For the past six weeks I have been following my own advice and working on my ‘Life Design 101’ journey to confirm:

• What brings a smile to my face
• What makes me feel energised
• What do I most regret not doing
• If I won lotto what would I do
• What gives me satisfaction

Art and Creativity are a passion of mine and this is where I need to focus more for my well being.

I am fortunate enough to be able to create art projects that bring me satisfaction and the fact that these are also enjoyed by others is a real bonus. I generally paint with acrylics on canvas with the content inspired by the world around us; the results are somewhat realistic with an artistic lens. I love painting with black and white and vibrant colours. For inspiration I often sit with a blank canvas waiting for a subject to present itself from within.

I have always known that art is great for my wellbeing and I used painting as a tool to endure the Covid lockdown however the time commitment to produce painting can be prohibitive.

Customised shoes are big on Instagram and the time commitment is much less than a painting so I decided to change my canvas from those that hang on the wall to those worn on the feet…shoes.

So what are the steps to success:

• Have a goal
  • Produce high quality, wicked customised bespoke designs that will bring customers’ pleasure.
  • Art on a shoe for you! Imagination + Design = Amazing You.
  • Enjoy creating.
• Know your market
  • Initial focus will be cycle shoes as cyclists tend to like accessories that help them stand out from the crowd.
• Need a quality product and tools
  • Ensure paint products are designed to be durable and flexible with shoe movement.
  • Obtain appropriate tools, air gun, compressor, paint brushes, preparation products etc
• Research and test
  • Saturate yourself with information; read and watch as much from those in the customising industry and ask lots of questions.
• Produce and customer feedback
  • Trial with a few ‘foundation clients’ who are happy to ‘test and feedback’ to ensure you can provide quality product and that what you are producing is what the market wants.
• Marketing
  • How to contact and engage with the customers via social media.

So for the past six weeks that is exactly what I have been doing immersing myself in the world of customisation, learning, researching, preparing and trialing, taking the steps necessary to succeed with my new goal.

Step one, once I had sourced appropriate tools and researched 100%, was to use what I had on hand, so I started by customising mine and my hubby’s shoes. Making the most of the limited canvas I decided to do two different designs on each of our shoes.

Mine represented pacific influences and his cycling and space. I also purchased some near new shoes off marketplace and painted them using Pop Art and Spiderman themes. Now I am moving onto my trial group where they decide the designs. So far the results have been really good, testing is an important stage as you learn so much by doing!

For me I love ‘looking at the shoe waiting for the design to jump out of the canvas’ and ‘seeing the finished product’.

I also started an Instagram account @artbychrisp4u and was sooooooooooooo excited when recently @Velokicks (with 90k followers) tagged me and shared my post,…I am heading towards my goal.

Don’t be shy, take the leap and do what you enjoy.