Sarah Blumenschein
Sarah Blumenschein makes her home in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with her family. Many are surprised to find out that even though creating art was her first passion and first choice of a degree, she ended up earning a Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial Engineering. As a result, she spent 14 years working in industry as an engineer before “retiring” to raise children and start working on her art again using pastels as a medium.
Initially, Sarah thought she wanted to paint landscapes, but eventually found herself more interested and excited about painting still-life due to the variety of colors, shapes, textures, and reflective surfaces possible. She enjoys painting both and often experiments with mixing a still-life with a landscape.
The pastel medium is appealing to Sarah because of the immediacy of the color, and the ability to build layers of colors. Her selection of subjects is often based on a desire to find and replicate the way light bounces around a scene or setup. For that reason, glass, china, and other reflective surfaces are often featured in her still life paintings. Flowers are also a favorite subject, whether as part of a still life or as found in nature. Sarah enjoys the challenge of capturing a strong sense of light and creating the illusion of 3 dimensions on a 2 dimensional surface.
Sarah entered her first Art exhibition in 2003 and was honored to be awarded 2nd place. Since that time she has won many local, national and international art competitions, including 1st place in the Still Life Category of The Artist Magazine 2009 Annual Art competition, The Grand Prize in the Pastel Journal’s 2010 Pastel 100 annual competition, “Best of Show” in the 2014 New Mexico Masterworks competition and the 2015 Pastel Society of New Mexico National Exhibition, “The Pat and Bob Suggs Award for Still Life and Floral” in the 2021 Pastel Society of America “Enduring Brilliance” Exhibition, and 1st Place in the Open Division of the 2021 International Association of Pastel Societies Web Show. In addition to awards, Sarah has also earned Signature status in the Pastel Society of America, Distinguished Pastelist status in the Pastel Society of New Mexico and Pastel Society of the West Coast, and Master Circle Status in the International Association of Pastel Societies. Her artwork has also been featured in magazine articles in both the Artist’s Magazine and the Pastel Journal.
With each painting, Sarah hopes to inspire an emotional reaction in the viewer of joy or happiness.
“I found I could say things with colors and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way – things I had no word for.” – Georgia O’Keefe
13631 Apache Plume Pl NE
Albuquerque, NM 87111
