This lovely artwork is a great idea for Father’s Day and a sweet family keepsake for your family art gallery.

Little kids will love the messy activity of painting the soles of their shoes. Don’t get too stressed about the mess.

What you need:

• One of Dad’s old shoes
• One child’s shoe
• Two colours of water-based paint (eg, red and blue)
• Paint brush
• Canvas (or plain old paper is just as good!)
• A marker pen

Optional:

• Silver spray paint

Activity:

Start by jazzing up your canvas. Just spray paint it with silver paint.

Wait for that to dry.

Now paint the sole of the big shoe (Dad’s shoe) in a nice bright colour. Kids will love doing this bit, so if they are helping, let them do the painting.

Press the shoe onto the canvas until a clear footprint is made. It helps to turn the canvas upside down and smooth your hand over the shoe from the other side so that you get a full footprint onto the canvas. See the above video for more detail.

Wait for the painted shoeprint to dry.

Now paint the sole of your child’s shoe. Choose a different bright colour that gives a nice contrast to the first colour. Press the little shoe over the big shoe print. You should end up with one big footprint and a smaller one inside it.

Write a warm fuzzy Father’s Day message.

Make sure you put the date on the bottom of the canvas. In years to come, it will remind you how small your child’s feet once were!