DT—22

Sam Gill

Sam Gill

He/Him

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Hello! My name is Sam Gill, and I’m an artist based in Burlington, Ontario. I love to combine narrative and information illustration using fun, whimsical characters inspired by the colourful worlds of my childhood. When I’m not drawing, you might find me rescuing ants from the sink or getting lost in a rabbit hole of trivia.

Dream Chasers:

  Dream Chasers is a fictional middle-grade book series inspired by dreams that I’ve had. The series follows an unlikely team as they travel through dreamscapes and face their nightmares. Featured here are cards depicting several of the protagonists in the waking world, before they first meet. Each one has an affinity towards a certain element, which becomes relevant as the series progresses.

Growing Potential:

  This artwork was created for Burlington’s Culture Days festival 2022 as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and chosen for display along a beach path. To celebrate the return to a much-needed community, my goal was to show that we can use our experiences to re-emerge and grow together, like flowers after a rainstorm.

The Journey:

  A sample Illustration from a children’s book written by Kimyata Neil-Gabriel. In it, two best friends discover a Bible in the park and learn about some of the many adventures of Jesus: from the healing of two blind men, to his compassion for a woman overcome with guilt. While reading, the boys go on a little journey of their own.

The Missing Mitten:

  This is a sample page from a children’s search and find book I wrote and illustrated, where a little boy retraces his steps though town in hopes of recovering his lost mitten. Together with his dad, he finds a lot of other things along the way, including something he didn’t expect!

Everyday Quests:

  Sometimes it takes a monumental effort to prepare for even the most mundane tasks. Everyday Quests is a project that reframes some of those tasks as grand adventures through maps and inventories inspired by games and mythology. In addition to maps, each page has some tips and activities to help conquer those quests, and face intimidating characters. This spread in particular focuses on the challenge of navigating to somewhere new through the lens of a pirate searching for treasure.

Grackle Calendar:

  The common grackle is a bird known for its noisy and aggressive behaviour. Their cries sound like a creaky old gate, and their flocks can reach up to 200 million other blackbirds. Like crows, grackles feed on corn, making them a threat to crops. Despite this, they have a surprisingly beautiful iridescence to their feathers. For these reasons they are perfectly suited to represent the month of October.