Category: Angelic Visions

Interview at EMG Magazine

There’s a pretty extensive interview with me over at EMG Magazine right now. You should go check it out!

Angela Sasser is a very talented artist. This innate talent is not all; she is a very hard worker and has studied the business of being an artist. These qualities make her unique, since it is not very easy to find a fantasy artist that has such an extensive academic background as Angela’s. To top it all, she is incredibly friendly! Please, join me in this interview to know more about this wonderful person!

Angela, you have had a very intense and interesting education regarding art. Can you please tell our readers about it? How has it helped you so far as an artist?

Where to begin? I spent a long time trying to decide what I wanted to do with myself when I was younger. I always knew that I wanted to be involved in illustration and storytelling, but as a young dreamer, I was discouraged from pursuing it as a profession because it was seen as a fools errand and a profession that wouldnt allow me to put food on the table…

(Read on at EMG Magazine’s Artist Spotlight)

Upcoming Appearance: Artworks on the Square

Just a quick reminder that Artworks on the Square here in Fayetteville, GA, will be hosting several events for my book this month!  There’s the solo exhibition reception this Friday, a book signing party next weekend, and a color pencil demonstration the weekend after that.  You can read more details on these events here.

In more book news, all of the pre-orders, minus a few that need sketches, have been mailed out!  The book itself is now in stores (Barnes & Nobles, Amazon, Borders, etc.) so keep an eye out! (Though if you order from me, your book would come with a shiny print and autograph!). 

My recorded video demo on painting watercolor skintones is also available on artistsnetwork.tv and is a nice complement to the book’s demos.  At only $16.99, it’s pretty affordable and even cheaper if you’re a subscriber over there!

Things are coming together quite nicely at the start of this new year! Now I better dash off and get things ready for this Friday! I’m so excited to meet some of my local artists.

Hope to see you then!

Angelic Visions – Book Trailer Release!

In today’s competitive market, it seems one just can’t sit on a corner going ‘Hey YOU, buy my stuff!”. No sir-ree.  Nowadays, it’s all about instant gratification, shortening attention spans, and pretty pictures!

Well I’m here to provide you all of that! May I present to you the book trailer for Angelic Visions! (After this, it’ll just be boring ‘this is how I made it’ stuff, so go watch, WATCH IT NOW!) Marketing experts say I have to have one and I’m inclined to agree!

 
It feels good to arrive at this point, as if all my hard work in promoting the book has culminated in this shiny musical moving box.  Gone are the days when we would have relied on the power of printed adverts and mailings to get the most word-of-mouth going for our products!  Now it’s all YouTube and FB and their wildly viral power over the populace!  Or at least, this is what I’m expecting after this video (I shall be watching the trickle-down effect of this video like a hawk!)
I’ve gotta say that making my own trailer took less time than I thought (not counting the time I spent pondering on what elements make a good book trailer and watching over a dozen to get an idea of what I wanted to do).

And here is random list of things I learned while working on this project!:

  • Do not use famous celebrities because that just screams “I got this from Google images”
  • Do not go longer than 2 minutes or your audience will get bored (unless you have a very good reason to go on because it’s just SO riveting!)
  •  There are barely any book trailers out there for art instruction books (minus books on quilting. There are SO many book trailers that have to do with quilting, oddly.) This means WE NEED TO MAKE MORE!  Fill that niche!  Interactive illustration is definitely catching on these days.
  • A professionally shot book trailer (with actors, music, etc.) apparently goes for $20k!  Maybe once I’m a hit, I’ll consider this full package service…maybe.
As for my own trailer’s creative development, I spent about a day pondering on how best to put words to images, what images to use, and what music would go best, which culminated in the creation of this super high tech storyboard scribbled in my art pad!
I SWEAR this wasn’t written by a chicken.
Translation – the stick figures are hints of which art I thought might work best with the arrows representing which way I wanted the camera to pan across the art.  In the making, the trailer didn’t really deviate from what I had here. Short, sweet, and to the point!

Picking the music was the easy part. I knew I wanted something unobtrusive that didn’t compete with the artwork, but still interesting enough to hold a viewer’s attention.  I also knew I wanted something in the vein of Gregorian Chant, which fits angelic themes so perfectly! Luckily, I had just the song in mind from my previous dabblings in video editing, where I stumbled upon the royalty free music site of Kevin MacLeod!  He offers his music free of charge in exchange for publicity and an optional donation.

After that, it really was a matter of looking at online tutorials on my video editing software (a program called PowerDirector which came with my camcorder) and playing around with it till it looked right.  I’d already fashioned a video earlier (Song of Exile Walkthrough) to help get my feet wet with learning the ropes.
And so, a trailer is born!  I may do a few more small video promos, but for now, this one is the Humdinger, the Mothership, my newborn Frankenstein!
I do hope you enjoy it and let me know what you think!

