Hello and welcome to Rachel Murphy Art!
I’m a full time artist who lives in Northern Wisconsin.
My artistic journey began with my Mother. She attended the Milwaukee School of Art in 1950’s, but packed her paints away to raise a family. Being the youngest of seven children, I remember the day she unpacked her paints and set them up in the kitchen. I was around six years old. For some reason I loved the smell of turpentine and “really” wanted to be involved. It soon became obvious to my mom, that the only way she was going to be able to paint was to give me a canvas of my own. We enjoyed painting together for the next 35 years.
In the late 1980’s, while still in high school, I started selling Wildlife Art locally. After graduation I moved to Minneapolis and attended school for Commercial Art. Frame & Feathers gallery in Roseville, MN published a few of my Wildlife Paintings and sold them nation wide.
In 1991 I took what I believed was going to be a summer job drawing Caricatures at Valley Fair in Minneapolis. I thought “how hard could this be? I’m a published wildlife artist right?” Well… turns out it was super hard!!!
I was good at rendering detail from a photograph, but this person sitting, breathing, moving, asking you questions and giving you instant feed back whether you wanted it or not, was definitely not a photo!!!! It was a small group of talented artist and we worked long hours. I was fortunate to work for Tom Richmond, an amazing artist who later became a Golden Nosey Award winner and the regular cover artist for Mad Magazine. What I know now is that I caught the tail end of the wildlife art boom, but was at the beginning of the Caricature explosion. 30 years later caricatures are still a source of income in my art career.
In 1999 a group a friends invited me to the St. Paul Art Crawl, where I met artist Joseph Paquet.
I was amazed at the quality of his work and shocked to find out they were done from life and not photo references! I was introduced to the concept of Plein-Air painting. Joe said something about “It's putting down the particular shape, in the right color, at the correct value ”.
Well that sounded fairly simple, so I signed up for a seminar… Very quickly I learned that simple and easy are not the same thing… Joe’s approach to Plein-Air painting centers around the prismatic palette, along with the principles of structure, form and value. There was a lot to learn and I continued to study with Joe for a number of years!
My life long hobby has been horses. My father gave me my first horse when I was eleven. Now I enjoy raising and training reining blood lines. In 2010 I did my first horse pack trip with a group of riding friends. The Maah Daah Hey trail in North Dakota. The biggest pack trip we have done to date was 10 days in the Teton National Wilderness. Along with being just an amazing experience, I was also able to capture great photo references! To see more info about our horse check out Studio-Ranch
My husband and I enjoy traveling in our homemade teardrop camper. We also enjoy hiking in our national parks, including Yellowstone, Teton, Zion and Glacier. Inspiration and reference material abound!!!! Click here to check out our teardrop adventures.
Click here to check out Caricatures by Rachel
I’m a full time artist who lives in Northern Wisconsin.
My artistic journey began with my Mother. She attended the Milwaukee School of Art in 1950’s, but packed her paints away to raise a family. Being the youngest of seven children, I remember the day she unpacked her paints and set them up in the kitchen. I was around six years old. For some reason I loved the smell of turpentine and “really” wanted to be involved. It soon became obvious to my mom, that the only way she was going to be able to paint was to give me a canvas of my own. We enjoyed painting together for the next 35 years.
In the late 1980’s, while still in high school, I started selling Wildlife Art locally. After graduation I moved to Minneapolis and attended school for Commercial Art. Frame & Feathers gallery in Roseville, MN published a few of my Wildlife Paintings and sold them nation wide.
In 1991 I took what I believed was going to be a summer job drawing Caricatures at Valley Fair in Minneapolis. I thought “how hard could this be? I’m a published wildlife artist right?” Well… turns out it was super hard!!!
I was good at rendering detail from a photograph, but this person sitting, breathing, moving, asking you questions and giving you instant feed back whether you wanted it or not, was definitely not a photo!!!! It was a small group of talented artist and we worked long hours. I was fortunate to work for Tom Richmond, an amazing artist who later became a Golden Nosey Award winner and the regular cover artist for Mad Magazine. What I know now is that I caught the tail end of the wildlife art boom, but was at the beginning of the Caricature explosion. 30 years later caricatures are still a source of income in my art career.
In 1999 a group a friends invited me to the St. Paul Art Crawl, where I met artist Joseph Paquet.
I was amazed at the quality of his work and shocked to find out they were done from life and not photo references! I was introduced to the concept of Plein-Air painting. Joe said something about “It's putting down the particular shape, in the right color, at the correct value ”.
Well that sounded fairly simple, so I signed up for a seminar… Very quickly I learned that simple and easy are not the same thing… Joe’s approach to Plein-Air painting centers around the prismatic palette, along with the principles of structure, form and value. There was a lot to learn and I continued to study with Joe for a number of years!
My life long hobby has been horses. My father gave me my first horse when I was eleven. Now I enjoy raising and training reining blood lines. In 2010 I did my first horse pack trip with a group of riding friends. The Maah Daah Hey trail in North Dakota. The biggest pack trip we have done to date was 10 days in the Teton National Wilderness. Along with being just an amazing experience, I was also able to capture great photo references! To see more info about our horse check out Studio-Ranch
My husband and I enjoy traveling in our homemade teardrop camper. We also enjoy hiking in our national parks, including Yellowstone, Teton, Zion and Glacier. Inspiration and reference material abound!!!! Click here to check out our teardrop adventures.
Click here to check out Caricatures by Rachel
