Custom Converse All Stars Times Two!

Two weekends a year, I spend ten hours sitting and listening to a religious broadcast. I enjoy the speeches, but if I just sit there I end up falling asleep. To keep my hands busy and my mind active, I’ve been painting during the broadcasts. And of course, what I paint is shoes.

You can see some previous painted shoes projects here and here.

Last October I began a pair of shoes for my son Nathan, but didn’t finish them. So a few weeks ago, when the next broadcast was scheduled, I knew I would need at least a couple of hours to finish the last panel and the tongues of that particular pair. I told some family friends I would be happy to do some shoes for their son Ethan if they could get me the shoes by Saturday afternoon. I managed to finish two pairs of painted shoes in one weekend, and I’m happy with the way they turned out.

Nathan’s Star Wars Shoes

Nate wanted his Converse All Stars painted with some of his favorite scenes from the original Star Wars trilogy. It’s worth pointing out again that the constraints of these shoes sometimes make it difficult to chose subjects. The panels are always taller on one end, so we had to choose movie stills that worked for the available space.

Left Shoe, Outside: AT-AT Attack on Hoth (The Empire Strikes Back)

This still might actually be from a video game, but the composition worked really well for the shoe’s side panel. I composited the T-47 airspeeder because of course I did.

Left Shoe, Inside: Light Saber Duel (The Empire Strikes Back)

Probably one of the most memorable scenes from the entire series, the duel between Luke and Darth Vader is pretty dang awesome. Yes, this is the “I am your father” scene.

Right Shoe, Outside: Death Star Dog Fight (Star Wars: A New Hope)

It’s tricky to paint space without just making it all black. The angle of the shot make the Death Star look lopsided, but it’s actually round. I had fun with the shading to make things pop.

Right Shoe, Inside: Crash-landed on Dagobah (The Empire Strikes Back)

This was the last panel I did. In retrospect, it should’ve been overall darker. I had to mess with the perspective on the X-wing just a little to get it to fit. R2 is fun to paint, even in miniature.

Tongues and Heel Straps (R2D2 & C3PO, Logos)

I always paint the tongues even though they end up getting covered by laces. Since R2 and 3PO are basically the viewpoint characters of the original trilogy, it made sense use them here.

 

Ethan’s Theater Shoes

Just like my kids, Ethan is super involved in theater. But unlike many theater kids, he enjoys the onstage and offstage stuff equally. So he wanted his inner panels to represent the backstage/tech work in theater, and the outer panels to represent some of his favorite musicals.

Left Shoe, Outside: Shrek, Aladdin, Newsies

Three of Ethan’s favorite shows.

Left Shoe, Inside: Lights and Sound

Because Ethan likes to do both lighting and sound work, I chose a fresnel lantern and a sound board to represent that.

Right Shoe, Outside: Little Shop, Hamilton, The Little Mermaid

Three more of Ethan’s favorite shows.

Right Shoe, Inside: Shrek, Aladdin, Newsies

Behind the scenes is all about backstage: the braced-up muslin flats, sight lines and curtains, painting and rigging and construction.

Tongues and Heel Straps (Drama Masks, Measuring Tape and Playbill)

If you’ve ever been to a Broadway show, you know most of them have the yellow “Playbill” header across the program. The companion, of course, is the measuring tape, which is used in all kinds of theater tech. The tongues got the traditional comedy/tragecy masks, in garish colors that will be covered up by laces anyway.

Here are a few detail shots of the individual show panels. Newsies was a particular challenge.

If You’re a Writer, Consider Becoming a Runner

I just finished a second draft of my current novel in progress. So … yay! This was my NaNoWriMo project (or, more accurately, my NaNoWriRunMo project), and I managed to cut 5,000 words while at the same time filling in a bunch of holes. One of the biggest gaps in the first draft happened to be in the final chapter. It had to be super clever, but when I drafted it I chickened out and pasted in a bunch of greeking because I was feeling extremely un-clever at the time. But that wasn’t going to work for my alpha readers, so it was time to knuckle down and crank something out—good or bad.

So I harnessed up the dog, laced up my shoes, and went out for a run in the rain.

