30Mar / 2014

The Monochromes

I’m not sure if you’re allowed to have your favorite color be gold, but if you are, mine is. In tribute, and because I realized that over the years I’ve collected quite a few papers in the gold family, and potentially also because it won’t stop being cloudy here which makes everything kind of muted anyway, I decided to spend some time working with just those. I don’t think I’m totally over it yet, but here are the four completed:

The Nude
The sepia/beige color palate on this one gives her an innocence and coyness that definitely wasn’t in the original photo, where the model was wearing shiny purple panties.

Yoga in Gold
I love yoga poses because they’re so beautiful all on their own. With this one, I tried to use the gold reeds of her skin to symbolize the strength and energy flow through her body.

Babe in Boots
There’s a lot of gold in this one, even flecks in her skin, which I’m not sure we’re picked up by my amazing camera phone, but the boots steal the show – as they should.

The Mermaid
Mermaids are such ethereal creatures, and so doing her all in gold seemed especially fitting, and a nice contrast with the sea blue and green of the matting and frame.

Also! I have finally started an Etsy store!! So if you’re interested in any of these pieces, or to see what else I have available, visit art by raealize on etsy!

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23Mar / 2014

Friends in Blue

This piece was modeled after a photo taken on the day that two best friends met for the first time. One of the friends asked me to make this piece as a birthday present for the other in commemoration of that day and the lovely friendship that has grown from it.

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16Mar / 2014

Birthday Cards for Mom

For my mom’s birthday this year, I decided to make her a set of note cards. I knew she liked cherry blossoms, and I found this gorgeous handmade paper that was full of them! I used two different colors of paper, originally thinking I would use them both on one card, but it turned out they looked better by themselves – less crowded. And I decided to use two colors of cards, just for variety and because I thought they looked beautiful together as a set.

I also used some of the paper to decorate the envelopes, because I’ve had note cards before that have that detail, and I think it really adds.

The cards got more ridiculous as I went. First I was just letting the flowers leak onto the back

and then I started letting them leak into the inside as well

She liked them, so that’s good!!

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09Mar / 2014

Light and Shadow

This one was new for me, for a number of reasons. One being the treatment of positive and negative space: instead of Person being positive and everything else being negative, this was light and shadow. It meant dealing more with features and details than I’m used to, and I ended up with two complete images, which furthers the whole positive/negative space thing.

Also, I have got to resist the urge to work so small!! These images are ~4×6, which meant that some of the pieces were the size of dust (literally: at one point I thought a piece of dust was one of my pieces) – ridiculous.

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16Feb / 2014

The Lakes Project

My best friend from childhood asked me to help make the table markers for her Minnesota wedding, and she said that she wanted each table to be a different Minnesota lake. I decided to pick all our favorite lakes from growing up, and then a few others with either fun names or fun shapes or both! I used a different blue scrapbooking paper for each lake, and made a border for them all with the same sandy orange (the wedding colors were blue and orange, so it worked out!) I made the lakes 2-sided so that they could stand up, which means that from one side you’re looking at the lake from underneath, which I think is fine. I made corresponding name cards for each of the lakes using the orange as the center, and the blue for the border, which was cool because then people could find their lakes just based on the pattern, and because the backs of some of the blue papers were really awesome and this way people got to see them!

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09Feb / 2014

Secret Valentine’s Day

I organized a Secret Valentine exchange for my work and we were only allowed to spend $5, and homemade gifts are always appreciated, so I decided to make the card (I also got my valentine a small plant). I made a heart out of like 20 different papers and then collaged them together on the front of a blank card. Happy almost Valentine’s Day!

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12Jan / 2014

Girl with a Gun

A friend told me he liked my art, but that he thought it would really only appeal to chicks (which wasn’t the first time I’d heard that). He said if I wanted to make something for dudes it would have to be a girl holding a gun or something. Done.

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05Jan / 2014

Thank You Cards

With all my time staying home recovering from surgery and unable to do much, I decided to make thank you cards for all my amazing friends who took care of me and kept me company. These are all cutouts from scrapbooking paper.

These ones were cutouts of images from the different papers

These were all doodles of mine that I traced and cut out

This one was taken from magazine picture, I think it was a nail polish ad or something

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29Dec / 2013

Dear Surgeon

I tore my ACL playing soccer and was a little terrified about surgery. I decided to make a card for my surgeon with a guilt-trippy message about “thank you in advance for making me able to run again” and “I’m so grateful to be in the hands of such a respected surgeon” or whatever, and I put an image of a girl running on the front. The hardest part of this was making so small an image, but it worked out. And he did a good job!

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19Dec / 2013

Secret Snowflake Exchange

Every year I organize a Secret Snowflake exchange for my coworkers, and for this one, instead of just writing the names on pieces of paper, I decided to make actual snowflakes out of different papers and write people names on the back of them and have people choose those. Happy Holidays!!!

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Art by Raealize

Tag Archives: paper art

The Monochromes

Friends in Blue

Birthday Cards for Mom

Light and Shadow

The Lakes Project

Secret Valentine’s Day

Girl with a Gun

Thank You Cards

Dear Surgeon

Secret Snowflake Exchange

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