Eisenman Architecture

I once complained on Twitter about drawing straight lines on shoes. This pair was, in a way, the ultimate punishment for glib pessimism. It's all straight lines. However, this sort of forced lesson is incredibly valuable, as it forces one to address confidence issues. I can now say after many hours that Architect Peter Eisenman has helped me address my fear of straight lines on canvas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Eisenman

The Eisenman works depicted on this pair are the Wexner Center for the Arts, The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, and House VI.

Where the Wild Things Are

Made these for a loyal Where the Wild Things Are fan, in time for him to wear them to the premiere of the new Spike Jonze film. One particular challenge for this pair was replicating Maurice Sendak's artistic style in marker. From what I can tell, Sendak used colored pencil and acrylic paint to illustrate the original book, mediums which either lead to smoothly blended colors or many sketchy thin lines. Marker is good for neither.

Passion Flowers

I sent these pictures to a botanical magazine and hopefully they will run an article on ArtKicks in an issue close to the Christmas season.

Texas and Travel

For this pair, one shoe represents the wearer's home state of Texas and the other shoe represents all of the places that she has traveled. The "Green Building" adorning the right shoe is the tallest building in Dallas.

More Than Meets the Eye

Holy hell, the Transformers are so incredibly painstaking to draw. Doing this pair has given me an immense amount of respect for both the animators of the original animated series and the comic book artists who continue to add detail to the character designs.


The recipient of this pair is a major fan of the original Transformers, specifically the movie that came out in 1986. For this pair, one shoe is Autobot themed and one shoe is Decepticon themed. The leaders of each faction were good choices for the dominant images. Hot Rod and Starscream snuck onto the inside panels.



The backs feature the logos of the respective factions.

Modern Fairytales

Jack wears a hoodie and Ray Bans (a red hood--GET IT?) as he holds up his killer cool beanstalk. Unfortunately, everything is falling down from the Giant's lair, golden-egg-laying-goose and all. Poor goose. It looks so sad and confused.






The wolf just got back from the mall. He picked up his studded belt at Hot Topic, his light green shirt from American Apparel, and his hat from Lids.

When your idea is stolen...

BedazzleKicks stole my damn business idea. Thanks a lot, BedazzleKicks, now the majority of my customers will be wearing glitter instead of marker.

http://bedazzlekicks.blogspot.com/