My original vision for these shoes was something completely different from where I ended up with them. About midway through the process of working with my first idea I decided it just wasn't working so I put the shoes away for a couple of days and then started again. Here's a look at the process I went through and how I ended up where I did with them...I should first tell you that my original vision was to create a pair of "shoe trees". I wanted to create a pair of shoes that looked like the trunks of trees with a hollow inside that I had planned to fill. So I went out and bought a really ugly pair of turqoise heels from the clearance rack at Target and painted them with some black gesso:
They sat on my work table for a couple of weeks and each time I looked at them I just wasn't feeling very happy with what I saw. The next step was to paint them to look like tree trunks but I just wasn't feeling it. So I decided to start again and ripped off everything I did and began again.
I started this time by covering the entire shoe with strips of silk and white gesso and then once that was dry I painted them black and dabbed on some turquoise paint.
Then I added several layers of paint using colors like metallic rust, bronze and copper.
Each layer I added contributed more depth and richness to the final layer. Once they were dry I added the flowers and leaves which I made from some painted silk.
The flowers were cut using my Sizzix die cutter and the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die.
The leaves I cut using my Accuquilt and the leaf shape is from the Round Flower die.
