Mike Haupt BMX at Sheep Hills

Mike Haupt was one of my roommates in one of the many BMX houses in the Huntington Beach area in the early 90's.  He was a serious BMX racer and jumper, and local at Sheep Hills.  I did this drawing of him doing one stylish X-up over one of Sheep Hills' many sets of doubles.  When I was drawing this, I toyed with the idea of listing all the top riders from Sheep Hills in the dark back of the take-off jump.  I decided against it, partly because so many great jumpers were locals at Sheep, that I figured a forget a couple of them.  So I just wrote Sheep Hills on the jump instead.  Sharpies on paper, 12" X 18".  #shadowsandsharpies

Alma Jo Barrera BMX Freestyle

 If you were a BMX freestyler in the 1980's, you know there weren't many women in the sport.  One of the few busting moves then was Alma Jo Barrera out of Texas.  Above we see her doing a stomach stand at the Velodrome at Cal State Dominguez Hills in Carson, California in 1987.  In the lower picture we see her doing a classic surfer, also at the Velodrome.  She competed against the guys on a bike at a time when there were very few women in action sports at all.  Surfing and inline had some women ripping it up in those days, but BMX freestyle and most other sports were nearly all men.  Along with Krys Dauchy and a couple others, Alma Jo was breaking new ground for women in sports. 

Both drawings are Sharpies on paper, the top one is 18" X 24", and the lower one is 12" X 18".  #shadowsandsharpies.

A Dementor Trying To Steal Your Dreams

In addition to doing a lot of drawing lately, I've been working on a writing project.  I started listening to several interviews with different writers while I was drawing.  I kept coming back to shows and interviews with J.K. Rowling, mostly because her story is so amazing.  There's one clip on You Tube where she talks about her depression while writing the first book, and how the Dementors in a later book were pretty much "depression personified."  Since that is an issue I've dealt with throughout my life, I thought doing a drawing of a dementor would be cathartic.  It was.  When I thought about the drawing, I asked myself what does depression really do?  One of the big things is that it robs us of our dreams.  So I drew my take on a dementor trying to suck the life out of dreams.  It's not the best drawing I've done, but I did it for myself, and it's a constant reminder of what can happen when I get down.  Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24".

Brayden at the Baseball Field

 

This is Alama Jo's (from the last post) grandson Brayden chillin' at a baseball game.  This top photo had some good shadows for me to work with, and I'm pretty stoked on how it came out.  The lower photo is Brayden, waiting for the game to start. I hope Brayden is stoked on these, too.  Top, sharpies on paper, 18" X 24", bottom, sharpies on paper, 12" X 18".

Alma Jo and Ali

Alma Jo Barrera of Texas was one of the few women to get seriously into BMX freestyle in the 80's.  I got to know her then, and we reconnected on Facebook a year or so ago.  She asked me to do a series of drawings for her.  This one, of her and her dog Ali near a river, was a new challenge for me.  With my style, faces don't always come out well, and I'd never drawn rushing water, which is a lot trickier to do than it sounds.  But I gave it my best shot, and added the color bars top and bottom to play off the color in Ali's collar.  Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24".

Lindsey and Sidney

A long time ago (the 1950's), in a galaxy far, far away (Mansfield, Ohio), my mom was a telephone operator.  At that job she met her life long best friend Linda.  Although they're both on Facebook these days, they often catch up with each other with four hour long phone calls.  When I started my Go Fund Me campaign to get my business started, Linda was the first person to donate.  At that time, I wasn't even offering a drawing to everyone.  But I wanted to do one for her.  I contacted her son, and got a few pics of her granddaughters to draw.  With my weird style, what works best is sharp photos with hard lighting.  In this case, I had a couple of fuzzy photos with pretty flat lighting.  But I did my best to give Linda a then-and-now drawing of her granddaughters.  Sharpies on paper, 12" X 18".

Steve Emig Action and Sports Drawings

This drawing of Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton is one I did several weeks ago as the Panthers were working towards their Super Bowl bid.  I drew this one as a demo to give people an idea of what my work looks like.  The entire thing (18" X 24" in this case) is drawing with scribbles of Sharpie markers.

If you're reading this post, you probably just had me hand you a flier about doing artwork of your kids in sports.  My unique style of shading with Sharpie markers is something I stumbled upon a decade ago.  In the last few months, I've started working towards turning my hobby into a small business.  I'm now drawing seven days a week, but I'm still selling my drawings fairly inexpensively to get my art out into the world and promote it.  I work from photos, in particular, I use photos with lots of shadows.  The drawing of skateboarder Diego Najera in the last post is a great example of this.  Right now, I have a crowdfunding campaign going on Go Fund Me to jump start my business.  I'm doing 12" X 18" drawings for $25, and 18" X 24" drawings for $50, which is less than I normally charge.  The smaller drawings take me anywhere from 7 to 12 hours to draw, and the larger ones take 20 to 25 hours.  So I'm not making a whole lot for the time involved.  But as an artist new to the marketplace, it's a good way to promote my work.  If you're interested in me doing a drawing of your kids (or dog, or custom car or whatever) you can call me here in Kernersville at (336) 937-3436, or email me at stevenemig13@gmail.com .

As I write this, I'm finishing up a series of drawings for an old friend in Texas, and I won't post those pictures until she actually receives them.  I do have a few other recent drawings I'll be posting in the next few days, though.  There are some artists out there who do amazing things with Sharpies, but no one uses a technique quite like mine.  Here's you chance to get a unique, original drawing unlike anything else out there.  I work on a first come, first served basis, so contact me soon to get on the list to get an original drawing of your kids playing their favorite sports. 

Diego Najera Nollie Drawing

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A lot of things I draw for other people, but there's also some photos I see that I just need to draw for myself.  When Sole Technology VP and old skate friend Don Brown posted this pic on Facebook two or three weeks ago, I knew I just had to draw it.  The photos that work best with my style are ones with good action and lots of shadows.  This original photo had both.  The skater is Diego Najera, who I know nothing about, and the trick is either a straight nollie or nollie kickflip, I'm not sure.  I added the e'S logos just to see how they would look, since that's his shoe sponsor, and since I've been hooked up with several free pairs of Etnies ( e'S shoes sister company) BITD.  Why did I put six logos in?  I think I had a flashback to the Vision Street Wear days where we were told to put logos EVERYWHERE.  In any case, this is my favorite drawing of the past few months, I'm really stoked on how it came out.  Sharpies on paper, 18" X 24", #shadowsandsharpies .