With a focus on nature and farm life with a Scandinavian twist, Rachael Koppendrayer captures images of her Minnesota home and heritage in colored pencil.
Rachael Koppendrayer, a farm girl from central Minnesota, had never considered becoming an artist when she grew up. Nor had she ever considered colored pencils as more than a medium used by school kids (including herself). However, a painting class in college changed all that, opening her eyes to the incredible use of colored pencils as a professional medium. Though her degree was not in art, she continued honing the techniques she learned in colored pencil drawing after graduation and began selling prints of her artwork in 2015. In 2016 Rachael and her husband moved to Sauk Centre, MN—a small town known for its beautiful murals and public installations of art—where she has been creating and selling ever since. Rachael Koppendrayer is also the illustrator of Isaac’s Ice Cream Tree by Angela Henderson and subsequent Isaac & Izzy books.
Artist Statement
Raised on the small dairy farm in Randall, Minnesota that my great-grandfather established when he emigrated from Sweden in the late 1800’s, I grew up surrounded by field and pasture, woods and swamp—all ripe for exploration and inspiration. I discovered my love of wildflowers at age eleven when we braved the mosquitoes and water-logged cattails to see the showy lady’s slippers in the popple island in the middle of the swamp. While I have been photographing wildflowers since that day, after college I transitioned to drawing them in colored pencil as well. It wasn’t until the ladies of my prayer group encouraged me that I began pursuing colored pencil art as a profession. Minnesota nature and farm life—with a nod to my family’s Swedish heritage—have provided much of my inspiration.
Five Fun Facts about Rachael
- She studied French, German, and Russian languages as part of her Languages and International Studies degree, but she is fluent in none of them! However, she occasionally reads well-loved stories in French to maintain some language skills
- She started studying piano when she was 9 and has frequently served as church pianist since she was in high school
- She loves classical music and movie scores, and she has discovered the delightful hobby of transcribing movie themes for piano when she can’t find existing sheet music
- She can imitate the cheeping of chicks well enough to confuse mother hens
- She loves all things wildflowers, from art to photography to gardening to collecting field guides
