In the midst of a thousand projects, I decided to fit this quick one in this week. After tossing up about designs, in the end I decided against the grey plaid effect on my old birkis and instead went for some simple trees in grey and black tones. I am quite happy with the final effect.
The process was really simple. I had already painted these black once before, which had stood up quite well to my indelicate stompings.
I went straight over the black in a reasonable quality acrylic paint, straight out of the tube. I recommend using a premixed colour for the main base coat rather than a colour you’ve mixed yourself. If it chips or gets scratched later, it is much easier to touch it up with a premix.
I used a nice elephant grey colour called ‘Nimbus grey’. Then I drew the design on with pencil.
I roughly painted in the tree trunks and branches, then the leaves.
When that was dry I added some finer branches, and finally some colour depth to the leaves.
When that was totally dry I sealed the shoes with Mod Podge acrylic matt sealer.
As you can see, it is certainly not matt! More of a satin finish. But I don’t really mind. I did three coats over three days to give it time to properly cure. It is flexible, which is imperative for shoes. Last time, I used a more expensive acrylic sealer designed for paintings, but this time this was all I could find locally. It seems to have worked fine.
🙂
B
