Friday, December 6, 2013

Stenciling Shoes!

Hi! Mary Nasser here!
I spent Thanksgiving break with family and enjoyed lots of time with my little niece and nephew.
This weekend – in anticipation of St. Nick’s Day today – we painted canvas shoes together!


Growing up in St. Louis, we always celebrated St. Nick's Day by putting our shoes by the fireplace before going to bed December 5th. St. Nicholas would visit during the night, filling our shoes with treats for us to find on the morning of December 6th!

Using only two stencils – Kae Pea’s Midcentury Modern Elements #3 and Jamie Fingal’s Zen Landscape – acrylic paints, canvas shoes and Stained by Sharpie fabric markers, my goal was to design a fun pair of shoes with lots of colors rhythm and movement.


First, we stuffed our shoes with newsprint to support the surfaces as we painted.
Any canvas shoes will do. I like the slip on shoes because they give me more surface area to paint on. 
Don’t be intimidated…artists paint on canvas all the time! This canvas is just a bit more three-dimensional!


I started with my lightest color (yellow) and my favorite stenciling tool – an ink sweeper – to apply the first bits of design elements. Adding less paint with the ink sweeper prevented the colors from seeping under my stencils, too. I also added gestural paint strokes in yellow with a paintbrush after stenciling and repeated this process with each color. And I just used a baby wipe to remove excess paint off the rubber soles of the shoes, too.


I added red paint:


then green paint: 


and blue paint:


Lastly, I added additional colors with Stained by Sharpie fabric markers. I really loved playing with these because it felt like painting – with the brush tips, smooth application and bright colors.
The yellow, pink and orange markers are both intense and transparent, not covering any of my previous layers of stenciling or brush work!


I had such a blast making these!





I hope I've inspired you to experiment and play with your StencilGirl stencils!
Wishing you a Happy St. Nick’s Day and a wonderful holiday season!


29 comments:

  1. Wow -you make it look so easy! I'm sure I'd get myself in a right mess lol Love the shoes - hope you're parading them around town!

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    1. Thank you, Melita! It really was easy and fun! My little niece and nephew painted their own pairs of shoes with me and really enjoyed the process! Yes, these shoes will be fun to wear – way beyond St. Nick's Day!

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  2. Wonderful Project! Thank you for so much inspiration! I wear a 7 just in case you need to know ;) LOL
    Thank you Mary for a great post!

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    1. Lol! Thank you! Glad I could inspire you! These stencils really inspired me!! :)

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  3. These are fantastic! Haven't heard of those transparent sharpies... soon to be in my hot little hands! Love your project, Mary.

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    1. Thank you, Marjie! The yellow, pink and orange Stained by Sharpie were transparent on this. The green, blue and violet were not, but still added great colors and marks...just used these colors more carefully so as not to cover my previous layers.

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  4. These are so darn cute!! I have been wanting to do some 'wearables' and these sneakers are cute beyond words. You *must* wear them when we do our Demo at Artmart :)

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    1. Thank you so much, Mary Beth! Glad you like them!! Looking forward to our demo at ArtMart!! :)

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  5. Those are great! So happy and colorful!

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  6. These are fantastic and I can see my grandkids and I having a blast making us some really cool shoes :) Thanks for sharing♥

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    1. Let me know if you paint shoes with your grandchildren, Carol!
      I'd love to see pics!
      My little niece and nephew were so engaged in this project...we actually had to stop to eat a late lunch!
      But then they wanted to get back to painting their shoes that night instead of watching a movie!! :)

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  7. These came out great. What fun to do with the family. I have not heard of "stained" sharpies. If these were in a contest, you'd be a "shoe" in to win. LOL.. sorry.

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    1. Thank you for the compliments AND pun, Judy! :) LOL!

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  8. What great colors to see "walking" around...!
    The kids will remember this forever!

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    1. Thank you, Nancy, for your sweet comment!
      Yes, in addition to having fun painting shoes, we made wonderful memories, too. :)

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  9. If you're gonna pick only two stencils, these 2 give you plenty to work with.

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    1. Exactly, Elizabeth! This technique would work with many stencils, but I thought the combination of these two in particular would give my shoes lots of movement...and lend themselves to a whole spectrum of colors!

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  10. how cute ! did you apply a varnish or something to protect it on top ?

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    1. Thank you, Nolwenn. I didn't apply a varnish. But you could apply a clear acrylic top coat (spray fixative) for extra protection.

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  11. I love what you did with these shoes!!! I am excited to learn about the Staining with Sharpies too!!!

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    1. Glad I could inspire you, Barbara! The Stained by Sharpies are SUPER easy to use! You'll have fun with them!

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  12. This is such a cool blog, atleast content has a meaning unlike those useless blogs on the internet. Independence Day Speech for School Students in Tamil

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