This is something I find myself doing, more and more. Running and writing, writing and running. Maybe it’s just “thinking on my feet,” but my best inspiration always seems to come when I’m chugging away, breathing in rhythm, putting one shoe in front of the other. If I’m on a trail, the dog is gamboling ahead, making me look slow as she tears off after rabbits. If we’re street running, she’s dashing ahead to sniff whatever she deems sniffworthy, nose to the ground as I jog past, catching up as the leash zips back onto its spring-loaded spool. And all along, my mind is cycling around and around whatever I’m writing next.

I came back from that particular soggy run with most of that trouble section drafted in my head. It came to me in spurts between miles two and five. All I had to do when I got back was sit down and type it all out.

I’ve been a runner for much of my life, but I haven’t always run. Actually, there were entire years when I never ran at all—not even once. There were also years when I didn’t write anything apart from emails, shopping lists and Facebook posts. All that changed in early January of last year, when we adopted a shelter dog. Roxy loves to run.

Why Running and Writing?

If you’re a writer, I think you should be a runner too. Why? Amanda Loudin of the Washington Post sums it up this way:

Running and writing are at once complementary and opposing activities. Running requires a high level of physical activity; writing calls for a high level of cerebral activity. They are seemingly miles apart on the spectrum, but in reality, not at all.

For both, you need to consistently show up and practice. You need the mental focus to improve. You need to take risks and face potential failure. And you need to get comfortable with all of the above.

As a writer, there are four main benefits I have seen from my running: self-improvement, clearing my mind, running to read and learning to finish. Running and writing are amazingly complementary.

Self-Improvement

When we adopted Roxy, it had been a couple of years since I’d attempted much serious exercise. I was the heaviest I’d ever been, and most of my pants were too tight to wear. (You see, I’m too cheap to buy new pants.) I would get winded climbing two flights of stairs. I was spending lots of hours in front of my laptop (often in fast-food joints) and that wasn’t helping things. I knew something had to change.

Over 1,700 miles later, I’m 20 pounds lighter and I feel better than I have in decades. My body fat percentage is down a whopping 25%, year over year. Inspired by my best friend, I ran my first half-marathon last July. Since then, I’ve run seven more—eight if you count the “Double Dog Dare” a few weeks ago. I’m signed up for my first OMG-WTF-26.2-mile marathon in a month or so, and I couldn’t be more excited. At age 47, I’m in better physical shape than I was at 27.

Japanese author Haruki Murakami, a former three-pack-a-day smoker who’s now a triathlete and ultramarathoner, probably said it best: “For me, running is both exercise and a metaphor. Running day after day, piling up the races, bit by bit I raise the bar, and by clearing each level I elevate myself. At least that’s why I’ve put in the effort day after day: to raise my own level…. The point is whether or not I improved over yesterday.” When he says all of this, he’s talking about both running and writing.

I don’t think you necessarily need to race to be a runner, but it certainly doesn’t hurt. For me, races are just bright points on the calendar, like the semi-artificial deadlines you set for yourself to finish your first draft by X, your next draft by Y. Races are like write-ins where everyone wears Spandex. You all get together and socialize, and then you strap on your shoes and get to work. In racing, as in writing, you’re really only competing against yourself. If you finish, you win.

Clearing Your Mind

Poet, novelist and playwright Joyce Carol Oates drew an interesting comparison between dreaming and running:

There must be some analogue between running and dreaming. The dreaming mind is usually bodiless, has peculiar powers of locomotion and, in my experience at least, often runs or glides or “flies” along the ground or in the air…. In running, “spirit” seems to pervade the body; as musicians experience the uncanny phenomenon of tissue memory in their fingertips, so the runner seems to experience in feet, lungs, quickened heartbeat, an extension of the imagining self.

