Sam started off life in the rockpools of Shoreham on the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria. When not sneaking off to ‘accidently fall in’ the ocean or go surfing, young Sam spent most of her time drawing, watching David Attenborough documentaries and adventuring outside with her best friends, her horse and the family dogs. She was introduced to pastel pencils at around 11 years of age by a generous portrait artist who worked in the ‘‘The Barn’ in Merricks North. Seeing Sam fascinated by the pencil’s effects, the artist gave her one of her favourite sepia pencils. Sam went back shortly after to give the artist one of her many smudgy sepia unicorns she drew as a ‘thank you’, but the artist had since moved on.

The love of sharks, the sea and all things in it led her to become a marine biologist. She graduated with a PhD in 2000 which examined the effects of fishing and Marine Protected Areas on the reproductive demography of coral trout along the Great Barrier Reef. Sam continued to invest in her art in parallel by working as a biological illustrator for Queensland National Parks and James Cook University Marine Biology Department. She had her first art exhibition on the Victorian Bellarine Peninsula in the winter of 2003.