Galaxy Canvas Shoes

"MY fault?"

Have you ever seen Bunny, AKA Grav3yardgirl on Youtube?  She's delightfully strange, a real-life  Addams Family cousin and one of the most unique beauty/lifestyle vloggers I've seen.  I love her series "Does this Thing Really Work?" where she gets As Seen on TV products and tests them out.  Lately, she's been doing that with Pinterest, and one of her more recent ones has been tie dye sharpie shoes.  I was struck by the way that the sharpie bled in a similar manner to watercolors, and An Idea was born.

I decided to do a galaxy  print because it would be a more forgiving pattern if things crashed and burned.  I'm probably going to try some other sorts of drawings to see how I can manipulate this further because I think I can do some other really cool things with this very simple technique.

Supplies

• Permanent Markers:  black, dark blue, light blue, dark purple, light purple, pink, yellow, and silver     
• 91% Isopropyl Alcohol 
• paintbrushes: I'm using a flat brush for spreading color and a fine point to work on details with
• White canvas shoes
• White acrylic paint

I'm using Write Bros Infinity, Bic Mark It, and Sharpie brands.  There is a slight difference in the color payoff and how the colors react to the alcohol, but any brand that you have should work and give good results.  Sharpies and Bics are more vibrant than the Infinity, which blends well and gives more subtle tones.  Although I didn't try it, the same technique should also work with more expensive alcohol-based artist markers.

According to Bunny, most of the pins she ran across used 91% alcohol.  This is what I used as well, but I think lower percentages won't bleed as dramatically.  The more you saturate the canvas with alcohol, the more the color will bleed.  You can control the bleeding with a less saturated brush, which is why I used it instead of the dropper that she used.   

If you get any maker on the rubber of the shoes, rub it off with an alcohol soaked brush.  

Remove the laces, if you have any, from the shoes and put aside for later, if you're keeping them.  I personally like the contrast of the white laces and bottom with the dark galaxy painting.

Adding the nebula cloud colors

Lay down patches of blues, purples, and pinks.  I colored one patch and then diluted it with the alcohol before adding another color.  The wet marker dilutes better than the dry marker and gives a more painterly effect.

Continue until the entire shoe is filled with blue, purple, and pink and you're reminiscing over the Lisa Frank folders you had as a kid (Kids: It looks good when your parents start talking about being oooooooold).  The color bled onto the trim around the canvas, so I colored that in and diluted the color with alcohol.

Making it Spacey 

Draw random squiggly lightning shapes all over the shoe.  Make larger patches and color them in before diluting them with the alcohol again. 

 Darken the black and blend the edges by using a damp brush along the edges of your lines.  I removed some of the alcohol by wiping the brush on my hand. Rub the lines with the brush to blend them out.

Once you're happy with the patches of dark space, add yellow to bring some more life into the shoes.  It will blend into the background colors to give more warm colors throughout.  If the yellow is on blue, it'll make a green color, on pink it will become orange, and on purple it will turn brownish.

Starry Skies

Finally, add stars with a silver marker.  The stars need to be pretty random, so add denser patches throughout the shoe.  The stars won't show up much on the lighter colors, but that's ok.  The ghostly stars will really add some depth to the shoe.  Once you're done with that, grab some white acrylic paint and dot on some white stars throughout the shoes randomly.

This is a fun and easy project for anyone.  It's cheap and the results are great, regardless of your experience with drawing or painting.  These would also be fun with a little TARDIS or even a small Enterprise painted somewhere on the shoe, too.  Let your imagination run wild!