In the past year, most of my best ideas for characters and story elements have come to me while I pounded the pavement or crunched along a trail. I don’t carry a notepad while running, so I’ve learned to record these flashes of inspiration using a voice recorder app on my phone. My experience is far from unique. In his piece on writing and running, Author Ryan Holiday tells an eerily familiar story:

The introduction to my book The Obstacle is the Way came to me on a six mile run along the water on the east side of Manhattan. It was cold. I could see the breath coming in and out in front of me. I’d been struggling to figure out how to start this book for nearly a month and my timeline would fail apart if I didn’t make progress soon. Then suddenly, music blaring, some forgotten song on loop, it came to me: “In the year 170, at night in his tent on the front lines of the war in Germania, the Emperor Marcus Aurelius sat down to write.” The rest of the introduction followed over the next few miles….

Even if you don’t decide to take up running, you should at least consider taking up walking. There’s a reason so many writers—from William Wordsworth and Charles Dickens to Nassim Taleb and Stephen King—have turned to walking to improve their prose and verse. As Henry David Thoreau put it, “Me thinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow.”

Nailed it, Henry David.

Running to Read

Sometimes it’s difficult to read when you’re writing. There are only so many hours in the day, and it often comes down to a choice between one or the other. Here’s a tip: Choose to write. Later (or earlier), you can choose to run … and take an audio book along with you.

I keep track of every mile I run using the MapMyFitness app. Unfortunately, I haven’t kept track of all the books I’ve absorbed during those miles. Just in the past year, the number would be in the dozens. I’ve always enjoyed audiobooks during long trips because they keep me engaged and actually encourage me to keep driving. (“Can’t stop for long … I’m in the middle of an important chapter!”) Audio books are another way I encourage myself to get out and run. I want to hear what comes next. To do that, I have to get outside and get going.

I also sometimes listen to podcasts while running. Last spring, I binge-listened to the first nine seasons of Writing Excuses while the dog and I cranked out the miles. I like to joke that, for a while, Roxy started thinking her name was “Shut up, Howard.” Now that I’m caught up, I save a few months’ worth of podcasts and listen to them on a good long run.

So load some audio books or podcasts onto your phone, invest in a good set of Bluetooth headphones, and enjoy guilt-free reading time that makes you fitter, not fatter. That’s a win-win, right there.

Learning to Finish

It’s easy to start a novel. It’s a lot harder to crank away at it, day after day, until you have a completed draft. Similarly, it’s easy to start to run. (My teenaged daughter did that once. It didn’t take.) It’s a lot harder to work it into your personal routine, sacrifice sleep and TV time to get in your miles, and hit whatever personal goal you’ve set for yourself.

One reason I prefer out-and-back routes is that they force you to actually return to where you started from. Each mile you run out is actually two miles, because you’ll have to essentially “un-run” it on the way back. If you’re just running laps around a track, you’re never really committed to the long haul, because you can walk away at any time.

Novels are like out-and-back courses. Once you set off, you need stamina to finish. If you don’t, you’ll end up with a bunch of unfinished projects in a drawer or on a hard drive. Finishing takes discipline, and discipline is developed through work.

When I was getting ready to run my second half marathon (in Parowan, Utah), I felt a lot more prepared than I had been for my first. I’d run a lot more miles, for one thing, and I’d actually run the first 10 miles of the course the week before the race. On the day of the half, my body and mind were both ready. I took off with 300 other runners and set a pretty fast pace. When I turned left to buttonhook through the city of Parowan, I was still feeling pretty confident. Then I hit the final two miles and the grade went from a gradual downhill to a subtle uphill. This was uncharted territory that I hadn’t encountered during my training. I didn’t give up, though, and pushed through and finished with a time almost eight minutes faster than my previous half.

We’ve all hit that point in our writing, haven’t we? Things are sailing along smoothly and suddenly you’re lost and don’t know how to finish. One of most fundamental lessons you’ll learn from running is that finishing requires perseverance. It’s an obvious thing, but a concept we have to learn over and over again before it really sinks into our souls.

Get Started Now

The only way to be a writer is to write. The only way to be a runner is to run. Put running and writing together and you’ve got a potent combination that improves your mind, body and craft. In the words of Nick Ripatrazone, “The steady accumulation of miles mirrors the accumulation of pages, and both forms of regimented exertion can yield a sense of completion and joy.”

