My family got great news yesterday - my husband has been extended through the summer at his job! This is big news because we both get laid off for summer, and we were very concerned about finding summer employment this year. We're ready to book our summer trip - we want to go back to Sandwich this year, for some camping and swimming . In celebration, I'm sharing the ATCs I painted last year while we were there. I can't wait to have the sand in my toes again, and to float down the canals on noodles with Esme at Boardwalk Beach!

I've been wanting to start an art journal for a long time, and a couple days ago I finally took the plunge. This is the first page and doodle and Zentangle inspired. and was done with Sharpie and watercolor pencils I'm finding that right I'm loving the combination of purple and yellow together. I think I want to redecorate my bedroom!

Our awesome friend, Matt Wilga, has just released his first single, There I Go. In celebration of his accomplishment and getting to see him play live in Amherst, we stamped these shirts to wear to the show. Being a crafter is extra handy for things like these - I already had these huge Heidi Swapp stamps (which I love) and some black Crafter's ink by Colorbox. I'm not sure the show was strictly appropriate for our daughter, given the other acts and the lateness of the hour, but she is a big fan so we didn't want her to have to miss it. He dedicated a song to her and gave her the set list.

I am part of a group of women making projects based on the book The Artistic Mother, and step one is to make background papers for our projects.


I started with pages from an old book of quotes that I acquired for such purposes. I used purple acrylic paints, water, and foam brushes to add color and patterns to the pages.


I was feeling rather crabapple and unmotivated today, but luckily I'd already made plans to get together with my cool friend Jennifer today, so I packed up a bunch of stamps, ink pads, paints, etc. and headed over to her house. She has the coolest scrapbooking room I've ever spent time in! She did an awesome job setting it up and has even helped me with mine.


When I try to get creative with my friends I usually spend more time yakking than working, but today I actually finished all my papers! It was easy, not having to worry about the final product yet. In fact, it was very freeing!

I'm so glad the cold weather is almost behind us for another year. Esme and I like to sit outside with paints or colored pencils, at home or at the park, and let Ethan serenade us while we create. This is one of my last winter-inspired pictures for this year, and it's a typical scene from my life! It's just a quick sketch with oil pastels and acrylic paints, where I made some swirls on paper and saw what kind of people would emerge. Now I'm looking forward to Friday, when I hear we might hit 72 degrees here in the Pioneer Valley, and hoping that soon pictures of little girls in flowered dresses will emerge from those swirls.

Yesterday was my Esme's birthday - I can't believe she is 7 years old! We had quite a nice day together. We are still waiting for her first two wiggly teeth to come out though.

I made this scrapbook page the night before while scrapping with my friend, Lisa, via Skype. Skype is one of my favorite inventions ever - we live many miles apart but can get together pretty much every week to scrap together!

I think I am on the mend and at last feeling in more of a crafty mood. When the last spot goes away, I think it will be time for a party. I have been really been wanting to work on whimsical projects the past few weeks. I was lucky enough to go away for the weekend with my handsome husband, and created this painting in our friend's cottage on the Cape. It was inspired by a line in a song he once wrote that always inspires me, "Paper thin hopes folded into a boat, to sail away with you." I am planning to do a few more pieces with this line in mind.

PSA: Cool metallic paper you find on the side of the road is not necessarily an art supply.

I have been neglecting my blog due to being driven to distraction by my health. I have had my share of arts and crafts related injuries. I've had burns shaped like the end of my heat gun, tiny infections due to poking myself with my paper piercer, and even surgery under live x-ray to get a needle out of my toe. The past week has definitely ranked up there as one of my worst. It wasn't an accident, but an allergic reaction. I'm a Girl Scout leader and my little Daisies have been dying to be in our city's annual Saint Patrick's Day parade. To contribute to the building of the float, I said I would cut out the letters for the sides with my Slice. A fellow leader had found a large roll of shiny, adhesive-backed paper on the tree band in her neighborhood, so we decided we would use that.

That metallic paper gave me the worst allergic reaction of my life!! I have been COVERED with hives from the day I started cutting it. I cut half the letters (Girl Scouts leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but memories) and woke up with hives the next morning. I even had hives on the soles of my feet and the palms of my hands! Unfortunately I didn't make the connection right away and cut out the rest of the letters a couple days later, resulting in swollen lips and a numb tongue. I've found it impossible to be creative in this state - I am either dancing due to itchy skin or dopey because of Benadryl. I am on day four of steroids and I am hoping that maybe at last the hives are starting to improve. This week I am hoping to post some more crafty projects and plan to feature a couple local artists very soon! Thanks for sticking with me!

