We voted! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 💀💀💀
Portrait of Hillary Clinton by Sam Spratt
When Obama beat Romney, I’ll admit that I genuinely thought that I was just a bit better than Republicans because “my side” won. I was completely comfortable reducing an incredibly complex list of interwoven issues represented by both candidates to “if you don’t vote Obama, you’re a racist”. I didn’t need to listen to the other side, didn’t need to hear the other story … I just planted my feet, drank bad beer with great packaging in a Brooklyn bar – laughing with friends about how right we were. Mitt didn’t have Hope. Mitt didn’t have Change. Mitt didn’t have a Shepard Fairey poster, how are you gonna be president without a Shepard Fairey poster?
It took Trump to finally burst my liberal artsy New York bubble and realize where I’d fucked up.
Portrait of Hillary Clinton by Sam Spratt
When Obama beat Romney, I’ll admit that I genuinely thought that I was just a bit better than Republicans because “my side” won. I was completely comfortable reducing an incredibly complex list of interwoven issues represented by both candidates to “if you don’t vote Obama, you’re a racist”. I didn’t need to listen to the other side, didn’t need to hear the other story … I just planted my feet, drank bad beer with great packaging in a Brooklyn bar – laughing with friends about how right we were. Mitt didn’t have Hope. Mitt didn’t have Change. Mitt didn’t have a Shepard Fairey poster, how are you gonna be president without a Shepard Fairey poster?
It took Trump to finally burst my liberal artsy New York bubble and realize where I’d fucked up.
Serenity of Suffering packaging illustrations - by Sam Spratt
Happy Halloween, all! Here’s something a little different than my usual, I made 14 packaging illustrations for the physical edition of Korn’s new album Serenity of Suffering. Here’s most of them.
Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows Hip Hop Variant - by Sam Spratt
I got to paint Spidey for Marvel which makes the 10 year-old version of me super stoked. Cover paying homage to the legend: NAS and his album Life is Good. Thanks to Marvel for bringing me on. Hitting local comic shops November 9th.
“Spider-Man Renew Your Vows - Hip Hop Variant” - I got to paint Spidey for Marvel which makes the 10 year-old version of me super stoked. Cover paying homage to the legend: @Nas and his album Life is Good. Here’s a build up of the process from start to finish. Thanks to @Marvel for bringing me on. Hitting local comic shops November 9th.
Circus skull study - Been juggling 20 illustrations across two record labels and an ad campaign for the last couple months, with the next month being the home stretch for deadlines. Bouncing between elaborate adventure posters, morbid character design, and a giant glamorous portrait has been crushing to my sanity, but has been a beautiful experiment in time management.
Logic - Bobby Tarantino & Ty Dolla SIgn - Campaign Cover art
by Sam Spratt
When pitching a concept for illustrations that I don’t have much time to complete, the quicker I can get a loose idea to them, the better so that I can start the actual piece. Logic and Atlantic records are clients/friends who I’ve worked with enough times that I can throw them those shitty 5 minute thumbnail sketches on the left and they can see through the chicken scratch enough to trust a decent final product will come out the other end.
“Logic - Bobby Tarantino” - Cover Illustration by Sam Spratt for Def Jam
Cover art I painted for Logic’s surprise project that dropped at midnight last night. I’ve been and will continue to be buried away for awhile on some large projects but will always make time for our collabs. This was an insanely fun piece to tackle in the midst of it all – bob gave me the early tracks to listen to and then let me loose with pretty much full creative control to try to make something that fit the music. As with all of the album covers we’ve done together, this one is packed with easter eggs and little details for his fans.
You can listen to it on Spotify (or Apple Music).
Happy 4th my friends.
Apparently my 10 year high school reunion is this weekend. While too busy to go, it did prompt me to do a deep dive through some old art from a decade ago during my last semester of Walton high school (as well as some truly harrowing photos of me as an angsty teenager). At that point I didn’t even know that I wanted to be an artist (or if that was even a real job) – but a deep fear of any career relating to math, an obsessive desire for self-improvement, and 10 years of drawing shitty drawing after shitty drawing, it eventually clicked enough that I understood that human faces didn’t look like … that.
Now, I don’t wanna sell the whole generic motivational idea of: “SEE anyone can make it, just work really hard, look at me” line of thinking as I had/have numerous advantages that others do not – with what I look like, where I come from, what I believe, or what I was told I can reach for, never being an impedance. That being said, for any young person reading this that hasn’t been lost to cynicism yet: Man I hope you get the chance to try to do something you love. I hope you have the opportunities you should and people that tell you that you can. I hope that the only barriers for your success are talent and hard work – because that shit can be built even when everything else seems broken. And if the barriers you face are bigger than that, I hope you overcome them against the odds, working harder than I had to even when you shouldn’t have to, just so that the world gets to see what you can do too.
Bonus: teenage Sam
Apparently my 10 year high school reunion is this weekend. While too busy to go, it did prompt me to do a deep dive through some old art from a decade ago during my last semester of Walton high school (as well as some truly harrowing photos of me as an angsty teenager). At that point I didn’t even know that I wanted to be an artist (or if that was even a real job) – but a deep fear of any career relating to math, an obsessive desire for self-improvement, and 10 years of drawing shitty drawing after shitty drawing, it eventually clicked enough that I understood that human faces didn’t look like … that.
Now, I don’t wanna sell the whole generic motivational idea of: “SEE anyone can make it, just work really hard, look at me” line of thinking as I had/have numerous advantages that others do not – with what I look like, where I come from, what I believe, or what I was told I can reach for, never being an impedance. That being said, for any young person reading this that hasn’t been lost to cynicism yet: Man I hope you get the chance to try to do something you love. I hope you have the opportunities you should and people that tell you that you can. I hope that the only barriers for your success are talent and hard work – because that shit can be built even when everything else seems broken. And if the barriers you face are bigger than that, I hope you overcome them against the odds, working harder than I had to even when you shouldn’t have to, just so that the world gets to see what you can do too.
“The Little Foxes” - key art by Sam Spratt
Key art I painted for the theater production of the classic play for Arena Stage in DC starring Marg Helgenberger best known for her work on CSI. Pretty simple portrait but had a lot of fun researching period appropriate clothing, softer brushwork, and working on top of a big ‘ol slab of bright red.
“Captain Marvel” - Illustration by Sam Spratt
This was a really fun quick painting that began just as an anatomical study of a muscular woman as I’d really never tried tackling drawing that body-type over the years – I quickly decided to shift gears and ended up turning it into my (super totally jacked) take on Carol Danvers.