If you’re a writer and you want to add the joy and accomplishment of running to your writing-focused life, I encourage you to download one of the many “Couch to 5k” (C25K) apps available for both iPhone and Android. Install one on your phone and then follow the program. You might be surprised at how much you enjoy it. You might be actually shocked at how much your writing improves.

The Ramses Twins – Egyptian Statues for “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”

When our local children’s theater company announced a production of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” this summer, I immediately began thinking about some fun projects I could do for the show. I’ve always wanted to do some larger-than-life sculpted figures, and this seemed like the perfect time to do that.

luxor-ramsesA big part of our Egypt set consisted of a large stair-step pyramid right in the middle of the stage. The plan was for Pharaoh to be lifted up to the top from  behind (on a scissor jack) and step forward onto the top of the pyramid. As I thought about dressing up the stage, I remembered photos of the Luxor Temple, with rows and rows of identical statues of Ramses II. Obviously, we couldn’t have a whole row of statues, but two of them flanking the pyramid sounded like a pretty cool idea. Add to that the painted Egyptian columns I was planning and I knew we’d have a beautiful set.

My requirements were straightforward. They needed to go up and down into the flies, so they couldn’t have much depth (less than 18 inches) and they couldn’t be very heavy. They also had to be big—I was hoping for ten feet high or more. They needed to be more or less identical and they had to have “bling,” since this was a Vegas-style version of Egypt.

Inspiration

I had trouble finding a good photo of the Luxor Ramses statues to use as a template. Instead, I found this very similar statue, which was pretty symmetrical except that it lacked lower legs. Also, I wanted the familiar “crossed arms” pose with the candy cane and the whip. Apparently this pose makes reference to Osiris, who (according to the Egyptian Book of the Dead) “seized the crook and the flail when … in the womb….” Sounds like a great guy.

 hands-at-side  original-statue-akhenaten-egyptian-museum-cairo-colossus-missing-its-lower-legs-depicts-king-traditional-pose-arms-65149939

So yeah, I wanted that. Totes Egyptian.

Tools of the Trade

Materials for this project:

  • Template paper (on a roll)
  • Masking tape
  • 19/32″ OSB, two 4×8 sheets
  • Drywall screws
  • 2-inch construction Styrofoam
  • Wood glue (several large bottles)
  • Gold paint (base layer and top coat)
  • Acrylic paints (for details)
  • Gaffer tape (black and white)
  • 2 Wire coat hangers

Tools I used:

  • Laptop, projector
  • Pencil and Sharpie marker (for drawing and tracing template)
  • Jigsaw
  • Drill with Phillips bit
  • Serrated steak knife (for rough carving)
  • Small hand planer (for smoothing)
  • Shoe rasp (for detailed shaping)
  • Heat gun

We didn’t even have to buy any foam for this project. I had several full sheets (and some parts and scraps) still in storage from my Cave of Wonders project for “Aladdin” last year. So … yay. Big bang for even fewer bucks.

I know it sounds pretty low-tech, but I did all of the carving on this project with a steak knife that I pulled out of my camping bin on the morning I started building. The blade actually came out of the handle an hour into my first carving, so I “fixed” it with gaffer tape. So here’s a photo of my high-tech tools:

Tools of the Trade

Paper and Plywood

Unfortunately, I didn’t take photos of this first part of the process. But I’ll describe what I did.

When creating any design, one of the key elements is symmetry. This is almost impossible to achieve when you’re tracing a pattern for a design like this. The solution is to  only work on one side. That sounds counter-intuitive, but it really works.

First, I joined two long sections of my el-cheapo template paper. I buy roll ends from the local newspaper for just a couple of bucks each. They’re 22 inches wide, so I taped two strips together to make a 44-inch wide roll. Having the center line was perfect,  because it gave me a good reference for the exact middle of the paper.

I taped the paper to the wall and hooked my laptop up to a projector. I fiddled with the zoom on the image until I got it right in the middle of the sheet, at the right size for what I was hoping to do. I knew I was going to add to the height and scale of the statue by using a plinth (a traditional statue base). I didn’t bother creating a design for the plinth—that would come later.