I'm very excited about a new challenge I'm about to start! It's being issued by Trudy, and it's based on the book, The Artistic Mother. I know that I often struggle to balance my own family life and creative time, so I'm excited to work with some other moms, and especially to see what they create!

A couple months ago I tried the Northampton Arts Night Out with my family and few friends, but didn't find much going on. Esme and I went out last night and were very pleased to find LOTS of things happening! We started at the Smith College Art Museum. On second Fridays admission is free and they have lots of activities for families. Esme got to get her face painted, have some snacks, and do some beading. The best part was a coloring book with different images throughout the museum in it - she loved tracking each of the paintings down.


Next we headed over to Pinch, to see this show by one of my favorite local artists, Sarah Ahearn. I got to meet her at Paradise City last Fall and I love her collages/paintings. Her new work is wonderful and I was glad Esme and I got a chance to talk to her for a few minutes.

The last thing we did downtown was stop by A.P.E. Esme was fascinated because there was a man in the window doing a bit of a performance piece. He was painted himself and he would slowly move to pretend to be painting color onto a real flower. Esme has been to several animatronic science shows lately, and would not believe that the man was not a robot, no matter how many times I insisted otherwise. We went inside and watched for a bit, and even then back outside on the sidewalk it was hard to tear her away.

It was a very nice evening out with my baby! I love sharing these things with her!

Since her dad and I are both sick and have been laying around listlessly most of the day, Esme needed a little Mommy time. I decided to sit up for a while and scrap with her, and wanted to do a new layout of us together, just to remind her how much I love her. Some girls over from the peaboard have a new challenge blog, so I thought I would give their first one a go. Esme and I had a nice afternoon together and now I'm back to bed!

LYB True Love Album

Having a cold is decidedly uninspiring! I am extremely relieved that my daughter, Esme, has recovered from her pneumonia, but depressed that her dad and I now both have this awful cold. Since I've been under the weather I haven't felt like doing much, so I've taken the time to sort and organize my photos, as well as back them up on the terabyte drive I got last Christmas. In honor of Valentine's Day, I'd like to share an album that I made for Ethan last Christmas, all about romance. I hope everyone else is staying healthy and warm!

Another whimsical painting - I started this in an Estabrooks class and finished later at home. It started with oil pastels, then I collaged and added acrylic paint. Matted and framed and gave to my daughter, Esme, for Christmas, because she loves mermaids so much.

This is my new favorite personalized gift to give. I made my first magnet board a little over a year ago, but really stepped up production a couple weeks ago. I hate giving people (especially kids) the same kinds of gifts everyone else does. I made the first one for my bff's mom, who is very hard to shop for! Additionally, these are super inexpensive to make and don't take to long if you're in a pinch!

They start as pizza pans from the dollar store. The ones I buy are 12 inches, but this includes the lip on the edges. I start by using alcohol ink to color the lip. It is important to do this first as it can be messy otherwise. I made a template for the patterned paper by putting a piece of paper over the pan and rubbing around it with an embossing stylus. I trace around my template and then cut the circle out of a pieces of 12 by 12 scrapbooking paper. I use a heavy coat of Mod Podge all over the pan to adhere the paper, and smooth it out with a brayer and my fingers. A few little wrinkles are okay, but I don't like bubbles - it makes it harder for magnets to stick. I add a thin layer of Mod Podge on top of the patterned paper, and then a thick layer around the edges to adhere the buttons. I originally put the buttons on to hide the edge of the patterned paper and it's worked very well to help hide flaws as well. Other embellishments would work as well, like gems or maybe even Prima flowers. I've done names or words on these boards, and mostly used letter stickers with another layer of Mod Podge on top. You can see my first attempt here. I'm on the fence about whether I like the coordinating magnets made from page pebbles better or clip magnets, also from the dollar store. These two are for some little friends who are brother and sister, so I used coordinating papers that I thought they might like, and that would match their kitchen.

I have lots going on this week, but I have three more transparency, post-industrial scenes that I really want to finish and post!

One of the best things a scrapbooker can ever has is a crop group with members who really care about each other, and appreciate each other's artistic talents. I was very, very lucky to meet my friends Ellen and Stephanie this way. Even though our group disbanded, we have remained friends and just recently started scrapbooking together on a regular basis again. I am so happy to have this back in my life! We each have our own distinct style and I love how I could spot their pages in a crowd. I love how we're always ready to share with each other and introduce each other to new things. It's not easy to find good friends anyway, but to find friends who are also awesome scrappers is nearly a miracle! I love you guys!

