Illustrating Success: Isabel Ricaurte’s Notable Projects and Clients

For artist Isabel Ricaurte, the chance to use her talents for others is a thrill she’ll never outgrow. Since graduating with a degree in Illustration from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 2020, Isabel has shared her art with others through various means.

Refining her style during school allowed Isabel to really focus on art that excites her. Describing her personal art style as a mix of anime with Western influences, her skills lend themselves to storyboards and illustrative media.

Among the projects she has taken on for clients have been original prints, stickers and black ink sketches for personalized portraits from her booth at the Spring Fling from Colored Colors (Nov 2021 and May 2022). Here, her use of vibrant colors and black ink lends itself to her charming drawings, perfectly capturing the personalities of her subjects. Her pet commissions show off her ability to capture animals in their element. Although these commissions and projects have been for various clients, Isabel has been able to connect with a broader audience through more notable clients.

Isabel’s love of storyboarding is shown beautifully in her work as a background illustrator for an animated YouTube series. Of particular note is the traffic scene. She captures the sense of dense traffic on busy streets with her signature style, embracing the anime influences of the series. Along with storyboarding, Isabel works on character designs for webcomics and book covers.

Storyboarding has given Isabel the chance to show off her playful drawings in a narrative that had been scripted by the company. They asked her to draw illustrations for different stories. One story shows the discovery of oil from a derrick. Another very playful story shows a young boy discovering that his hamsters have escaped their cage and made off with a toy car. There is a pursuit, cars speeding along, and then the surprise of seeing her hamsters behind the wheel of that toy. The critters find themselves speeding down the road, making their great escape until they eventually face down a large semi in their tiny toy car. The fun resolution shows the toy car easily driving under the semi to the freedom of the open road. Isabel could transform their script into a visual story well executed.

Her most recent works have been a daily drawing challenge. A particular favorite of mine is the young lady sitting among pumpkins. The drawing was sold at “Colored Colors” event. Isabel regularly shares these pieces on Instagram regularly, building her fan base with each post.

Perhaps her best-known pieces would be “The Girl and the Box” and “How Behavior an Unhealthy Person Is Like” (sic). Both pieces are emotional visual poetry. The latter deals with the topic of mental health with a triptych and how isolation and depression can lead to suicide risk. Isabel handles these topics with raw emotion, not shying away from the pain each can cause.

“The Girl and the Box” is a personal favorite of Isabel’s. Taking inspiration from daily writings, the drawing is of a young woman with a box in her chest. From the box, papers are flying out. Doing these daily writings felt like “art therapy” for Isabel, who graduated from SVA during the height of the pandemic in 2020.

Isabel Ricaurte continues to share her talents through many avenues. She sells her prints, often dealing with fantasy, magic, or darker topics. Looking toward the future, Isabel’s talents will assuredly bring more color, emotion, and playful magic to the art world.

For more information on Isabel Ricaurte, visit her website.

About the author

Tristan Ibarra is an arts and entertainment writer as well as a self-proclaimed anime fan.