As I mentioned, I combined two designs to make this work. Basically I just drew the outline for the first section, then projected the second image onto the chest (for the crossed arms) and adjusted until it fit. Once I had half of a design, I darkened the half-outline with a Sharpie pen, folded the design in half, and traced the other side to create a perfect mirror image. I filled in a few gaps and ended up with a completed design. Here’s what it looked like.

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You’ll notice that I ended up lengthening the shendyt, or wrap-around skirt, at the request of the director. Even though the Egypt in “Joseph” is kind of Vegas-ish, we’re still in Utah and this was going to be a “family show.” Modest is hottest, right?

After cutting out the final design, I lay it on top of a sheet of 19/32″ OSB (construction waferboard). I went with the slightly thinner stuff because I knew there wouldn’t be much weight. I laid out the plinth with a yardstick and cut the thing with a jigsaw. Since the final design was about ten and a half feet tall, I started the base at the bottom of the board and used the leftover pieces at the top for the head, screwing them together with drywall screws. The screws stuck out through the front but that wasn’t a biggie. The screw points were going to be covered up soon with foam.

20160829_180852  20160829_180908

The photos above are the back of one of the statue cutouts. These photos were taken after the pieces were hung on the flies, but you can see the basic shape and how I cheaped out by using scrap lumber to piece together the tops of the heads. This allowed me to get each shape out of a single sheet of OSB.

Once I had one piece cut out, I plopped it onto a second sheet of OSB and traced the outline for its twin. So far, so good.

Layering the Foam

For  the statue bodies, I used 2-inch-thick construction foam. The foam comes with a plastic covering on one side and foil on the other, so I had to carefully peel that stuff off before using it. I knew I’d have to layer it thicker in some sections than others. This was actually a very good thing. Using wood glue, I put two full layers (4 inches) on the entire bodies. Then I cut out a “torso template” and put another layer from the arms up. I added a fourth layer to the face and one of the arms (to make it easier for them to look like they were crossed. This took some time, because I would have to apply the layer and wait at least a day for it to dry before rough-cutting the shape and gluing up the next layer. I don’t know if it was absolutely necessary, but I rested something flat on top of each layer and put a couple of chairs on top to press the layers together while the glue was drying.

I ended up tracing sub-templates to help me with the layers:

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Working in layers meant I could “pre-sculpt” certain areas by tracing sub-templates and cutting around the layers that needed to be built up. That meant, when I began the shaping process, I wasn’t beginning with just a great big block of foam. The basic shapes were already there … I just had to refine them.

At this point we began calling these things the “Ramses Twins.” Here’s how they looked after several days of gluing and cutting and layering:

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You can see that I’ve outlined the shendyt. Also, the feet are still just kind of shapes. I would have to wait for the plinth box to be built before building them up.

Carving the Foam

Now it was time to make a real mess. Seriously, Styrofoam is really awful to work with. I had to wear a filter mask so I wouldn’t breath the stuff in. I tried to clean up after every session, but I kept finding bits and pieces everywhere. Under my watch band. In my ears. Between my toes (if I had been wearing sandals while working). You never get it all. I would have one of the other guys give me a once-over with a Shop-Vac after each carving session, but I still found bits and pieces when I got home. it’s just how things were.

Here are a few photos of roughing in the legs:

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That was the easy part. The torsos and heads were much trickier. Oddly enough, the armpits were the hardest. It was tricky to get the right angle to cut through.

The process was one of shaping by degrees. I would use the steak knife to hack off corners and gouge out areas. Then I would work with the planer to smooth things out. That part of the process was a lot like shaping a surfboard (or so I’m told). The shoe rasp has both rough and smooth sides, rounded and flat, and it was helpful for grinding out some of the finer details. Sometimes I would hit the foam with a heat gun to shrink and firm up the surface a bit, then smooth and shape it with the rasp.

I worked on the statues side by side, trying to keep things even. You can see, though, that when I got them stood up (with my gorgeous daughter to show the scale), the heads were different shapes, and there were other obvious differences. But they were really coming along:

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Still needed to box in the plinths so I could work on the feet. Kevin, our sceneshop stud, took care of that while I was doing something else. I also added strips of foam to the tops and bottoms of the plinths to give it some architectural detail. And also … feet and toes and sandals!

