Friday, October 7, 2016

Shrinky Dinks and Shoe Doodles: Adventures in Coloring

by Sherri Stokey

Anyone who knows me will tell you I'm still a child at heart so it should come as no big surprise to learn I'm still a big fan of coloring!  I hadn't picked up crayons for a long time, although I've been tempted by the whole adult coloring book craze.  I have so many projects in my head that I never have time to get them all finished and I couldn't see a real "use" for colored pictures.

And then someone reminded me of Shrinky Dinks.


I went out and bought a brand new pack of colored pencils and downloaded a couple free coloring pages and made this:


Which turned into this once baked:


Squee!!!  How cute is that!!  I'll bet at this point you're wondering what in the heck that photos of shoes is doing at the beginning of this post?  I'm getting there, I swear!  I got bitten by the coloring bug and decided to take it a step further and try doodling on shoes.  

Now you have to understand - I can't draw.  I can look at a picture and sort of mimic a shape, but I really have no talent for drawing and realism and shading are beyond my capabilities.  I embraced that and decided to go for fun and colorful doodles rather than anything that's supposed to look like "art" and came up with these:


How fun are those!?  I'm pretty "chuffed" (as my UK friends would say)!  I took a pair of white canvas shoes:


Cheap white canvas shoes, I might add (and I think that's what allowed me to go crazy without worrying about ruining a "good" pair of shoes):


Then I took a box of permanent markers and got busy.  I started with a skull couple:


I'm not all that happy with the way they turned out.  I think I was a bit hesitant with my drawing so the lines aren't as crisp.  I sketched the outlines lightly in pencil and then went over it with a marker and it was hard to trace the lines exactly.  I also wasn't happy with the decorative details on the faces because the area was so small and the markers (fine line ones) do bleed a bit on the canvas.  It got better when I started just doodling without sketching first like the flower and vines.  

To try to keep the two shoes sort of the same (although I wasn't making a matching pair), I decided I'd better do some on the other shoe and go back and forth so I drew a skull on the other one.  This one is larger so I could get more detail in the decoration and I'm much happier with it.


As you can see, I just kept adding stuff and filling in white spaces.  I did try to add similar elements to keep them cohesive (like the blue flower with a magenta center on both shoes, etc.).






Can you tell I'm a big fan of the Day of the Dead?  I'm pretty excited about the Dia De Los Muertos: A Celebration of Life Challenge by Karen McGovern.  It's easy to play along: create something inspired by Dia De Los Muertos and reveal your designs on October 25, 2016 using the hashtag #lmajdod (full details here.)

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Sherri these are so freakin cute!!! I love the flowers and bright fun colors. No one will ever notice the imperfections you see, they really are great!

Patti Vanderbloemen said...

So stinkin' cute!!! I cannot draw either...this looks like so much fun! And....you are being too critical - they are perfect! :)

Anne Wilcox said...

Love!!!

Shai Williams said...

Those are so cute! I have been bitten by the coloring bug lately also and while I hate to trash something I spent so much time on, I haven't found a use for the colored pages.

Ann Schroeder said...

Love the shoes and the shrinky dink!

mairedodd said...

fantastic post! i'll have to get all the materials for my daughter - wrap it up as a xmas gift! i love when talented people play and share.

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