Flat Out Under Pressure Art Competition 2022

Every year in Greenville, SC the Metropolitan Arts Council (MAC) hosts an event that brings all the local artists out of the woodwork within this community. 150 artists competed this year, some professional some amateur, all very talented. Between 9 and 11 am on Friday, all artists must get their worksurfaces stamped (you can do up to 5 surfaces but in the end only one piece can be submitted), then you have 24 hours to create a piece of art.

The following morning we all bring our pieces back to MAC in downtown Greenville, and their doors close for most of the day while they install all of the finished pieces inside the gallery for judging. That evening, the party and awards ceremony takes place, and it’s always so impressive to see what others created during the same time period.

This year my piece was a 20x20 mixed media fiber art landscape featuring a farm at dusk and I used needle felted wool roving, punch needled yarn, and rug hooked fabric strips. A piece this size normally takes 3-4 days, but I was able to get it done on time (though it was an extremely full day and yes, my wrists still hurt)!

Hope you enjoy the process video from my 2022 piece, and if you missed my post from 2020, here’s a look back at a past submission to the competition: http://www.sarahmandell.com/blog/flat-out-under-pressure-competition

In Love with a Palette Knife

Have you ever felt like you need to loosen up? I’ve been chasing precision with my recent needle felted and mixed media landscapes, and felt like it was time to shake things out a bit. I switched gears for a few glorious weeks and had a love affair with my neglected palette knife. I don’t know that I’ve ever actually tried to move paint around this way before but man, it’s so satisfying!

New Palette Knife Landscape Paintings

First, I played around with some abstracted landscapes, mostly minis, just to see what I could come up with and how it felt to not have full control over what the paint was doing on my panels. Keeping the subject matter safe, I did some mountains, fields, and lake scenes and called it a day. It was fun, but it wasn’t quite scratching the itch.

Statement Necklace

Next I moved onto jewelry, revisiting my Studio Graffiti Collection which in the past has always been on clear acrylic, which I paint with random brush strokes from the backside. Changing things up, I used the palette knife and some heavy matte medium to thicken up my paint, and went to town scraping and sliding pigment all over my thin boards. Pleased with the first few test pieces, I got a little carried away and turn this experiment into a whole series, and I don’t regret a thing!

Painted Pendant

Enjoy the new mini paintings and on-of-a-kind jewelry just added to the website. All pieces are painted with my trust palette knife, with acrylic paint on wood, and are one-of-a-kinds.

Painted Earrings

Paint Rings

Beachscapes: A New Collection

Inspired by a recent trip to back to my home state of Maryland, this new series of small works features needle felted beachscapes. All fairly small in size, some feature nothing but the natural beauty of the Atlantic while others incorporate iconic man-made elements like piers and boardwalk rides.

Each landscape painting is created with dyed wool fiber, needle felted onto wool fabric, framed in a routed oval or circle frame. The pieces range in size from 2x3 to 7” diameter so it’s easy to squeeze them into your gallery wall collection.

I hope you enjoy this mini collection and get some time in the sand this summer!

Water Towers & Waterfalls

Water Tower Sampler

Coming May 1, 2022, a 2-part series featuring water towers and waterfalls, all needle felted in wool fiber. Although many of the scenes are from my home city of Greenville, SC, several pieces are inspired by other southern mill towns elsewhere and water falls a bit further north. The rushing water is the whole reason these towns exist; it's what brought the industry and the people here. The waterfalls remain constant, slowing during the dry season and raging after the rains, while the water towers rust in place, a reminder of what used to be.

This series has been on my brain for some time - I’ve certainly needle felted both waterfalls and water towers many times over the years, but both always present a challenge when needle felting. Water falls are almost too simple, and it’s almost too easy to mess them up by adding too much wool fiber or overworking the thin layers of wool representing the veil of water. Water towers on the other hand are extremely complicated. The thin lines of the structure are asking a lot of those wool fibers, plus there’s a lot shading required in order to make the tower appear cylindrical, which is tricky to do in this medium.

Liberty Bridge at Falls Park

Waterfall #4

Water Tower #9 & #10

Are your walls full, or you’re not ready to commit to a piece of art for your home? I’ve got you covered! Both the water tower and waterfall theme carry over into my hand painted jewelry line. The water tower silhouette is available in my running line in your choice of background color, but the new waterfall landscape pendants are new and extremely limited edition. Only a dozen of these beauties are up for grabs!

Painted Waterfall Landscape Pendant

Water Tower Pendants

All pieces will be available at www.onceagainsam.com starting May 1 and I hope you enjoy this sneak peek of the new collection! Newsletter subscribers will get first dibs on the new collection (plus a coupon) so if you’d like to get added to the list, I’d love to keep in touch: http://www.sarahmandell.com/newsletter

The Emerald Isle Collection

Last year, on a whim, I created a small series of needle felted landscapes inspired by Ireland. Pleasantly surprised when they all sold within 48 hours, I decided to revisit this idea the following year. I’ve been looking forward to it for months, researching landmarks and scenes that would inspired the Emerald Isle Collection’s second iteration.

This year, 7 wool landscapes, all fairly small scale and under $200, will be available starting March 1, 2022. Some rolling green hills, cottages and livestock make an appearance, plus some favorite landmarks such as the Cliffs of Moher, Bunratty Castle, and Dunguaire Castle are featured as well.

It’s been almost 30 years since I’ve set foot in Ireland, but I still remember being inspired by the beautiful scenery, especially the green countryside and majestic ruins. I hope to get back there someday and find new inspiration!

Enjoy this special preview of my newest series and shop the collection at www.onceagainsam.com