Author: Sabrina Shong

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Stepping into the Acrylic world

AcrylicForestRain

Been a little quiet in posting lately, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been crazy busy. The last post was during the Winter Holidays, and that was also the one-year mark of trying to figure out what on earth was going on in my body that caused me to lose vision. After many tests, and changing several doctors, we finally have a diagnosis.

Ankylosing Spondylitis.

Or “Bamboo Spine”

Not exactly the best news, but it has given us a direction on medications to try out. When numbers jumped up around the holidays, I made the difficult choice to keep my immune-compromised son home from kindergarten until he was vaccinated. Trying to increase my work hours, covid, a 5 year old, and finding out my spine was trying to become a solid was a lot to handle. But it was also a time to be at home and learn something new, make something beautiful for my son to see.

I was gifted some canvas, and acrylic paints for Christmas! I was very excited, and yet nervous to start. I knew I would love them, but I also knew that it would be very, very expensive compared to watercolour painting. Kind of like how many artists keep piles of ‘good paper’ around because they don’t want to ‘waste it’ on learning. PIIIISH-SHAW! Get into all your supplies, and don’t hold back for a moment! Our learning journey is as messy as our lives, but that’s what makes it wonderful.

I still haven’t had a chance to take a real art class, one day I hope to. It would be great to learn about brushes, angles, and strokes from another human. I’m one of those, “I need to ask questions to learn things” kinda gal. Instead, I turned to what everyone does, the youtubes.
The first thing I learned (through trial by fire) was that watercolour supplies DO NOT always work with acrylics. The first few canvas creations were a dripping horrible Dr. Suess mess, but I did learn a lot! After that, I found a few artists that used household items to paint, and that really helped me.

AcrylicForestRain
My first acrylic piece, painted mostly with paper dabbing, qtips, and toothpicks
MapleLeafPuddle
Maple Leaf puddle
DandilionDreams
Dandelion Dreams

Now I feel more confident trying whatever works to get my art onto canvas. I started painting a ‘wet coast’ series. Living in Vancouver is beautiful! It rains a lot, but it’s why our forests are so vibrant and lush. In these paintings, I wanted to try and capture a beautiful moment.

Here I tried scraping off paint from the canvas with a pallet knife creating an almost ghostly image
A friend asked for a personal commissioned poster for his room. This is my first acrylic painting on acrylic paper.
I wanted to try something more whimsy, this entire painting was painted without a paintbrush
Finally I felt like I had enough experience to create this birch forest at dawn

I’m really loving acrylics, and I can’t wait to learn more!

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Loose Flowers

Winter seems to be having an off and on again relationship with the West Coast right now. Is it really over between us? Are we ready to move on? Just when we think it’s over, winter comes barreling back into the room yelling, “AND ANOTHER THING!”

I’m ready for spring! I’m ready for being outside again!
Have you heard of loose flowers before? Neither did I until I started researching! They are beautiful and simplistic. The MOST challenging part? The ‘proper’ way to paint these is to only use 1 or 2 brush strokes per petal. It is almost maddening to me to consider something is good enough with just one or 2 strokes! The perfectionist in me is incredibly conflicted. I want to make it perfect! To do it correctly, you can only do it once! Still, it has changed my perspective on painting yet again, and I have truly enjoyed learning about this style.

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Try All The Things!

InkedLionGreen

It’s a new year! Time to cast off the dreadful shackles of 2020 and try out new things. No one saw how big the events of last year were going to hit us. We’ve all had to make some pretty big changes and sacrifices. I know the turning of a calendar page won’t change the world, but it does bring hope, and sometimes that’s all you need to get through to the next calendar page.

Rightly Spoiled this holiday

I haven’t been able to work this school year, as we’re home keeping my son safe. This holiday was set up to become smaller and quieter. I was thinking of just postponing it completely as my little one is still young enough to not know when Christmas was. My cousin Sally nominated our family to the wonderful people at Vibrant Yogi, who teamed up with Living Water’s Church in Langley to gift us this generous pile of treasures. Kelsey made our Christmas, and I’m ever thankful for all the work and kindness people showed our family.

My little guy was gifted many transforming robots and superheroes! I was blessed with new art supplies and I just had to start trying all the new things. Obviously, someone must have been an artist looking for supplies because include were things I always wanted, but never got for myself! Brushes, tons of paper, tape, and new metallic paint!

My first piece using metallic gold to highlight the black ink



I delved into the land of ink! I became incredibly fixated with these 2 lions. The 1st in forest green, the 2nd in navy blue.

