100th Reader Giveaway!

I just realized my little journal here is about to hit its 100th reader!

Three years ago, I started this blog as a way to document my journey as an artist, offer advice, and as a way to inspire myself to always stay active and creative. Three years later, I’m still here toiling ever towards my goals. It began with a starstruck artist dreaming of how to channel all that potential bottled up inside. Not much has changed, besides adding ever more lenses of perspective to my career goals and seeing things that much clearer with each new bit of knowledge I pick up as I go along.
 
As for The Giveaway! Leave a comment on this entry telling me about what you have enjoyed about this blog, what you’d like to see more of, etc.  I will choose winners from among the commenters at random this Sunday, October 28th.  I will choose THREE winners who will get the following prizes!

– One person will get a free copy of my book with an ink sketch inside the front cover.

– Two others will get one free print of their choosing from my shop. It can be anything I have in stock in my shop that you see in the Fine Art Prints section or in my Clearance section, including specially matted prints.

– If the person I choose as the book winner has a book already, or does not want the book for some reason, I can do an ink sketch without the book, instead.

Thanks to all of you for sticking with me this long. I hope you have enjoyed your time here as much as I do on a weekly basis. Your words of inspiration mean the world to me just as I hope you will take some of the inspiration you find here when you leave. Stay creative!

4 comments

  1. Dear Angela,
    I have enjoyed learning what it takes to be a professional artist. From DragonCon set ups to switching areas of expertise. Having someone in the field actually explaining how to do things gives me hope that I could be a professional some day.

    I would like to see more about how to brand yourself. How to develop a portoflio website, blog, letter heads, and even watermarks. This idea of using your name or screen name as a brand has got me stumped. I don’t know where to begin!

    Best wishes in your future endeavors,
    Jennifer B. aka Nakase

    • Hi Jennifer! Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I will definitely keep some of your topics in mind for future posting.

      Branding is something I have particularly changed my thoughts on in recent times. The short version is that if I could do this all over again, I would simply use my real name and the word ‘art’ for branding, instead of Angelic Shades. I would do this because I have evolved into so many interests and art forms and they don’t necessarily follow that ‘angelic’ theme. I’ve really pigeon-holed myself with my studio name when I could have left it more generic so that I could brand facets of myself how I please.

      But not much to be done about it now that I have been using this name for years and have an angel book attached to my name and a website url. They’re my biggest items of market share, or brand recognition, and I would have a hard time changing now. I’ll definitely have to go into the pros and cons of this at length in a future entry.

      Thanks for commenting and good luck!

  2. Anonymous says:

    Hi Angela,

    I’ve also enjoyed the blog entries on the business side of being an artist. What I enjoy best, are the portfolio critiques because you use great humor and great humility to discuss your process and how you made your decisions with a particular piece from start to finish. Good luck with your new direction in character design.

    Anita Gleason

  3. Raven says:

    Dear Angela,

    Your book Angelic Visions is incredibly inspiring, and I especially love how you marry quotes by famous poets to your paintings. For example, I found the quote from John Donne’s “Air and Angels”to be deeply moving when paired with your watercolor “Valediction.” I do believe there are angels among us and it gives me strength to face the daily battle of life.

    I also feel connected to your Butterfly Guardian series, since I worked with the children I teach at school to build a butterfly garden at our local zoo. It was intriguing to see how you changed your guardian from your original conception and it illustrated how you’re still evolving as an artist.

    It was great to finally meet you at DragonCon. You are so talented, and the advice in your books has been very helpful to me (though I’ve barely gotten my feet wet yet). I can’t wait to see what you come up with next.

    Your fan,

    Raven

    ravenwood@live.com

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