Meet Sarah Ploeg

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Sarah Ploeg. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Sarah , so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?

How did I find my purpose? I don’t think I found it. I think it was in me all along, a part of me from the moment I became a sentient person. I honestly can’t remember ever not wanting to be an artist. One of my earliest memories is sitting at the coloring table in the church nursery and one of the ladies asking me what I wanted to be when I grew up. It was an innocent question an adult asks a kid but in my little mind, already in love with paper and crayons and pencils, I knew that I wanted to be an artist. That I already was an artist. Nothing else stuck with me quite as much as the creative arts, not soccer or ballet, singing or clarinet. Being an artist has been the singular constant thing about me for my whole life, the one passion that has never, ever left me even if I tried to abandon it.

I lived in the country growing up. We didn’t have cable or internet but we had PBS. I remember the first time I was home sick from school and Bob Ross – The Joy of Painting came on the tv after the usual cartoons. I was entranced. He made painting look so easy and I fell in love with the landscapes he so easily created with his brushes.

Art has always felt like it was in my bones. Like I was created to create. I was fascinated by the idea that I could take the image in my mind and create something beautiful. I became obsessed with drawing and took a sketchbook and a literal gallon zippy bag of colored pencils with me wherever I went for years. I was that weird kid with her head down always sketching something.

In freshman and sophomore year I took the first three art classes my high school offered. I loved how these classes challenged me and opened up my eyes to the many different mediums you could use to create. Before high school, my main medium was graphite pencil and I loved drawing people. These classes were the first time I was really taught how to paint, do calligraphy and so much more.

I truly believed for a while that being an artist wasn’t really a viable career option. I was convinced of this by some of the adults in my life. I went to a culinary program my junior and senior years and almost applied to a culinary college. Despite that, I could still feel in my gut that I was an artist and I needed to follow that. I was convinced, this time, that graphic design was the only way I could possibly be successful as an artist. I studied for and earned my graphic design degree from Independence University. Unfortunately, designing logos and brochures was not my calling.

For a handful of years, I jumped from job to job, working factories, cooking positions, and customer service, getting increasingly burnt out from the day to day labour. In my off hours, I would paint landscapes and animal portraits for fun. I had a handful of people commission small pieces from me but not enough to pay the bills. I finally hit my limit in 2020 and went into full on mental health burnout after I was laid off from my job as a receptionist at a chiropractic clinic. For the next three years, I spent my time working on my health and getting back to what I truly loved in the beginning, which was to create. I ran a small crochet business for a year and a half, using my graphic design skills and my crochet knowledge to create a line of ice cream inspired teddy bears I lovingly called Polar Plushies. I unfortunately had to close down my crochet business due to the stress crochet was putting on my joints in my hands and arms.

Since shutting down the crochet business, I have gotten back to painting. I painted five commissioned portraits in November and December of 2023. I got a taste of what it could be like to be a full time painter and I was absolutely hooked. In February 2024, I decided this was my year to finally follow the passion I have always had and paint. I started fresh social media pages and started painting and posting regularly and it is the most fulfilled I have felt in a long time.

At the end of the day, my purpose has always been with me, I just didn’t always follow it. I was making excuses for myself why I just couldn’t do it and it would never work out. When I finally decided to stop listening to the intrusive thoughts and got past the imposter syndrome, I was finally able to embrace what I truly love to do and be confident enough to show it to the world. So why did I want to be an artist? I don’t know for sure, I do know that I am still discovering the answer to that question. I create because I love to create. I love the joy it brings to those who own a piece of my art. I love the joy it brings me when I create. What is there not to love?

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

Over the years, I have dabbled in acrylics, graphite, ink, watercolor and so many other mediums but the one I always find myself coming back to is painting with acrylics. I have never had much money to spend on expensive art supplies so I taught myself how to paint with the cheapest bottled craft acrylics you can find. My most developed style I paint in is realism. I have been aspiring to be a photo-realist for many years and I have gotten pretty close with some of my most recent works. I also really enjoy adding a little bit of whimsy to some of my works bringing the style a little closer to fantasy realism. It’s a lot of fun to build a whole world from my imagination. My work is heavily influenced by the style of Bob Ross as he was a huge part of my artistic upbringing.

Since November 2023, I have completed a memorial portrait, two wedding portraits, two hockey portraits, two memorial pet portraits, a winter landscape, and a handful of other small paintings. Since completing those commissions, I have gotten back to an old work in progress that I started in 2022 and put away for two years while I was running my crochet business. This is currently the largest and most challenging painting I have ever taken on. The canvas being 24in x 36in, and a fantasy realism painting, I have already put in dozens of hours into it and it’s around two-thirds complete. This is the most exciting painting I have done as I am not using a singular reference image to create the painting but rather using many references compiled together to create one cohesive scene. I love the freedom I have found with this work as I have the power to put a tree here, a bush there, a turtle on that log and it doesn’t require the usual perfection that I find myself going after in my other more realistic works. I have also had so much fun documenting the progress online and hanging out Live on tiktok painting while hanging out talking with friends and followers.

