Andy Warhol Process Pics

BLUE PAINTER’S TAPE 

While I’m acclimating myself with all of the different parts of customizing and painting shoes I am figuring out what supplies are best for what materials. I am struggling most when it comes to finding a tape that will work by adhering to rubber soles, not leaving sticky residue behind upon removal, and being delicate to the point where it won’t damage the materials. When working on a pair of leather sneakers I tried using regular masking tape at first and it refused to stick to anything. Then I tried blue painters tape and it definitely stuck but a little too well and left horrible adhesive on the sole upon removal. I think it was because I left the tape on for an extended period of time. Maybe 6 days total. 

Then I applied the blue painters tape to a pair of slides and when I took it off it started to rip up the foamy material that they were made of. 

While it definitely beats masking tape blue painters tape just ain’t it. I don’t know what tape will be better but I’m gonna find it 🤙

Until then I’m just going to have to paint carefully. 

So within the past week I decided to take a swing at something I’ve always wanted to try, custom shoes. I had no idea what I was doing or how the paints would work out, and I just went for it. Instead of going with the standard pair of Air Force 1’s that most custom shoe painters go with I went with a pair of Filas because they were cheap as hell so I didn’t have to worry about messing them up. I taped up all of the sections that I wanted to keep clean and started slinging paint like there was no tomorrow.

After I painted each section I flicked white paint at it to give a speckled look.

I was super careful about covering up other sections of the shoe while I did the flicking of the paint so that each section would have its set color scheme. 

So after I cleaned all the paint that I got on my wall this was the result. I still have to do the clear coat on top so there's still blue tape on the sole. Once that's done I plan on dying some laces to match the color scheme of the shoe. I'll be sure to post that when it's done.