Fancy shoes

Yesterday was vacuuming day and I spotted these in the back of closet. A little dusty but still beautiful, and even nicer once the dust was gone.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to tackle them (and I may eventually do several versions, maybe with ink or watercolour) but this first try was with graphite (my mechanical pencil with a 2B lead) on Bristol board. Bristol is a great drawing surface because it’s so smooth. You can go over the lines again and again, building up the darks until the surface is shiny and solid grey from layering.

I haven’t drawn shoes in ages but symmetry is always an issue, especially from this angle. Now that I’ve scanned my drawing, I see that the shoe on the right is a little wider than its partner. I was sitting on the stairs going down to my studio to draw these and the shoes were on the floor (because the light from the window was great) but when you are that close to something all you have to do is move your head a bit and one part or another of the shoe gets wider or narrower. Something to remember for the next time I sketch these fancy shoes.