Upcoming Appearance: Atlanta Comic-Con

WHEN: Saturday and Sunday, Dec 4-5
WHERE: Cobb Galleria (more info)
Check this out! It’s my own spiffy vendor page!

This’ll be my first year as a vendor! I’ve always attended as the nervous geek hitting up people like Joe and Dave and gushing about how much I love their work. It’s a joy to think that this year I’ll be on the other side of the table!
I’ll be bringing the usual – prints, art cards, mousepads, glass tile necklaces, and remaining leather mask/keychain inventory. If there are any specific things you’d like me to bring along for you, let me know!

In addition to my usual fair, I’ll also have an advanced copy of Angelic Visions there for folks to flip through and will be taking pre-orders personally!  If the mail gods are with me, I’ll also have some Angelic Visions Calendars on hand!

Hope to see you cool cats there!

Angelic Visions – Solo Exhibition + Book Signing + Demo

If you’ll be in my neck of the woods come January, I’ll be launching a barrage of Angelic Visions events starting the first Friday of January, ALL of which will be hosted at our local gallery, Artworks on the Square!  Read on for more and your chance at prizes and pretties.

Friday, January 7th, 2011, 7-9 pm – RECEPTION & SOLO EXHIBITION

Selected artwork from Angelic Visions will be on display for the entire month of January with a reception on the 7th. Wine tasting and live music provided!

Saturday, January 15th, 2011, 7-9 pm – BOOK SIGNING PARTY

Join us in celebration of the debut of Angelic Visions!  Door prizes will be handed out to the first lucky few with prize raffles going on throughout the event.  You could win a free copy of the book, the Angelic Visions themed calendar, and other such goodies!  Food and drink will be provided, of course! Can’t have a shindig without them!

Saturday, January 22nd, 2011, 12-2 pm – TECHNIQUE DEMO

Join me for a demo on how to render skin tones in color pencil and a rundown of the basic tools of the trade.  Appropriate for all skill levels. $25 per person. (No materials required as this is a demo/lecture sort of class).

Mark your calendars!  I’ll be sprinkling reminders as these dates approach. I hope to see some of you locals there!

Also, still taking Pre-Orders, for those who are interested in the special bundle direct from the artist.

Angelic Visions – Pre-Orders OPEN!

I’ve been dropping hints here and there on the nature of Angelic Visions, a project which I have been working on for nearly a year and a half to date!  I’m happy to announce Impact Books has begun its roll out of this upcoming title, featuring a write-up and a free watercolor demo from the book over at their blog!

I have the advanced copy here in my hands and can attest to you that it is just gorgeous!  Like all of Impact’s books, it is a lovely gloss covered paperback chock full of rich colorful images and tons of visual aids to help ease you into the process of painting your own gorgeous heavenly creatures.

Here are some sneak peeks to sate your palettes:

In addition to pre-ordering via North Light’s shop, this book is available directly from me at this link. I’m offering the option to buy the book bundled with an ink sketch on the inside cover, a calendar, or both!  All orders of this book bought directly from me will be packaged with a shiny metallic 8×10 in. print of the cover art “Angelic Vision” and will be autographed by the artist!  Don’t forget to include your 2 word prompt for your sketch when you checkout.  
Note that pre-order bundle quantities are limited!  Order soon to procure your special copy from me!
All pre-orders will ship some time after mid-December.  Those with the sketch option may require more time for processing since I am customizing those.

Angelic Visions Calendar

It’s an exciting time here at Angelic Shades!  It’s only a few months now till my debut book, Angelic Visions: Create Fantasy Art Angels With Watercolor, Ink and Colored Pencil, releases in January of this coming year.  As a debut author, it’s my first time planning the promotion of my work on such a large scale!  I’m currently planning so many fun things for the next few months, but it’s too early to spill the beans on them just yet!

For now, I’d like to introduce you to the first in what I hope to be an exciting series of promotions for my book – the Angelic Visions Calendar!  This spiral bound booklet collects 12 months worth of heavenly figures, many which have been heretofore unpublished.  I painted each image using a variety of methods which I explore in the upcoming book.

Be the first to get a sneak peek at new work in glorious detail!  When closed, the calendar is 8.5×11 inches and opens up to 11×17 inches when hung on the wall.  It is available for purchase at the following places:

And just to sweeten the pot, here are some glimpses at a few of the calendar’s interior pages.

So much more to come soon!  Spread the word! 🙂