Rachel Collins, Watercolor Artist

Rachel Collins considers herself a representational painter of natural and man-made abstract form.  Although she grew up in a home in New York state where her mother taught oil painting, design and composition, she did not pursue art on her own until she reached her mid-thirties.  By then she had graduated from Middlebury College with a degree in French, obtained a masters degree in library science from the University of Wisconsin, and worked for thirteen  years as librarian, archivist and museum curator at the Baha’i World Centre in Haifa, Israel.  

 

Upon her return to the States in 1990, an interest in natural science illustration led her to an internship in the Department of Entomology at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. But eventually watercolor, originally taken up as a once-a-week hobby in Israel, became her primary medium.  Her interest in natural science subjects has continued, but with a fine arts focus.  In addition, a strong interest in music has led to a series of paintings with a music theme.  Her work  has regularly hung and taken awards in many nationally competitive watercolor exhibits, and she has had solo shows in galleries at art centers, colleges and universities, and other institutions in the Washington, DC area.  She has been awarded signature membership in the National Watercolor Society, the Watercolor USA Honor Society, and the Transparent Watercolor Society of America, among others.  For 20 years she worked in her studio in the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, but now is enjoying greater flexibility in her schedule. She paints daily in her home studio, always aiming to stretch her understanding of the possibilities of watercolor . She shows paintings both locally and elsewhere in the U.S., and works to keep this website up-to-date with work available for purchase, and news of where her work can be seen.  She continues teaching classes and workshops in watercolor at The Art League School in Alexandria, and occasionally offers workshops of varying lengths elsewhere in the United States and abroad.