Billie, What Are You Doing?

A marker drawing I did at the last Utrecht demo.

I'm going to give the framed original to my friend, who returns from his trip to France this week (that's his dog, Billie).

Why Are You Squeezing Me With Your Body?

It's a hug, Michael.
I'm hugging you.

We've been watching Arrested Development....

Shark Week Day 7

WOOPS.  Forgot the final Shark Week sketch!
Day 7 (final): DerpShark. 

The Derpshark is the stupidest creature known to man, often starving itself out of sheer laziness or simply annoying larger creatures to the point of killing the defenseless Derpsharks.  They are most notable for their distinctive "Durr" call, as they roam sandy seashores in search of mates and food.

Shark Week Day 6

Shark Week Day 6: Megamouth. 

The Megamouth Shark is one of the newest discoveries, and extremely rare, with 54 specimens caught or sighted.  According to some sources, the Megamouth is extremely docile and bashful.

Shark Week Day 5

Day 5: Goblin Shark. 

The Goblin Shark hunts using electro-sensitive organs in its snout and, upon finding prey, suddenly protrudes its jaws and uses a tongue-like appendage to suck its victim into its mouth.  Though these sharks live in the deep sea, on the ocean floor, in April of 2007, several Goblin Sharks were spotted swimming in shallow waters for the first time ever.  May God have mercy on us all.

Shark Week Day 4

Day 4: Whale Shark.

The Whale Shark is an unusual breed of shark, being a filter-feeder (one of only three known species of shark that filter-feeds), and absolutely massive, holding the record as the largest living non-mammalian vertebrate.  While massive, these are docile creatures who have been known to play with divers and even let them catch a ride on occasion, but there have been reports of a diver almost being sucked into its enormous mouth.

Shark Week Day 3

Shark Week Day 3: Great White Shark. 

Made infamous by Peter Benchley's novel (and eventually the film of the same name) Jaws, the Great White is a fearsomely large predator.  Perhaps its most impressive, and terrifying, feat is its act of "breaching" (launching itself from great depths to the surface of the water to catch prey, often jumping completely clear of the water), found particularly in the South African breed.

Shark Week Day 2

Shark Week Day 2: Tiger Shark.

While shark attacks are fairly rare, the Tiger Shark is responsible for most of the fatal attacks. Additionally, native Hawaiians worshiped the Tiger Shark as an ancient spirit, believing its eyeballs to possess special seeing powers. 

Shark Week!

Hey everyone!
In honor of the highly anticipated Shark Week on Discovery Channel,
I'll be doing a sketch of a different breed of shark each day this week!

Let's get going!

Day 1: Hammerhead.  The Hammerhead shark is one of the few sharks to be considered an aumakua in Hawaiian culture, one of the most respected sharks in the ocean, and is thought to be a symbol of the gods watching over your family, and a symbol of a clean and balanced ocean.

Hawkeye Progress Shots!

Hey all!
I have a special treat for you today.
As most of you may already know,
I work over at Utrecht in lovely downtown Savannah,
where we have a giant chalkboard behind our registers.
This chalkboard is special to us because we get to brainstorm and draw all the illustrations on it,
and switch it up every quarter or so.
In fact, our chalkboard is so famous,
it made it to the cover of Utrecht's nation-wide flyer!
Here's what it looked like earlier this year:

The original chalkboard illustration.
I did the canvas in the background, the black brush, and the red sketchbook!

Here's our illustration on the cover of Utrecht's Back-To-School flyer!
There's my name in the bottom corner!

After our success with the chalkboard,
we decided to get a little more creative,
and landed on a Raiders of the Lost Art design for our next illustration:

I helped with some of the shading on the shirt, and some of the lettering for the title.

Our Indy illustration was so well-received,
we decided to get even crazier with our next board,
and make it Avengers-themed, in honor of our favorite Summer movie!
We all picked different characters to work on and plugged away over the course of about a month and a half.
I chose my favorite Avenger, Hawkeye (as played by Jeremy Renner).
Here are the process shots:

I started on the face by laying out flat medium tones, then gradually added the darks and lights,
blending with my fingers as I went along.
It's a long process, but with patience, it really pays off.

After laying out the face and making some minor adjustments
(you can see I lowered the nose and adjusted the jawline a bit), I added the hair.

Now for the body.  When working on the chalkboard,
I discovered it was much easier to break the illustration down into sections,
starting with the head, then the upper chest, then the left shoulder, then the right arm, etc. etc.

The reference image had very unusual anatomy on the right arm,
so I had to flub it until I could get a better reference image.

Reworking the arm, adding the brace.

The right hand proved to be the most difficult part for me.

After getting to a good stopping point with the hand,
I moved on to the torso.
The hand wasn't perfect, but I could always come back
and make adjustments later after the entire illustration was laid out.

You can see how I started to build the form,
working from darker colors to lighter colors,
and from larger basic shapes to smaller finer details.

The finished torso.

The pants were a little difficult to get right, but I got there,
then moved on to the quiver, which was surprisingly easy and fun to work on.

The finished quiver.

Added the left hand, which had to be flubbed.

Worked on the bow, starting with the left side.

Added some light blues to the bow to give it some reality.

Just a couple more things to work on and then some minor adjustments!

This is how I worked on the bow:
I laid out a flat black color and added lighter colors from there,
blending with my fingers at first.

A closer (though blurry- sorry!) shot of the right side of the bow.

Started to add some lighter tones with a soft pastel,
blending with my fingers.

Added some finder details with a white charcoal pencil.

Added some darker blacks to sharpen the details,
using a black charcoal pencil.

Started working on the arrow.

Full shot, arrow still in progress.
I made some minor adjustments to his face to give it more depth.

Finished the arrow.

Added the bow string and.... Finished!

 And here are some detail shots!
(Sorry for the horrid quality on these photos- my camera is busted.)

Detail shot of the torso.

Detail shot of the right arm and the left side of the bow, with the quiver in the background.

Detail shot of the other side of the bow with the arrow.

Detail shot of the face.

The full illustration!
Credits:
Ash Aycock- Hulk
Emily Sampson- Hawkeye
Rita Yadamec- Captain America
Michelle Burns- Thor
Ilene Shuman- Iron Man
Caleb Williamson and Chris Johnson- Black Widow

Keep in mind that we do all these illustrations with simple sidewalk chalk,
some soft pastels, Prismacolor NuPastels, and a few charcoal pencils. :)

 We'll be working on the rest of the chalkboard, featuring Loki, Nick Fury, and more, over the course of the next couple weeks or so,
so if you want to see this beautiful illustration in person, and want to see the progress on the rest of the chalkboard,
come on by to Utrecht Savannah, at 111 MLK Blvd. in Savannah, GA!

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Thanks for reading!
Love you all,
and have a great day!

<3 p="p">Emily J Sampson