I did this layout at Ellen's house last night - the first of many of Chloe's first Christmas!

I have three new paintings in progress this week. I loving working with these post-industrial landscapes - they are beautiful to me. I love to be outdoors in natural surroundings, but I find these scenes much more inspirational to me.

One day in November Ethan and I went for a walk with my camera and took a ton of shots down near the Parson's Paper fire site and in nearby neighborhoods. I use a Digital Canon Rebel. I've had it for about 5 years and it's pretty dinged up. It's been dropped, knocked over, parts have been replaced, but it has taken many thousands of photos and still works just fine. This was my first digital camera and I love the freedom.

This week I'm also excited about scrapbooking and doing more altered projects. My studio space has been super packed and disorganized for a long time, and I am finally finding my way back to the surface of my table. When I finally get it perfect, I am going to have an art party to celebrate.

I am sooo excited that I finally opened my Etsy shop! I have been talking about it for a while and decided to just grab the paintings in my post-industrial landscape series and go for it. This is the painting I did for the Easthampton Plein Air competition. It was fun, but a bit of a challenge because the paintings had to be done outside, and there were heavy downpours most of the week. Luckily Esme was willing to brave it out and go with me almost every day when I got out of school. It was exciting to have my painting hanging at the Nashawannuck Gallery with so many other wonderful pieces. This was one of my first paintings inspired by Ludwig Bemelmans, one of my favorite artists and the creator of the Madeline series.

I made this plaque as a shower gift for my sister-in-law when my niece was born. It made from foam core board covered with patterned paper and then elements Mod Podged on top. The fairy is made from felt and patterned paper with buttons for hands and stamped wings with Distress Stickles added to them. The face is an old picture of my grandmother, Chloe's great-grandmother. The gift box is a Clementine crate decoupaged with coordinated patterned paper. I can't believe my beautiful niece is almost one year old!

This is one of my favorite pages of Ethan and me. I did it with supplies I received during my month as a guest designer at Scrapperie, when they were a kit club. I took this photo on the street in Northampton. Scrapbooking is one of my favorite things to do!!

I've been spending most of my free time the last couple weeks trying to get my studio organized. I use it for all my painting, scrapbooking, sewing, and otherwise crafty supplies, so it is QUITE full. I was lucky to have a friend over to help me redo it and make me feel less boxed in when I'm sitting at my table. Now I've hit the place where I just want to give up and just do some creative projects!! Enough organizing, I want to be painting or scrapping! I have been trying to develop my own style of portraits so I'm doing some smaller sizes for practice. Soon I hope to get into these lovely bigger canvases I've been saving.

Happy New Year! I have many resolutions this year, but my biggest ones are to make more art, and to invite more people to my home to make art with me. I love seeing other people work and getting inspiration from my friends.
Toward the end of 2009 I really enjoyed taking classes with Donna Estabrooks and hope to continue. I'd like to take some other kinds of classes too, especially printmaking. The piece above is a picture of Donna I did during one of her classes. It's a mix of drawing with oil pastels, painting with acrylics, and collaging. It is one of the first abstract portraits I ever did and very fun.

Here is the second in my post-industrial downtown series. These are done with paint pen on one side of a transparency and acrylic paints on the other. This one doesn't have a title yet, but it was one of my favorite spots when Ethan and I walked around downtown one day. I am planning to do two more in this series, and then open my Etsy shop!

This is just a quick sketch I did of Ethan one day while we were up at Mount Tom for an afternoon. Esme and I brought our art supplies and Ethan serenaded us for awhile. For years I've been talking about making some album art for him and I told him this will be my first one - plenty of room for the title and easily printed.

Esme had a wonderful Christmas and is getting ready to study study study in the new year. She's reading at a second grade level now - she finished Frog and Toad and quickly moved on to books like Little Bear, Blueberries for Sal, and pretty much everything she can get her hands on. She's reading songs in church, road signs, and pretty much everything I try to write privately too. She's mastered nouns and verbs, is close on adjectives, and is working on compound words too.

In the New Year we're hoping to teach her more about space, visit the Museum of Science again, and keep her moving along at grade level in Math.

I recently had an interesting conversation about the "preciousness" of really nice, quality, and often expensive art supplies. Do you really want to use that pricey canvas for a project you're not so sure about?? It's hard for me to loosen up and experiment when I know how much these nice, big, extra-nicely-wrapped canvases cost. Donna Estabrooks had a great idea on how to loosen up with some things not-so-precious. She'd heard about people painting grocery bags to repurpose them as gift bags, so we gave it a try as part of warming up for a class. These photos show the two sides of my Whole Foods bag. This was soooo fun and freeing!! I highly recommend giving it a try if you're having trouble breaking out and letting loose! There are so many possibilities for these. Plus, even though my friends and family do enjoy passing the same gift bags around year after year, I know most of them would be excited to receive a gift in packaging I'd made just for them.

