Senior Alex McDaris paints Vans brand shoes as a hobby. She’s painted a few pairs for herself and has painted many pairs for friends.

McDaris said, “I’ve probably painted 10-15 pairs, at least.”

McDaris said the inspiration came at a museum. “I’d seen a book in an art museum that had painted shoes in it. So I decided for one of my friend’s birthdays, I made her a pair of Fall Out Boys ones. And they turned out really well so from there I just made myself a pair and my sister a pair and then people started asking,” she said.

She said her inspiration for the art  “most of  the time it’s from CD covers. I’ve done a lot of CD covers. Like pretty much whatever they [the person who owns the Vans] ask for.”

On average, McDaris said the it takes her, “probably three days-like 72 hours spread out over a while,” to complete one pair of shoes.

She described her favorite pair of shoes. She said,”This girl wanted a pair for her birthday and she picked out a bunch of bands that she liked and so every part of the shoe was a different CD cover.”

“They turned out really well; they took forever to do though. They turned out really well in the end. She’s in Belgium now, so I’ll never see them ever again,” she said with a laugh.