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The feet are intentionally foreshortened. The whole design is slightly flattened because we just couldn’t fit a full-depth statue up in the flies. But nobody would notice that from the audience. You’ll notice in the photo of the feet that I used some drywall compound to fill in some cracks and smooth some rough areas that the planer couldn’t get to. Some more examples:

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I realized at this time I had forgotten to give the Twins any ears. I carved some and glued them on, then filled in those cracks as well. After letting the drywall mud dry overnight, I sanded it and did a little more smoothing. Then I took the Twins outside and blasted them with a leaf blower to get all the dust and stuff off so they were ready to paint.

Please don’t say anything about the faces. Faces are hard.

Painting and Decorating

Styrofoam really sucks up paint, so I knew we needed at least one base coat before we got to the bling. I found some tan in the paint shop, so that’s what we used.

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Several people wanted to stop right here. With the base coat, the Ramses Twins actually look remarkably like the statues in the temple of Luxor:

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(Yeah, that’s me in my work clothes.)

But no. In our version of “Joseph,” Egypt is like Vegas, and the Pharaoh is Elvis. That means they’ve gotta get blinged:

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The tan coat helped the gold paint go a lot further. It was pretty thin, and dripped everywhere. I ended up doing two coats. After that it was time to bring them in and add the hand-painted details. I used the same color palette I’ve seen in death masks and sarcophagi: blue, green, red and black. The idea was just to make them pop on the stage.

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I also added some hieroglyphs to the front of the plinths. The stuff in the middle is just gibberish (but mostly real hieroglyphs). The two cartouches actually belong to Ramses himself. Here’s how you “spell” his name in hieroglyphics:

ramses-cartouches

I wanted the plinths to be as identical as possible, so I worked out the design on a piece of template paper and then transfered them to the gold-plated plinth fronts with transfer paper:

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And here are the statues with the finished embellishments and hieroglyphs:

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Again, please don’t say anything about the faces. Faces are hard.

Final Touches

At this point I actually had to drop this project to work on another one (palm trees that turned into painted Egyptian columns). I didn’t get back to the Ramses Twins until a day or so before opening night. I realized I hadn’t added the cobra detail on the headdress or the crook and the flail in their hands. I ended up making the flail out of a dowel, with gaff tape covering the handle and strips of twisted gaff tape hanging off it for the stripes. Quick and dirty, but it worked.

The crook is a piece of coat hanger wrapped in white felt, which I wrapped in white gaffer tape. I bent it into a candy cane shape and added strips of black gaff tape.

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I carved the cobras from foam scraps and painted them with the same paint I used on the body. Added the details (including green sequins for eyes) and hot glued everything to the Twins.

I got a lot of very kind compliments from audience members about the Ramses Twins and how great they looked on stage. But the biggest compliment came the Monday before we opened. The statues had already been hung and flown, but I needed to take some measurements to finish the crook and flail. I asked Bruce, our stage manager to bring the statues down while I got out a ladder. The director was giving notes to the cast so the stage was clear. As I was coming back, this enormous sound erupted from inside the theater. When I got inside, I saw that it was the entire cast, screaming and applauding these two set pieces, which they were seeing for the first time.

For a volunteer theater worker, that’s the best praise possible.

Last night, we closed “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” After the performance, we struck the set and hauled off the Twins to be boxed up and stored. As we loaded them onto the trailer, I kept cautioning the other helpers about how fragile the pieces were. (Foam is very delicate, and we want to be able to use these babies again.) One of the guys said, “Wow, you’re really protective of these things.”

Of course I am. They took a lot of work to create. And I’m really proud of how they turned out. Here they are on stage. My son was Joseph (center stage in the blue and gold) and my daughter is the second narrator from the left.

joseph-statues

Until next time…

on-the-trailer

Avengers Sneakers for Megan

Anyone who knows me knows about my weird hobby of painting shoes. I’ve been doing it since high school. The idea is just so obvious:

  • Some artists paint on canvas.
  • Some shoes are made of canvas.
  • Why not paint on shoes?

