Carol Collette

About Carol

Born in Toronto, Canada, I am a painter and printmaker currently living in Hawaii. From an early age I loved to draw, and enjoyed playing with friends in the woods where I learned to appreciate the beauty of the changing seasons. To have a career doing some kind of drawing was my childhood dream and my love for designing and sewing my clothes developed into the idea of becoming a fashion illustrator. After graduating from the Ontario College of Art and Design I moved to Quebec City where I happily sketched pen and ink drawings of women’s fashions for a for a trendy store’s newspaper ads. It was there I met my future husband, John Collette, an artist, and moved to his hometown of Boston.

In our travels to the major museums of Europe, a year later, I became fascinated by the centuries old technique of etching, with its delicacy of detail and richness of tone. Returning from Paris and living in rural New England, my career took a much different path. Inspired by the idyllic countryside and lovely old farmhouses and weathered barns on Cape Cod, I created a series of pen and ink with watercolor sketches. These came to serve as the foundation for my early etchings. Soon after, I began in earnest creating line etchings and drypoint engravings on copper plates, working on technique and increasing my knowledge of a demanding artistic medium. I experimented by adding aquatint to the line etchings, which made possible a much greater variety of texture and tone in the prints. From the beginning I painted loose translucent watercolor washes on many of my etchings; so although they are done in numbered editions, each one is unique. Much of my art has focused on the New England countryside, but the beauty of Hawaii calls to me too and I often find inspiration just outside my door.

You can find my art in galleries around the world; most notably Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Hawaii and Japan. My watercolor etchings have been featured in various publications and are part of numerous private and corporate collections. For several years, my prints have been chosen for the People’s Choice Award at the Annual Honolulu Printmakers show and purchased by the Honolulu State Council for Culture and the Arts. It’s been an honor to have my artwork selected several times by Japanese corporations for their annual corporate calendars.

I’m grateful for the support I’ve received, which has allowed me to do what I love for so many years.  And it’s gratifying to travel to New England and Japan and meet longtime and new collectors to hear that my art brings a beautiful moment of tranquility to their lives. I’m fortunate to find inspiration almost everywhere I go and am happy to say that I’ve never worked on anything l lack real feelings for. As I continue to explore the fine line between control and spontaneity, I strive to create images which capture the fleeting dance of light and shadow and I hope my fascination with the beauty I see around me shines through, in my work, for you.