity Exercises

If you want to learn a bit about how artists use the elements of basic design (texture, shape, line, color, value, etc.) this is a fantastic book. Design exercises, critique and evaluation techniques - it's all in there.

Here's how to win.

 Leave a comment on this post answering two questions about the past and the future of this blog.

1-Which is your favorite post from this blog.

2-What kind of post would you like to see more of.

I want this blog to be an inspiring and useful place for my readers and would love your input.

You have three days (Aug 20th). 

Please remember to leave an email so I can get in touch with you when you win.

Tutorial: How to Paint Your Shoes

Question?

What can a person do with some acrylic paints, brushes, some nifty new paint markers, and a favorite pair of old but comfy shoes?

Answer!

 Get some STYLE my friend!

Ready? Find a pair of shoes, preferably leather. My favorite comfy shoes were my first try - they couldn't look any worse so there was nothing to lose eh? My next pair were a great pair of  NAOT's (one of the very few brands that fit me.) I think these were as cheap as they were on Ebay because they were kind of an ugly color. Maybe you'll have the same luck as I did there.

You'll need: shoes, fingernail polish remover, gesso, acrylic paint, spray sealer. Optional - sharpie, paint markers.

Take the shoes and clean them up as much as you can then rub a little nail polish remover all over them . It roughs them up and removes any finishes so the paint will stick to the leather.

Prime the shoes with a layer of gesso then let them dry.

Chose one or several base paint colors and block them in. That just means put the colors where you want them. I used textile paint because those happened to be the paints I have on hand. I did choose opaque paints rather than transparent in order to get better coverage. 

I like using the paint markers next to doodle in some shapes. You could also choose to start out with the sharpie and doodle designs onto your color blocks. On the blue shoes I painted blue first, purple next, used the sharpies, then filled in spots with the paint markers. For the red shoes, I knew I wanted them to be RED, RED, RED so I kept it monochromatic. I was so excited about the paint markers that I played with those first then filled in around them with the sharpies.

Loved what was happening here so I kept going and doodled more with the sharpie. Uh... didn't like it much. Hey - not a problem! Now I know what I want. Paint back over it and decide that for this particular shoe, less is enough!

 

Take the shoe outside, stuff the inside with newspaper, tape off the soles if you'd like to then spray a thin coat of sealer to protect the paint.Wait patiently for the stuff to dry then wear with STYLE!