After I recently painted a new pair of Converse All-Stars for myself, I told my kids it was time for them to have their own painted shoes. Since she was having a birthday, Megan got dibs. She’s turned into a major Marvel fan lately (the movies and TV shows—not the comic books) and has been looking forward to the movie Captain America: Civil War. Because of this, she wanted me to do dueling Captain America/Iron Man shoes. We’re pretty happy with the results:

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With slip-on sneakers, the largest area of canvas on the shoe is the toe. Since Civil War is all about the conflict between two of the most important Avengers, it made sense to give them the primo spots. Captain America went on the right, and Iron Man went on the left.

Here are some close-ups on the main character designs: Click the images to view close-ups.

Captain America close-up

Close-up of Captain America. His costume has changed so many times, it was just a matter of picking one. Faces are hard.

Iron Man close-up

Just like Cap’s suit, Iron Man’s armor changes from movie to movie. I’m not sure which version this is, but I really like the pose.

Please read absolutely nothing into the choices for right and left. It was purely coincidental, though completely appropriate. In the movie, Steve Rodgers (Captain America) resists pressure to give up his personal liberty to the United Nations, while Tony Stark (Iron Man) advocates for greater government control.

“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

—Benjamin Franklin

A few more images from Megan’s Avengers Shoes:

Avengers shoes, side detail

Avengers and Marvel logos

Avengers shoes, side detail

Proto-Iron Man and the Stark Industries logo, vs. a retro Cap design with WWII-era flag and marching GIs.

Avenger shoes side detail

More side detail.

Avenger shoes side detail

More side detail.

Avenger shoes back detail

Shield logo and stylized Captain America character.

The movie is all kinds of awesome. Go see it!

Post-Impressionist All-Stars (The Bizarre Nexus of Painting and Podiatry)

I’ve been painting shoes since high school. Yeah, weird. I know. It all started as kind of an accident.

When I was a sophomore in high school, I had these old blue Vans that were all stained and gross from marching in the mud. Being an idiot, I decided to bleach them in the washer. Thing was, I most likely used too much bleach and probably left them in for way too long, because they turned super white but also kind of disintegrated. After taping them back together, I painted designs on the shoes because what else was I gonna do with them?

The thing was, I thought they were cool, and other people did too.

High School Shoes

Two weeks later, I threw that first pair of Vans in the garbage and picked up some new ones. I painted these on brand-new canvas. If I remember correctly, I used a flag motif. Flags from all nations—the more colorful, the better. If memory serves, I even included a Nazi flag as well as the Confederate battle flag. Not politically correct, for sure. But a mismatched pair of conversation pieces.

And so, painted shoes became a thing—my thing. I painted shoes for friends and for cousins who wanted them. I painted a few to order. When I was a senior, I made a deal with my playwriting teacher: let me drive your brand-new 1987 Honda CRX to the prom and I’ll paint you a pair of shoes. Done.

Exit question: would you let some high-schooler drive your sports car in exchange for a pair of hand-painted shoes? Discuss.

I painted and wore out two or three pairs of shoes during my senior year. Right before graduation, I decided to paint a pair of shoes that would kind of represent my life at that time. And guess what?! I still have them. The paint’s pretty stiff, but otherwise they’re in near-perfect shape. They were kind of a collage of all the things that made me tick way back in 1987.

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Two pieces of the collage stand out. One is on the toe of the left shoe: a tilted rendition of George Seurat’s L’après-midi dimanche sur l’Île de la Grande Jatte (or A Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of La Grande Jatte). I first became aware of this work via the great art historian John Hughes, who featured the piece in his own magnum opus, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”

Cameron_Seurat

Here’s my version:

A Sunday Afternoon, ca 1987

Note also that I included portions of Picasso’s Guernica on this senior-year masterpiece:

Guernica, ca 1987

College Shoes: The Lost Works

So I got busy in college, but I wasn’t too busy to paint a pair of shoes. I can’t prove it now, but in college I painted some shoes with Beatles album covers. I have some blurry photos of those somewhere, but can’t put my hands on them at the moment. I wish I knew what happened to them. Probably wore them out. If I ever find the photos I’ll scan them and upload them here.

