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.

One of my least favorite things happened yesterday morning - one of my tenants called and let me know he and his sister are breaking their lease. Sigh. I am sooo tired of this. I don't mind doing it once a year but I get frustrated when it gets to be every six months. It is the price I pay for home ownership, so I am willing to do it, but not always without complaint. That said, I have been very lucky with the response I've received the last couple days. I've received at least 15 calls from listing solely on craigslist, and already have a couple potentials and an application in hand. Hopefully I'll even make a decision this weekend!

First T-Ball Game