For 4 days straight, all I wanted to do was work on these pieces. It was very freeing to try something new and outside of my regular style of expression through watercolour. I’ve highly enjoyed it, and I see why Aaron Schallie enjoys the details that you can create. It was easy to get into a quiet zone during these dark chilly days and let the hours slip by into the ink and paper. I fairly excited to try many more new things and try out all the supplies! It almost feels like starting all over again.

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Holiday Cards!

The season of winter bliss is upon us! A lot of friends have been asking if I am going to create holiday cards. The tricky part is making them affordable to purchase multiples. I’m currently working on a possibility.

Winter holidays tend to carry so much meaning and emotion that I found this project daunting. What do people celebrate? How can I put that into paint? How do you capture the feelings that people have? Trying to paint for what someone else wants became baffling. and I had to stop. I had to just paint what I felt and hope people enjoyed it.
For me, the winter holidays are about family. Pretty vibrate colours among the white winter snow, and hope for the sun and light. And of course, a Peanuts Christmas. 🙂

I have found a lot of winter scenes quite challenging, as they are often bright from reflection and painting light continues to be a challenge for me. So far, these are my collection! Let me know what you think!

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What Is Remembered, Lives

Remembrance Day Field

Remembrance Day has always held a very special place in my heart. Our family is incredibly grateful for the ability to live in a country where we feel safe, women can go to school, and we know we can be taken care of if things become terrible. All of that, every right we live in was fought for, and defended.

Our resident blacksmith Russ completed his first Remembrance Day Poppies last week as well! Check out his work here! It’s absolutely beautiful.

  • Remembrance Day Field

This piece features 2 lonely graves under a strong, vibrant tree. On the right 2 soldiers continue their walk forward. Are they comrades? Are they the soldiers who now rest under that tree?
Mostly, I enjoy art that tells a story, and makes you feel something. If I’ve inspired an emotion with this piece then I hope it touches your heart.

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Spreading A little Hope

My little guy has many medical appointments, often they require going back to Children’s Hospital for them. Lotta tests, lotta weird hours, lotta thinking about the ‘what ifs’.

This past week we were pulling an all-day visit starting with sedated MRIs and blood work. Trying to keep a 3 year old steady enough to do an MRI is very difficult. He has had about 25 of these so far in his life. It used to be so much easier mentally when he was a baby and didn’t know what was going on. Now he’s reasonably afraid when he sees we’re going to the hospital. My little guy is a Champ. He’s afraid, but he keeps going because he’s a brave little guy.

After our first set of tests, we grabbed lunch and spent a little bit of time outdoors so he could run about for a bit. Currently, our air quality is ranked somewhere between Horrible and Mordor. Our playtime outdoors was short, and we went up to Oncology to wait. I took this opportunity to create a piece for the parent’s common room. While this part of the hospital is newer than where we lived, I wanted to brighten up the space that I know every parent wishes they didn’t need.

We got some great news from our Doctor. Kyler’s scans, tests, and blood all are looking stable, and we can now go from every 3 months, to every 6 months! This is wonderful news! I want to be excited for it, but at the same time, I know how fragile remission is. My son and I live for each moment, every silly giggle and song. You hold tight to Hope, because some days it’s all you have to hold on to. #SeptemberIsGoldForChildhoodCancerAwarness

This was the first time I’ve left a random piece of art for people to enjoy. If 2020 has shown us anything, it’s we need to spread joy and hope whenever and where ever we can. Expect more random art gifts!

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Hallow Birthday Card

It’s been a challenging week. Mental and medical health ups and downs. Even though I’ve been spending more time at home, I just couldn’t get into the right headspace to paint.

My sister helps me through a lot. She lives close by and I wanted to do something nice for her. She’s a big Disney Fan. Seasons pass, goes several times a year, (pre-covid) it’s her go to.

This year she wants to create a pumpkin version of Mickey to decorate her house.

She’s been pretty sad not being able to go to the, ‘Happiest Place On Earth’. I hope this makes her smile.

Happy Birthday Deanna!

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September Is Gold

For Childhood Cancer Awareness

Something dear to my heart is raising public awareness on the need for more funding towards Childhood Cancers. It’s an awkward subject, and if you’ve stayed to read this long, I hope you’ll enjoy my work.

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month https://www.kidscancercare.ab.ca/childhood-cancer/stats

Each year, an estimated 300,000 children and adolescents worldwide are diagnosed with cancer

One in every 5 children diagnosed do not survive cancer.

Sometimes Hope is all we have to hold on to, finding a cure gives everybody hope that one day they will get to go home

This piece I make for my son Kyler, and our oncology family. May they live a long healthy and beautiful life

May those we’ve lost be in our hearts forever. What is remembered lives.