15Jun / 2014

Girl in Shadows

Wow, I’m so glad I decided to keep going with this piece! And I am so excited to start playing with shadow and depth going forward.

The paper I used for the shadows – the gold horses on black – is one I got a while ago and have been waiting for the right moment to use. I wasn’t sure how it would work with the other golds in the piece, and you can see I ended up changing her hair color because the old hair blended in too well. But yeah, I’m super pleased with the result! I also think just the shadow part on it’s own is cool.

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01Jun / 2014

Girl in Green

Young Girl in Green has been one of my favorite paintings ever since I ended up with a fold-out poster of her from some French magazine when I was 11. A few years ago, my brother got me a 1000-piece puzzle of her that I spent the entire Sandy hurricane putting together. And recently I tried to reproduce her through my paper art.

I don’t know that this is a finished piece. I think I might want to go back in and add all the shadows – there’s so much depth that I’ve lost. But I do like her like this too, so we’ll see.

Also it’s quite a challenge for me to work from a painting – it feels similar somehow to the piece I did of my brother’s dog where I had to decide how to treat the shading – at what point does the gradient descend so far into black that I should no longer represent it with color? Anyway, this was a first attempt.

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20Apr / 2014

Piece of my Heart Project

I’ve been discovering the power art has to help process change. This project was about people with whom I went through a lot, and didn’t come out the other side, but who are still in my heart. I wanted to be able to let the heaviness of those past relationships go, and refocus my memories on when we were at our happiest.

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13Apr / 2014

ARTemis

My brother probably asked me for a portrait of his dog, Artemis, like a year ago, or even longer, and I just got it to him last week. It was an interesting project because dogs don’t wear clothes or have hair (or really they don’t have skin), and typically that’s what I use to differentiate between colors. So for this I did blackish for black, whitish for white, and then purple for highlights? (it made sense in my head)

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06Apr / 2014

Girl with the Red Flower Earring

This woman was made up so dramatically and severely, especially her hair, which was so different from the free-flowing curls I gravitate towards, but it was fun to try to capture. Also, in this case her lipstick seemed like an accessory, so I decided to reflect that. One challenge I ran into was her nose ring – it just didn’t read on the side, so I decided to make it a septum one. I’m not sure how well it reads like that either, but I didn’t want to do away with it all together.

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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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02Mar / 2014

Body vs. Clothes

Both of the original photos for these women had them in dark, drab colors, and I started thinking about the things we can change about ourselves, and the things we can’t. You can change your clothes and hair, but you can’t really change much about your skin, and it’s certainly a process if you want to change your aura.

For this girl, I decided to change all her clothes to be bright and colorful, but her skin I wanted to be duller and more pensive – filled with small sepia type like someone who is totally in her own head. I also used the stripes for her hair because even though I wanted it to be colorful, I still wanted it to be limp and stringy.

Also can I just say that I made 4 pairs of shoes for this girl before I found ones I liked? High maintenance and indecisive, just like I created her to be, haha. Also, if anyone knows of shoes like the bee ones in real life, please let me know!!

For this girl, I decided to keep the dark clothes, contrasted with her light hair and skin. But I felt a sense of calm and peace that I wanted to capture with her skin, and I also think it captures the tattoos. This is definitely more of a literal translation than I generally go for, but I kind of like it.

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26Jan / 2014

Models

Also while I was bored at home recovering, I made some portraits of models from magazine ads.

The gold hair girl is my favorite – crazy hair is always the most fun to make.

The one of the green girl I donated to my friend’s Marathon fundraiser and apparently it became a new New Yorker’s first piece of art for her new apartment!

(Gold Hair and Blue Mom are available if you’re interested)

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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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Art by Raealize

Tag Archives: wall art

Girl in Shadows

Girl in Green

Piece of my Heart Project

ARTemis

Girl with the Red Flower Earring

The Monochromes

Friends in Blue

Body vs. Clothes

Models

Girl with a Gun

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