If you would like to check out the progress I am making on this painting or see my previous works, you can see them on my tiktok page @sarah.ploeg.paints where I post updates and paint on Live. You can also see a portfolio of my works on Instagram @sarah_ploeg

I currently do not have any pieces that are for sale as is, however I do work on commission and if you would like a painting in my style, you can check out my Ko-fi where I have varying sizes of commission options or contact me through my Instagram listed above. I paint landscapes, animals, and portraits!

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

I have always believed that anyone can be an artist if they wanted to be and I just happened to want to be one. That notwithstanding, there is a lot that goes into being an artist and I have worked very hard over the years to develop the skills and find the knowledge to become the artist that I am today. Many people have told me over the years “You have an amazing talent,” and to that I would like to repeat a quote from another fellow artist that states “The only natural talent an artist has is the desire to create”. I was not born with the ability to paint but rather with the desire to capture the world with the unique perspective I have as an individual. I feel like I was put on this earth to document life and human experiences and show other people that beauty in the world through the medium of paint on canvas. It has taken many years of trial and error, learning from mistakes and trying over and over again until the results matched the pictures in my mind.

I think one of the skills that is the most important for any artist is persistence. It sounds absolutely silly, but it is really as simple as try, try again. If you want to grow any skill from the ground up, you just have to keep trying. You will have many failures but you have to fail at things to learn from those mistakes. There is no forward movement without movement. If I had given up every time I failed at drawing a new thing growing up, I would never have gotten to the skill level I have today.

Another quality that is important for an artist is resilience. The art world is a competitive place, where no one really agrees what “art” is and people have big opinions, One thing that I have learned over the years, is that you are going to run into people who hate your work, who think you don’t have what it takes and who will try to make you feel small and incapable. What I’ve taken from those experience is to let them have their opinions and keep on creating. Constructive criticism is one thing, accept that gratefully; but when people are just going out of their way to be mean, it’s likely that they have some hang-ups of their own. Don’t let the feelings of others get in the way of creating how you want to create. Let it all roll off your back.

In terms of actual artistic skills, I think color theory and light are two of the most important aspects you can learn if you want to be a skilled realism painter. If you can understand how color and light work in conjunction, you can have a greater understanding of how to make the subject look like your reference images. There is a lot that goes into color theory and I could probably write you a whole thesis on it these days but I’ll spare you that particular info dump. If that is of interest to you, there are many amazing resources out there to learn about light and color theory. I would recommend checking out @color.nerd on Tiktok.

Lastly, I would say to anyone who is an aspiring artist: just create. Try everything that interests you, don’t niche down if you don’t want to and find the activity that brings you the most joy. You don’t have to sell a single thing to be a “Real” artist. All you have to do is create!

Alright so to wrap up, who deserves credit for helping you overcome challenges or build some of the essential skills you’ve needed?

Throughout my life, there have been many people who have helped form the person and artist I am today. The first being my mother. My mom, Teresa, has always been the number one fan of my art. And yes, she might be a little biased as she is my mother, but she always encouraged the creative arts, be it crochet, cartooning, embroidery or painting. As someone who is artistically inclined herself, she made a point to push each of her children to find a craft we each enjoyed doing. When I was a small child, we were a part of a 4H group who painted ceramics to be judged for the fair. My mom encouraged me to participate in all the art competitions in town for my age group. I put my art into the library art fair every year they hosted it. She instilled in me the persistence to keep creating no matter how many times I failed or messed up. She taught me that it isn’t the winning blue ribbon that matters, but the creation process that brings the most joy.

The other person who has had a huge impact on my life, albeit for a much shorter period of my life, is my husband, Jacob. We have been together for seven years this year and his unwavering support for my passions has been invaluable. The last four years since we got married have not been easy for us with the pandemic, my losing my job and becoming chronically ill, and our many financial burdens. Through it all, he has never once stopped supporting my artistic journey. With him by my side, we have been able to overcome many obstacles in our way and he has helped me to keep developing my skills and learning more. Jacob has challenged me by giving me a push now and then when I have grown stagnant.

Though I still have much to learn, and have many challenges ahead of me, I am grateful for these people in my life who believe in me as much as I believe in myself. If it weren’t for the unwavering support of the people who love me, I don’t think I would be here today.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @sarah_ploeg
• Youtube: @SarahPloegPaints
• Other: Tiktok: @sarah.ploeg.paints

Image Credits

Sarah Ploeg