Graphic Design · Illustration · T-Shirt Design · Printmaking ·
These are some projects that were either commissions or just something I really wanted to try. I love keeping busy and trying different media!
Custom Illustrated Keds Shoes
I’ve illustrated a few pairs of shoes, and I think these are my favourite. These were commissioned for Natasha, a med student who spent some time in Edmonton for school. The goal with this design was to capture her time in Edmonton. There were a lot of ideas and images to include, and I felt that the best way to unite all these elements was to use an overall style. In this case, art deco was the style. Not only having a vintage dance appeal, art deco has a very clean and precise look, which I felt supported the idea of medicine!
On the left toe we have the Edmonton skyline, and a dancer on the right to represent Natasha’s dance involvement. The heels show off her nickname “Dr. Jazz”, with the Dr. shoe including a Caduceus staff to represent her medical studies. On the Jazz shoe I used art deco patterns that have a musical vibe, with a more orderly pattern on the Dr. side.
The art was penciled in first, then inked with permanent fineliners of varying widths. I added some red accents throughout, but kept the colour palette minimal to preserve the clean art deco look. You can see a couple more photos here, and you can also check out two more commissioned pairs of shoes: feminine flowers and a cat that gets around.
Sketches to T-Shirts
Amidst my freelance work I took a little time for myself to do some vanity projects. I like to make detailed black and white sketches as a kind of meditation; a couple of my favourites became t-shirts! This involved setting up a Society 6 online store, uploading the work and designing the shirts, and then buying them from myself.
One shirt is the infinite sushi platter:
And the other is a gothic-style cat skull flower garden:
