My Canvas Has Laces 2018

One week until Shoe Bank Canada's second annual fundraising art auction My Canvas Has Laces.
The aim of this charity is to ensure that no Canadian should want for a decent pair of shoes.

For the second year I'm contributing my talent on a pair of canvas shoes.
Here are the shoes I did last year, displayed during the auction. I'm proud to say that my shoes brought in the highest bid and sold for $1100!

My shoes on display at the 2017 auction.

This year's shoes when they arrived, pristine and begging for art!

This year I decided to use a tessellation pattern I've used before and had success with. The pattern would be black and white, but not quite. The tangles would be flat white on pearlescent white, and flat black on graphite gray.

Shoes with the tessellated sections painted. Now onto the patterning.

I used interference blue paint with the black paint in one section on each side, so from one angle it looks black and from another angle it looks blue. I also added a hint of red on the dark section above the blue/black one as the colors on the shoes are red and blue.

Middle section looking black...

... and looking blue.

 These photos give an idea of what the tangles look like.

I felt they needed something a little more, so I did a single section in grays on each tongue.

Would you like to bid on these (or other) shoes? There are 21 pairs of shoes beautified by 21 artists so there's lots of variety! Go to the My Canvas Has Laces website and see what you can find. Remember, the auction is October 20; get your bid in before that.

Shoes again!

Recently I painted a pair of canvas shoes for Shoe Bank Canada's fund-raiser My Canvas Has Laces. You can read the final part of the series, and see the shoes, here. My shoes raised $1100!

A few years ago I had purchased a pair of second hand, leather shoes that I loved because they were half black and half white. (What's not to love!) Unfortunately, the white halves were scuffed. Of course, I thought "I can fix that!" and started tangling them. Then things happened and the project got back-burnered. The recent canvas shoe project got me enthused again.

Gray scuff marks on the white half of one shoe.

Here are the shoes with all the tangling done (finally). I was going to add shading but then I realized it would darken the white even more and I didn't want to do that. Soooo... they're done!

'My Canvas Has Laces' (3) finished!

Converse canvas kicks, partly done
for the My Canvas Has Laces fund-raising auction
by Shoe Bank Canada.

So, after BOTH my extra fine tip Sharpie paint pens ran out of ink I stopped in at the art supply store where I'd bought them, but they were out of stock. I phoned around town - nine places! - and no one had them. I called that first art supply store and they told me that the pens have been discontinued. Whaaaattt???

Relax.

Breathe.

Smile (try).

Aha. Well. This is an unexpected OPPORTUNITY, isn't it? Time to get the creative engine in gear. Necessity is the mother of invention, and all that.

A friend suggested Sharpie permanent markers, and the package says fade-resistant and water- resistant so I decided to try them. I also got some Sharpie pens, also fade-resistant and water- resistant. I still had larger black Sharpie paint pens which I used in larger areas.

The marker bled a little into the canvas fabric so I abandoned it. The pen is finer point and didn't bleed, although I often needed to go over the lines.

The right shoe, outer side.
Tangles: Ginili, Knightsbridge, Paisley Boa, Pearlz, Pixioze,
Posh variation, Thumbprintz, and the Lisbon fragment

The right shoe, inner side.
Tangles: Black Pearlz, BTL Joos, Fengle, Gemz, Zenith

The left shoe, inner side.
Tangles: Aquafleur, Palrevo, Pearlz, Prestwood variation, Snugz, Y-not, Zonked

The left shoe, outer side.
Tangles: Black Pearlz, Delish, Diva Dance, MySwing, Paradox, Skye, Tipple,

In a few, strategic places I used iridescent white paint, or clear paint with holographic sparkles in it.

Sparkles!

These are special shoes. Shoes for happy feet. I decided that they needed fun laces, laces that aren't the classic, boring, white shoelaces that came with them. I had some ribbons left over from an earlier project and - while these laces are a few inches short of the "proper" ones - they're a whole lot more fun!

Finished!

'My Canvas Has Laces' (2) progress report

I've agreed to 'paint' a large pair of canvas shoes for Shoe Bank Canada's fund-raising project 'My Canvas Has Laces', so that "no Canadian should want for a decent pair of shoes".

Unisex shoes: men's size 12, women's size 14

I let some ideas percolate in my brain before I set pen to shoe and thought about other aspects of the project.

Tangles 
I made a list of tangles I might like to use. They included some of my own such as Skye, as well as some that are favorites like Tipple and Crescent Moon, and tangles that I thought would offer good 3D-look possibilities, just for fun, such as Paradox, Cubine, Romanancy, and Dex.

Supplies
I also assembled the supplies I expected to use, mainly black Sharpie paint pens. I had wondered about color, but decided to go with black, white, and gray, and perhaps include iridescent or sparkle paint.

Deep black
Mmm, all those tangles where it seems you're looking through to somewhere else, tangles like Cubine, Dex, Skye, Hollibaugh, and so many more. I'd been thinking what fun it would be to give the impression of cut-through work in the canvas. On paper I frequently use Sakura's Clear Glaze pen over the black which gives the effect of a much deeper space.

Fortunately... unfortunately...
Unfortunately, I don't want use Clear Glaze ink on shoes, for durability issues.
Fortunately, there is a really, really black paint called Vantablack which absorbs 99.965 of visible light. Paint a ball with it and it looks like a portable hole. I looked online to see if I could buy some.
Unfortunately, no it isn't available except to one artist.
Fortunately, there is Black 2.0 from Culture Hustle (Stuart Semple) in the UK. It's an extremely black paint - just a smidge not-so-black as Vanta, and it's actually more convenient for artists because it doesn't require special locations or technicians. I ordered some.
Unfortunately, it will take at least a week to get here.
Fortunately, the shoes don't need to be sent back until early October.

Gathering my courage
I looked at the shoes from this side and that, wondered about drawing on the rubber parts, thought about the red and dark blue highlights, and then decided to follow Lady Macbeth's advice to "screw your courage to the sticking place" and just do it.

The eyelet holes are interesting design elements and could be incorporated into tangles. So, of course, the first tangle I put on the shoes is one that wasn't even on my list! A variation of Posh from Suzanne Macneill.

I did two more eyelet places.

Tangle: MySwing from Simone Menzel

Tangle: Snugz from Terri Brown;
also known as Crossover from Suzanne Macneill

Then, both my Extra Fine paint pens ran out!

'My Canvas Has Laces' (1)

'My Canvas Has Laces' is the name of a fund-raising project of Shoe Bank Canada (based in Kelowna BC) whose aim is "to ensure that no Canadian should want for a decent pair of shoes".

This is their first fund-raising year and I'm one of 15 artists across Canada who will be painting a pair of shoes for silent auction on October 14. A few days ago my white canvas, Converse kicks arrived in the mail.

They are unisex shoes, men's size 12 or women's size 14. That gives me lots of space to do art on! Here are the shoes I'll be decorating, and one of my own size 8's for comparison. :)

I'm considering what to paint/draw/tangle/decorate on these shoes. Progress reports to come...