Maria Halavrezos | Sportscene - Sam Hall, a twenty-year-old Canadian kayaker from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia demonstrates how an athlete’s life can be filled with interests outside of training. Sam is a student at the Nova Scotia College for Art and Design (NSCAD) in Halifax where she has transformed from elementary school doodler into creator of comics. This past summer Sam competed at the Canada Summer Games in Quebec representing Team Nova Scotia, during which she earned four medals.

Drawing has been a pastime of Sam’s since her childhood. “I made a lot of comics when I was in elementary school-- a LOT of TRULY TERRIBLE comics. By the time I got to junior high I was doodling all over everything and I was still just awful. I enjoyed it though! My best friend Jocelyn and I played all these drawing games in a duotang we'd pass back and forth when the teacher wasn't watching. I kind of clued in one day that if I was more focused when I was drawing (on the drawing, not on the class, of course!) I could actually improve. I got a "Drawing Dragons" book out of the school library and it opened the floodgates. I wanted more than aimless doodles. I wanted rad dragons!” Check them out here.  (Sam assures us that she is still all about the dragons.)

During past spring training camps in Florida, Sam started off making daily journal comics for fun. Left one of the postcards.

Sam’s work isn’t all paddling related, nor is it all comics. Recently she designed t-shirts (yes, THOSE are paddling related!)

Sam credits her development of a strong work ethic and spirit of constructive competition to all the years she spent paddling from a young age. “My first year at NSCAD was really challenging and even though I knew I didn't start off with some of the technical skills I needed, I knew that I was capable of working hard enough to overcome my insufficiencies”. The overlaps Sam has experienced in paddling and the arts have helped her learn to charge on, mistakes and all.

“I think the most important overlap is that you have to work as hard as you can on whatever you're currently doing, then move on as soon as you're finished. You can have a great race/make something cool or have a bad race/make something terrible, either way you have to go ‘okay, what did I learn and how can I use that later?’ And start again”.

Sam has come a long way in her few short years at NSCAD. Reaching out and finding a community with similar interests in art helped to hone her skills before submitting a collection of her work to the school. “I started posting some art online, making some art friends who gave me feedback and helped me improve. In grade 12 I decided I wanted to be an illustrator and sent my (retrospectively embarrassing) portfolio to NSCAD, who generously accepted me…

There's an Adventure Time line that's like ‘sucking at something is the first step towards being sorta good at something!’  Do the best you can, even if your best is terrible! You'll see results”. Sam’s first two years at NSCAD have been mostly focused on single-image projects, but over the summer she played with some of those concepts to make comics. “Between school and training there's not a ton of time for big personal projects during the school year.

It's kind of a warm-up for a more ambitious page I'm working on, another watercolour comic that's based on my character design final.”

Another piece of work that was very exciting for Sam was her entry to Hourly Comics Day. You can check it out here.

As for sources for inspiration, Sam draws from a variety of everyday happenings. “I take notes in my sketchbook or phone and come back to expand on them, just little things I think are interesting or funny. I do a lot of planning when I run. I try to think about the kinds of stories I'd be interested in reading and the kind of art I'd like to see”.

If you’re interested in viewing more of Sam Hall’s work, you can visit her portfolio site: www.samdraws.carbonmade.com or art blog: www.samdraws.tumblr.com