Samantha Hahn

Coming full circle: Returning to illustration

I think I can safely say that I was born into illustration. My mom was an illustrator doing work for Cosmo, Vogue, Good Housekeeping, Bloomingdales etc. I was always posing for her polaroid reference shots (ah… the good old 80’s). A make-up how to, a fashion spread, a children’s book, you name it. She worked in colored pencil, pastel, and watercolor mostly.

My ideal day as a kid was to wake up go to my hand-me-down drawing table and just draw all day. I drew fashion girls that looked like Katy Keene, princesses, narratives, etc. So When I majored in illustration, no one was surprised. I loved working the way I did in college, I learned so much but the work was not intrinsically me. So I moved away from it toward painting thinking that that would be better for me. But somehow I never felt totally comfortable working like that either.

So now, years later I’m returning to my childhood roots and working the way I love. I’m currently putting together a portfolio and website and just finished a slew of illustrations for fashion designer/ blogger Mary Jo Matsumoto that she’ll be posting on her site soon. I’m working on the illustration above, playing with background, color, and cropping. More later.