Sometimes I get distracted by little slices of life.


Sometimes I get distracted by little slices of life.


Story #14 for Story A Day Challenge May 2016 and double duty as Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Shoes or Feet.

Dancing the night away
Stepping Out
“Shh, here she comes.” Running Shoes were hoping she would choose them. They loved the dirt trails, the singing birds, the sound of the waves lapping up against the lakeshore. “What time is it? Does anyone know what time of day it is?” Running Shoes knew she liked them best early in the morning.
“Shut up!” Hikers whispered. “We will all know at the same time where she is going. Just let her be.”
“No, we want to go!” Running Shoes inched closer to her feet, at the bottom of the closet. She stumbled over them, picked them up (Ha Ha Ha, Running Shoes stuck out their tongues at Hikers), took a few steps, put them down.
But she didn’t put them on.
They saw her select blue jeans and a purple shirt. “Guess she’s not going running. Or hiking,” Hikers sighed, disappointed.
They heard her humming. “Oh, you know what that means,” Boots gloated. “We are stepping out tonight! We will be the life of the party. Woo-hoo! Y’all have a good time while we are gone!”
Boots reached out and kicked the door closed as they were leaving.
“It’s dark in here,” Running Shoes complained.
“It’s a closet,” Hikers said. “Get used to it.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The shop was closed and the lighting dimmed for the night.

From my New York City adventure
Lesson 5 of my online sketch and watercolor class covers Shoes. Only in my closet, all I could see were black shoes, brown shoes, grey shoes, and running shoes so dusty the original bright colors were obscured. Hubby’s shoes weren’t any more exciting than mine.
I actually shopped at Goodwill just for this lesson. I kept in mind shape, texture, and color; I wasn’t interested in the shoe size. While I was there I thought maybe I could find some colorful cowboy boots.
No. No cowboy boots at all. Curses! Foiled again.

The subject.

The warm up exercise. A continuous line drawing with the Tombow pen where I discovered I have a heavy hand leading to thick, thick lines.

Let’s just say that New York won’t be calling me to illustrate their new shoe line for next year.
You may have noticed that a lot of my sketch objects are from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They have quite the collection of practically everything! But, as I do have shoes of my own, I thought I’d include at least one pair in my Shoe Series.
I have two pair of Crocs: a summer pair (the green, with holes) and a winter pair (black, no holes). I only wear them in the yard. The green, hole-y ones are too cold in the winter and the black, solid ones are too hot in the summer.
Sketch 072: Summer Crocs (not the Metropolitan Museum of Art, although I did search the online collection after I sketched mine, wondering if, indeed, they had a pair. None showed up. Maybe I should donate mine. Hmmmm . . . )
Here are links to some of the museum’s shoes that caught my eye.
Rosenbloom’s Slippers red, with tassels
Shoes by Steven Arpad, with quite the upturn at the toe