Christmas Presents and a Painting

I was very lucky to receive some arty gifts this Christmas, including an easel, and a mat cutting system. Hoping Ethan will learn to use the mat cutter and become my mat guy! I am just not very good at things that require such precision. Thought I would share another piece that includes him - this is one of my favorites from a new series I'm doing of post-industrial areas. This is a building in the crumbling downtown in our city and that little green speck on the lower left gives it it's title - "Ethan on the Street." This painting is done with kind of a different technique - it is paint pen on one side and acrylics on the other of a transparency. I've been inspired by Ludwig Bemelmans, author and illustrator of the Madeline series and hope to finally open my Etsy shop when I have four finished. Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!

Please visit my new blog, jennypowersart.blogspot.com!

Welcome!

Thank you for visiting my new blog!! I plan to share my new pieces here, and thoughts about the process. To start, I'd like to share a quick portrait I did of my husband, Ethan, after learning some new techniques in a class with one of my favorite artists, Donna Estabrooks. Ethan is my biggest supporter and has encouraged me to create from the very start. This abstract piece is a mix of oil pastel and acrylic paint and was initially started with my non-dominant, left hand.

I have officially retired this blog. Look for my new art blog sometime soon.

What's Going On

Esme has been busy! She's been taking Acro, playing soccer, and of course participating in Girl Scouts. She is reading Frog and Toad Together and doing quiet well. Her math skills are improving and she's doing well with her facts. She's very interested in learning more about astronauts and space.

Our family has discovered how fun gallery walks can be! We went on our first one Saturday night and had a great time. Esme got to see a wide variety of styles and types of art.

Esme's first official day of school for this year was Thursday. She reviewed a bit of math, and got back to her Bob Books. She is super interested in space so she will begin her Solar System/All Things Space unit tomorrow. I can't wait to see all of her projects!

Another Educational Family Trip

As part of our family vacation we visited Plymouth. We stopped and took a look at Plymouth Rock and the Pilgrim Memorial, and saw the Mayflower II. We thought this would be a great way to kick off the social studies unit we're planning to do this Fall. Esme will officially go back-to-homeschool this Thursday. She'll be studying reading, writing, math, science, social studies, art, music, sports, and of course many other things. She'll also be continuing with lots of great group activities like Daisies, soccer, and more! Please wish us luck as she enters First Grade!!

A Summer of Learning

Esme has had quite an exciting summer. Her dad and I are both working, so she's been having lots of adventures. She spent several days with Grandma, traveling and visiting. She has been to work with her dad a couple days and it sounds like she is ready to take over the library. We took her to New York City last weekend on a mini-vacation and highlights for her including visiting Central Park, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and seeing the Statue of Liberty from a distance. Probably what Esme has found most exciting though is her three weeks at Girl Scout camp. At camp she's had the opportunity to participate in a wide variety of activities including swimming, playing group games, making fairy houses, learning all kinds of arts and crafts, and so much more. She's also accomplished some goals like learning the pledge of allegiance and has even taken an active role in the flag ceremony three times. She has made lots of new friends and is having a blast! It has been a very positive experience for her.

This coming school year is the first time I will have to report our homeschooling activities to our city. I am feeling semi-confident, probably only semi because this is my first time. I spent a long time working on my letter of intent, and researching exactly what I need to include, etc. Ethan and I are really looking forward to getting back to our regular routines!

One Busy Kid

Esme has been very busy the last few weeks! Last weekend she had her first ballet recital. I was so impressed how well she and all the girls in her class did. Their song was "Every Girl Can Be a Princess" and they were dressed like Cinderella.

This past Monday was her Girl Scout fashion show and court of awards. This was a wonderful evening. I was super proud of all of the girls, especially Esme. She got up and led the entire crowd in singing "Make New Friends" and in saying the Girl Scout promise, in addition to dressing up as Tinkerbell in the fashion show.

She has a busy summer coming up as well. She'll be attending three weeks of Girl Scout camp (I'll be working there) and one week of vacation Bible school. She'll spend one week at our house with Grandma, and probably a significant amount of time with Nonna and Auntie Lisa too. We hae all kinds of plans for this Fall, and we're looking forward to getting back to our regular homeschooling schedule again.