One of the highlights of my undergraduate experience was a trip I got to take to Chicago, thanks to winning a contest sponsored by the Alpha Chi academic society. My project won me a trip to attend the national convention, where I was able to see A Sunday Afternoon up close and person. Here’s my “Cameron moment” from 1993:

At the Chicago Art Institute, 1993

Post-Impressionism 1994

After I finished my undergraduate degrees and got real job, I had a revelation. I realized I had completely ignored the ultimate in podiatric canvases: Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars. These storied high-top sneakers have been in production since 1917. Unlike Vans or Keds, which have the largest amount of paintable canvas on the toes of the shoes, All-Stars feature two triangular-ish sections of canvas that are large enough to really have fun with.

I painted my first pair of All-Stars during the summer of 1994. Since I literally had nothing better to do, I decided I would attempt my most ambitious design to date, covering the shoes with the works of some of my favorite post-impressionist painters. Featured prominently around the left heel is a familiar work: Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon. (Picasso makes an appearance as well, with Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.)

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Another benefit of Chucks—one I didn’t realize until two decades later—is that they last a lot longer than Keds or Vans. Seriously. I wore this particular pair forever. Sadly, after over 20 years of service, these shoes finally wore out. Not the canvas, mind you. The painted parts are still pretty vibrant. But the rubber sole on the left shoe cracked. I can still wear them, but if it happens to be raining (or if there’s snow on the ground), my socks get wet. No bueno.

Post-Impressionism 2015

After much soul-searching, last month I decided it was finally time to replace the old Chucks with a new pair. The thing was, I really liked the theme of the previous shoes. I like mixing familiar pieces with others that people might not know as well. I decided that I wanted to do just three major works on each shoe: one on each side, and a simpler painting on each tongue. That meant I needed to pick pieces that (A) were landscape in aspect, rather than portrait, (B) had a composition that would allow a more-or-less triangular slice represent the whole. This limited my options somewhat.

But guess what worked? Two of my old friends: A Sunday Afternoon and Guernica. Adding Van Gogh’s The Starry Night and that left just one panel to fill. I wanted a challenge—something that would require some tricky technique to try to simulate an “oil painting” feel with the acrylic paints I use. I ended up choosing one of Marc Chagall’s few landscape-oriented paintings, The Blue Circus.

For the tongues, I needed two simpler portrait compositions that were either tall or could be extended up and down to fill the tongues. I picked The Tree of Life by Gustav Klimt (of The Kiss fame) and Son of Man by Belgian surrealist René Magritte.

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I’m super pleased with the results. Can’t wait to wear them!

Gallery Tour, 2015 All-Stars

Right shoe:

The Starry Night (1889)
by Vincent van Gogh

Original:

Gogh_StarryNight

On my shoe:

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The Circus (1964)
by Marc Chagall

Original:

Chagall_TheBlueCircus

On my shoe:

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Left shoe:

L’après-midi dimanche sur l’Île de la Grande Jatte (1884-1886)
by Georges-Pierre Seurat

Original:

Seurat_SundayAfternoon

On my shoe:

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Guernica (1937)
by Pablo Picasso

Original:

Picasso_Guernica

On my shoe:

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The Tree of Life (1905)

Original:

Klimt_TreeOfLife

On my shoe:

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Son of Man (1964)
be Rene Magritte

Original:

Magritte_SonOfMan

On my shoe:

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Gallery Tour, 1994 All-Stars

Right Shoe:

The Sleeping Gypsy (1897)
Henri Rousseau

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Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907)
Pablo Picasso

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The Starry Night (1889)
Vincent van Gogh

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The Green Violinist (1923)
Marc Chagall

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The Yellow Christ (1889)
Paul Gaugin

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The Dance (1930-1933)
Henri Matisse

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Girl with a Blue Necklace (?)
Wassily Kandinsky

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Left Shoe:

Water Serpents II (1905-1907)
Gustav Klimt

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L’après-midi dimanche sur l’Île de la Grande Jatte (1884-1886)
by Georges-Pierre Seurat

SundayAfternoon-94

The Persistence of Memory (1931)
Salvador Dalí

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