I guess it was a good thing I didn't take the picture of my painting yet.

Mr. Phegan had me redo almost the entire painting. If it wasn't so close to being due he might have asked me to redo everything. That's OK though. I understand. I was treating it like a watercolor with thin washes instead of thick oil paints. I guess when I do the next painting, I will have to be more careful about that. Cheers to those of you reading my blog.
Angela

Busy at school

Well, its that time again. Both Headstart and Northern have started and I am insanely busy. Funny that once I get busy I would think it was time to get back to my blog. I did my first oil painting for class. Unfortunately, I haven't taken a picture of it yet so you will have to wait and see it. In the meantime I am going to post a part of my English assignment. I am really happy with it. I had forgotten how much I love writing.

My gaze scans the image in the mirror and settles on my lips. They gently shift in color from the pale skin surrounding their wild rose petal hue. They move freely in an intricate pattern of vowels. They spill my secrets and random thoughts in a waterfall of whispered words. “I can’t do it.” “I’m a failure.” “Is that a piece of broccoli from lunch?” Seventeen years of tightly grasping hand rolled cigarettes have permanently creased their tender pink surface in horizontal bands. I can still taste the sweet yet pungent flavor of that last long exhale. I breathe in deeply, feeling the cool air rush against my moistened inner lip. I cannot smell the lingering aroma of ashtray remnants, but I know its there.

Brandy and Rich's wedding pictures are finally finished and uploaded.

I'm afraid I haven't posted in a while. I've been watching kids for the family and working on my sisters wedding photographs and album. It is finally finished and I can get back to working on my art (as well as the housework and bills.) If you would like to see the final photographs, let me know and I can email you a link. If I don't have your email address make sure to include it when you contact me.
Cheers! Angela

Technical issues should be resolved.

I switched to another web provider with good ratings so my website issues should be resolved. It is crazy fast! That will be nice, plus it really is ad free.

Don't forget to check out my Yooper comic book in the gallery under Other. Just click on the cover and it will take you into the comic book.

I probably won't post again for a while. I will have to buckle down and finish editing Brandy's wedding photographs.

Website issues

Hello all,
I am still having website issues. I did post in the forums so I could go back to ad free web pages, however, now I am unable to get into my website again. I'm also unable to get to the web hosters website. I apologize for the inconvenience. If you have trouble accessing my website in the future please email me. I may have to switch to a different web host regardless of the ads. Oh well.

Web page issues

When I was trying to access my webpage the day before yesterday, nothing would load. It didn't matter whether I entered my domain name or my direct web address. Once I finally got to my web page today, it had advertisements on it. Apparently the company I was using is now requiring 50 posts a month in their forum in order to keep it advertisement free. That is too much hassle for me. Fortunately I had already signed up for Websamba when I was having trouble uploading the site. I will just have to upload to the new web host. In the meantime, I apologize for the advertisements.

Brandy's wedding

Well I just got back from Brandy's reception. Everything went well although it was event full for me as the photographer. First I dropped my camera and all my lenses on a tile floor. Then one of my camera batteries decided to take a dump in the middle of the wedding even though it was freshly charged. Then I forget to put my extra memory stick in my pocket so I had to run to my gear bag right when they were heading down the aisle after the ceremony. Then my spare AA batteries for my flash were dead fresh out of the package. Then I lost the memory stick with all of the wedding photos and had a mild panic attack.

But! Everything turned out alright. My half gone batteries managed to hold out until the end of the reception as long as I waited a minute for the flash to charge. I did find the memory stick in my car. My second battery for the camera worked lasted until the end of the night. None of my gear broke while crashing to the floor and I am very happy with some of the photographs I got.

All in all it was a good night. The bride and groom were happy. The wedding was beautiful as well as the bride. The reception fun and relaxed. And on top of it all I got to sing Karaoke after the reception.

I am including one UNEDITED photograph to the post just to show how beautiful the wedding was. The lighting stayed great just long enough for me to get a few photographs with the church wall as a ground.

It will probably take me a while to edit them as I will be watching my 3 year old nephew for a while, and then my brother.

Congratulations Brandy and Rich!!!

The power of positive thinking.

I know that when I am happy my life is better. It has been shown to me over and over again. Lately the blessings have been over flowing so I wanted to share. I won $20 on a scratch ticket. I won a $100 balance beam at a Teacher's Conference I was attending. David lost his job and is now in the process of getting a better one. The art supplies I ordered were being held for one back ordered item. ASWexpress.com accidentally cancelled the backordered item so I ended up getting my items early and they reordered the other item with no addition shipping costs. I received an expensive set of brushes that were faulty (the handles were loose and the bristles fall out.) Jerry's Artarama is not only replacing the brush set but they are also sending my the #10 round I wanted for free. This is all within the last 2 or 3 weeks.

Could life get any better? I don't know how.

Hooray!! My website is FINALLY up and running

I really thought that if I got a web building program it would be easier than having to relearn html. I was sooooo wrong. Although I was able to do some fancier things when it was on my computer, none of them are working now that it is on the web. Oh well. It still looks nice and now that I have it set up it will be very easy (hahaha... wishful thinking) to maintain with the program. There are still a few things not working the way I had hoped but it is online and working in every other way. Hope you enjoy. You can get there at this link or with the Home button on my side bar.

www.amcarter.com

My first draft for the Red Vines Scholarship contest

Well, I finally got motivated and started working on my Red Vines submission. So far I like it. The original plan was to have an older sister giving a licorice to her younger brother. It would have been cute but then I decided a mom would be more touching. I started with a sketch to get proportions right and such. Then I started the inking. I got my brush settings from another blogger who does all Manga style artwork. www.frenden.com His work is a little gory for my taste but his line work is excellent. I am not happy with the boys hair and the poses look a little off, but other than that I like it.

All that I have left is darkening some of the areas, cleaning up the lines a little and possibly putting the Red Vines log on the kids T-shirt.

Team2Powersports.com logo contest

I finally received an email from Team2Powersports.com about my submission into there logo contest. I had to go to there website and write to the customer service instead of the person who had started the contest. This is what they had to say.

Angela,

Brandon (my original contest contact) has moved to another division within our company a few months ago.
As far as the logo contest, I know they are currently seeking professional
firms. That isn't to say they aren't still considering submissions.

Michael

How frustrating. They aren't going to honor their contest because why?? Where did Brandon move too? It's really too bad. I wanted to give David the $300 gift certificate for our anniversary. I will have to find something else now. I did write them back however, and let them know how disappointing it is that they are not planning to honor a contest they created. I also resubmitted my logo just in case. I guess there is still some small part of me hoping they'll say, "Wait a minute. We didn't see this entry, She's amazing. We must give her $300."

My first real digital painting

For those of you who don't already know, I am working on building a portfolio this summer. It will help me get scholarships next year as well as some small assignments. I was working on watercolors for a while but now I am shifting to digital. Although I have done some other digital work, it was usually doodles or copies of artists I liked. Imitation is the best way to learn (I've been told.) Today I finished my first full fledged digital painting. It is a landscape from No Nah Ma (Pronounced No Name Ah.) I hope you enjoy. I plan to add more very soon.

Phew, that was easy!

I have been putting off starting this blog for I don't know how long. I truly thought I was going to have to recall all that HTML code I learned forever ago. Fortunately Blogger.com made it super easy. Yay! No HTML! I hope you enjoy my blog. If so, let me know.

Angela