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

Wonders of Wool Exhibition

I’m thrilled to team up with fellow fiber artist Cecilia Ho for a joint exhibition at the Metropolitan Arts Council gallery now through February 18th. Cecilia and I are both self-taught and although we work in the same medium and have a few techniques in common, our work is very different. I love how the exact same materials can yield totally different results!

The opening reception is Friday January 21st from 6:30-9 at the gallery (16 Augusta Street, Greenville, SC). All are welcome! There will be food, wine and other refreshments, and Cecilia and I would love to meet you and share our work with you.

About the show:

Wool is all around us. It’s in our closets, our blankets, our shoe insoles, and even the insulation in our homes. This incredible natural material has been used for centuries for a wide range of practical solutions, but in this joint exhibition Cecilia Ho and Sarah Mandell explore the material purely for its beauty. With 25 years of combined fiber art experience, Ho and Mandell use needle felting, wet felting, nuno felting with silk fabric, rug hooking and punch needle techniques to create 2D and 3D work inspired by all aspects of nature.

Enjoy this sneak peek virtual tour of the gallery!

For more information about the gallery, or to purchase work, please contact Metropolitan Arts Council: https://www.greenvillearts.com/