My first Jordans. Airbrush and acrylic.
Painting custom shoes has been on my artistic bucket list for quite awhile. Shortly before the world shut down I was approached to try it out. Per my usual approach I put the ball back in their court to test how serious there were by saying “if you bring me some all white shoes, yeah I’ll paint the for you.”
It was not a week later that a nice brand new pair of Nike’s were put in my hands. Beautiful. Clean. I felt the same excitement as when I pick up a new canvas. The request? “She loves Houston, so something with the skyline. And her favorite colors are red, black and gold.”
The blank canvas.
Nike really makes a high quality product. Once my hands were on them I knew I would have to step my game up. Just do it and all that…
Sketch it out
Establishing the shapes, colors and composition. Initially I planned on leaving a lot of negative space.
So much masking tape.
First pass. Taped everything but the toe and lace guard and cut out HOUSTON to leave the letters white.
Airbrush, where you been all my life?
This was my first project to feature 90% airbrush. This is the stage where I fell in love with the ability to contrast the black on red to give it a smokey/burnt look. At this point I knew I had to rethink a few techniques for the rest of the shoe.
What to do about HOUSTON?
I was so excited to see how it all looked without the tape that at this stage I removed it all to sit with the shoes a bit. One thing was clear: My previous plan for the back of the shoe was not matching up to the front.
Blue it out.
Red, blue and orange is always a satisfying contrast. I was very pleased about the fade and honestly probably could have stopped here and had a sexy final product. However, the blue was applied to be the color of the buildings. The plan now is to mask of the skyline and paint a night sky/sunset.
Figured it out.
I was pleased with the over all shape of the color and flow of the shoe. I believe it to be interesting and move your eye around. Enough white, cool blue in the back. Fun stars all over. All that is left now is to outline, define, polish and seal it against water and weather.
