Rachel Constantine Studio

More recent work… when I first moved into my little Alpha Rd studio in Cambridge, I was a little shocked at how dark the winters were there. With daylight saving time came sunsets at 3pm; and for a painter who is a slave to natural light, that was QUITE an adjustment…but that just made the transition back to longer days even more exhilarating. My studio view looks out onto Carlisle Rd, at the end of which is the largest, most glorious magnolia tree 🌳 that explodes with a million blooms just when one can’t bear one more day of winter. Painting these flowers has been become my homage to spring these last two years, although they change at lightening speed so you have to paint REALLY fast… this one made it just long enough to capture properly.
I finally met the neighbor who is the keeper of this tree, and she’s become a wonderful friend. 🤗

Magnolia in Antique Glass
Oil on panel
19x8
*available

Rachel Constantine Open Studio
Philadelphia
August 16, 2025
12-6pm
🫶🏼
❤️
🫶🏼

I am delighted to announce that my portrait of Richard Prager, former head of the Engineering Department of Cambridge University (2018-2023), has officially been unveiled!

One thing I particularly love about portraiture is the opportunity to step into the subject’s world and weave that into a portrait, and it was a pleasure to get to know Richard, whom I came to discover is truly as kind as he is brilliant. As you can see, instead of inside an office, Richard wanted to be out on Coe’s Fen and include the sky, meadow, and most importantly the Engineering Department where he has dedicated so much of his career and focus. I loved that he would often be found wandering out the backs and thinking, and thought this to be the perfect image through which to depict him.

Turns out that Richard is also particularly adept at dodging cows- a very useful skill as I kept asking him to don his good suit and meet out in the meadow for “just one more session”… surrounded by particularly curious cattle. Luckily he was spared having to model outside in the, shall we say “soggy” Coe-fen, (actually completely mud ridden) and instead we were able to do our color study in my conservatory while Richard held a big piece of green construction paper under his chin.

It is humbling to know that the finished painting now lives alongside two centuries of historical portraits, of the previous Engineering Department heads, in one of the oldest and most respected universities in the world.

Thank you Richard, and thank you Cambridge Engineering. It’s been a pleasure. 💛🎨🖼️

STARLINGS IN WINTER (EXCERPT)

Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,
even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;
I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard. I want
to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings

-Mary Oliver

💔🇺🇸

Image:
Monument
Oil on linen
2012ish?

Felt fitting. 💔🇺🇸