TOP 10 POSTERS / ELENA PROCESS

I almost forgot! Adrian Curry, my awesome art director on the ELENA poster, also happens to curate the great Movie Poster of the Week column at MUBI, and he recently shared some of my process sketches from ELENA and as a bonus asked me to select my ten favorite movie posters. A really fun list to put together. You can read it here.

CHILDREN'S BOOKSHELF: Heather Woodall

Check out these beautiful psychedelic watercolors by Heather Woodall illustrating the Inuit legend of Ytek and the Arctic Orchid. The last landscape below in particular is a stunner. I've got a whole stack of books to share from my travels in the past year, as well as photos from Japan that I'm organizing for a post, so stay tuned!

LIPINSKI

Erik Lipinski is one of my favorite Polish poster artists. Born in 1908, Lipinski was the co-founder and editor of the Polish political magazine Spilki (Pins), whose excellent covers I've only seen in my Graphis annuals. Lipinski worked with the antinazi resistance in World War II and spent time imprisoned at Auschwitz. His wife, "Ha-Ga," was a prolific cartoonist featured in Spikli, and his son Tomek is a well-known Polish punk rocker. Here are a few of my favorite Lipinski designs.

NEW SITE / WES PRINTS

New site, new work! Including two new prints for Spoke Art and the Castro Theatre, for Wes Anderson's THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS and THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU.

UPDATE: These screenprints, as well as two short-run variants are now for sale in the Spoke Art store. Check out the art below and head to samsmyth.net to explore s'more.

LAMBCHOP PRINT

William commissioned me to make this poster for next weekend's Lambchop show at the VFW Hall in Nashville. It's an 18x24" signed & numbered print, edition of 50 on dark brown French paper. For sale at the show at a nice price, and here afterwards if there are some left.

My design was inspired by the song "Mr. Met" from Lambchop's new fine new record Mr. M. It's a huge honor to have been asked to do this poster for one of the greatest bands to come out of Nashville.

ELENA PRINTS

Available here through our friends at the movie poster mecca Posteritati. This 18x24" limited edition screenprint commemorates the US theatrical release of ELENA at Film Forum on May 16th. A signed and numbered edition of 100.

My good friend Adrian Cobb made this video of us printing the ELENA print at Kangaroo Press. Enjoy!

ELENA screenprint process from Sam's Myth on Vimeo.

NASHVILLE FILM FEST

This poster I made for the 2012 Nashville Film Festival is available as an 18x24" screenprint, made locally at Kangaroo Press in a limited edition of 50 prints. Pick up yours at the Nashville Film Festival located in the Regal Green Hills Commons 16. If these go quickly I may have a few extras for sale.

Screening Monday night and Tuesday morning at the festival is ELENA, for which I designed the theatrical poster as well as a new screenprint that will be available through Zeitgeist Films very soon. Stay tuned for a process video and on-sale info.

The film fest poster design is also featured on the cover of this week's Nashville Scene, where you can find a handy guide to this year's most notable films:

See you at the fest!

HAMMER SCREWDRIVER

Last fall we lost a dear friend, Paul Cobb. His music, recorded in his bedroom on his trusty Fisher-Price tape recorder, will live on under his chosen alias Hammer Screwdriver. Paul's friends and former bandmates of The Accordions and Amo Joy are culling together these recordings, adding to them, recording their own tributes, and releasing the music on vinyl. You can contribute to this effort and watch a short video here, and you can enjoy listening to the Hammer Screwdriver archives at this bandcamp page and also by using the player below.

I will be doing the layout for the vinyl release which will feature Paul's original artwork, and the above image based on photographs by Claire Hipkens will be turned into a limited edition screenprint available to contributors to this fund. Please take a moment to enjoy the music and contribute to this tribute if you would like.

TARKOVSKY @ 80

Happy 80th birthday to one of my very favorite filmmakers, Andrei Tarkovsky. Alongside my Criterion cover for SOLARIS, here’s an imaginary cover for STALKER that I mocked up as a companion piece for fun a while back. Below, the STALKER print I designed for the Belcourt last fall.

BRESSON

Here's a poster design I made to promote the Belcourt Theatre's Robert Bresson festival currently underway in Nashville, TN. Update: A limited run of these screenprints will be available beginning Sunday April 1st exclusively at the Belcourt. If you're not in Nashville but would like to purchase a print, contact Toby Leonard at toby [at] belcourt [dot] org.

For more info on this great fest and its films and symposiums, read here.

MARGARET

A little last-minute promotion for MARGARET at the Belcourt Theatre; I didn't get to realize this poster design in time for the opening, but here it is. MARGARET continues a limited engagement through this weekend in Nashville. #teammargaret

ELENA SCREENPRINTS

...coming soon!