In between juggling school and work, he grabs his canvas and paints for hours on end. Relieving stress and putting passion into his pieces, senior Reece Replogle has been creating portraits of the people that have impacted his life. Replogle will be using these portraits for his portfolio that will be sent into College Board.

“I wanted to do people because people are considered the hardest things for any artist to paint,” Replogle said. “The three hardest things to paint are the face, hands and feet, so I chose the face which is in all of my portraits. If you mess up a single thing [on the face] it already starts to not look like the person.”

Replogle based his artwork off of an artist that creates similar pieces, Peter Max. Max uses a lot of celebrities for his work with the incorporation of a pop-art style, which Replogle is also using.

“I like to mix colors and combine them to get new color combinations that look really good together and that’s what Peter Max does a lot of,” Replogle said. “He always does it in the background of portraits, so I thought I can do the same thing.”

Each portrait that Replogle has created have people that have inspired him to do better, or people that have been his best friends throughout his life.

“These people I choose are the ones that I want to show my compassion for,” Replogle said.

Although Replogle has been in art classes since Kindergarten, he had not really started trying until last year when he believed that his art started looking good.

“Last year I was actually in an AP class, so I was trying and spending time on my pieces, rather than just trying to get it finished in one sitting,” Replogle said.

In the portfolio being sent to College Board, Replogle put together 24 pieces of artwork. Each piece he created is inspired by the three main parts of his life: Cedar Park, H.E.B. and Prosper, where he lived before moving to Cedar Park.

“I use colored pencils and painting on the artwork that physically has to be sent to College Board,” Replogle said. “I can get fine details on when using them together. It’s way more controlled than just painting.”

Once Replogle has completed his artwork, he will give them to the people he has painted.

“My two favorite pieces I’ve created are of my manager and a friend from Prosper,” Replogle said. “I gave the portrait to my manager a while ago and filmed it and he was really happy about it.”

After high school, Replogle still plans to continue to paint portraits and also receive some profit out of it.

“It could potentially double my salary,” Replogle said. “The really big ones are upwards of $300. Other people on my level are selling their pieces at the same price.”

Replogle plans to major in communications in college, but will keep painting portraits as a hobby.

“I spend all my free time painting because it’s like a stress reliever and something good actually comes out of it,” Replogle said.