Jeannie started drawing as a child growing up on a farm in East Longmeadow, MA. Her grandfather’s farm, ‘The Hollywood Egg and Fruit Farm’ had a lovely apple orchard and other fruit trees, barns with chickens, and work horses to pull the hay wagons, stone walls, and her father sold the eggs locally. She has a BA in Art from Emmanuel College and a MFA from U Mass Dartmouth. I paint primarily in watercolor, acrylic, and ‘pulp painting,’ a technique she learned as an apprentice in papermaking at Rugg Road Handmade Papers in the 1980’s.
Her paintings are often inspired by the nuances of light and shadow in nature and architecture at various times of the day. Travel to Nantucket, the Southwest, Mexico, and the Caribbean has been a source of inspiration for years. After living in the Boston and North Shore area, she recently moved back to western Mass where she is reconnecting to the farms, stone walls, and the local natural environment in her painting.
Jeannie has also taught art extensively on the high school, college, and continuing education level for many years. She currently teaches drawing and painting classes at the Northampton Center for the Arts. You can see more on her website: jeanniedonovan.com.
She is a lifetime member of the Artists Association of Nantucket and have exhibited in numerous solo and group shows in Boston, the North Shore, New York, Nantucket, the Rocky Neck Art Colony, Cape Cod, and a gallery/studio I owned in Newton, Massachusetts (Studio Paradiso)