If the shoe fits, paint it: Local stylist creates one-of-a-kind footwear

Keely Christensen got into shoe painting by accident, but has since used the talent to reproduce everything from a sunflower to an octopus on a pair of simple, white shoes.

Christensen and a friend were picking out their Halloween costumes three years ago when her friend suggested they paint shoes to match. Christensen had never heard of the technique before. “We painted them and it was fun,” she said.

Inspired, she began offering to create custom shoes for others.

“I basically painted what people wanted,” she said. “They’d give me the designs they wanted. I did Bride of Chucky, I did a pelican, I did Harry Potter, I did sunflowers, all kinds of things.”

Christensen, 23, has always had an artistic streak and loved to take art classes in school. She was inspired by her father, who also draws.

“I’ve loved to paint and draw for as long as I can remember,” she said. “I always saw him drawing and fell in love with it.”

She’s done paintings on canvas as well and is currently experimenting with pour-painting, where colors of paint are mixed together and poured onto a canvas or other surface.

“I like all kinds of different methods,” she said. “That’s the in thing right now. It’s very abstract. You’re just doing it and seeing what happens.”

She has also taken her artistic flair to the kitchen. She enrolled in culinary school just after she graduated from high school and worked in restaurants.

“I thought it was creative and fun,” she said.

Although she loved the work, the hours were punishing. She often found herself working long hours, including on holidays, and felt she never got to see her family. So she decided to channel her artistic urges into cosmetology. She currently works at Mystique salon in Coeur d’Alene, where she does hair, skin and nails. She said her favorite part of the job is doing nail designs.

“It’s like painting on people,” she said. “I love painting nails and doing art on nails.”

Christensen has completed nearly two dozen pairs of shoes and does what she can to make sure they can be worn, not just placed on a shelf and admired.

She starts the process with an inexpensive pair of white shoes.

“I like things to be affordable,” she said.

She picks out acrylic paint that she combines with fabric paint mixer, which helps the paint soak in. “It goes right into the fabric instead of just sitting on top of it,” she said.

When the shoes are complete, she sprays them with a waterproof spray to help protect them from the elements. Although the spray makes the shoes more durable, they still shouldn’t be worn in very wet or muddy conditions, Christensen said.

Painting on shoes offers a special challenge that painting on canvas does not, she said, particularly because it’s more difficult to fix mistakes.

“(Shoes) are not as forgiving as canvas,” she said.

A shoe also isn’t as flat as canvas.

“It’s very different than painting on canvas,” she said. “It’s round, is the main thing. It can look weird if you don’t account for that.”

Christensen said her favorite shoe creation was a pair featuring an octopus that she made for a friend as a gift. The head of the purple and green creature is on one shoe and its tentacles are spread across the second shoe.

“That was one of the toughest ones to do, but they turned out great,” she said.

Christensen’s work can be found on Facebook and Instagram under Chianti Designs.