Artist Spotlight: Jeanine Colini
By Kathie Scrimgeour
Jeanine has been creating art for as long as she can remember. It all began with a green crayon she used to scribble on the wall behind her bedroom door, hoping her masterpiece would go unnoticed for a while. Letters have always been her favorite subjects to draw, though she has never quite known why. In first grade, she embraced cursive writing as another opportunity for creative expression, and in high school she took mechanical drawing, meticulously rendering block letters in pencil.
Jeanine earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Communications Design in 1981 and began her career as an independent publications and book designer in New York. In 1984, she relocated to Los Angeles and founded her own design company. In 2018, she moved to Tucson, Arizona, where she shifted her focus from designing for corporate clients to creating artwork for consumers and collectors.
Her artistic interests became formalized when she attended Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in 1978. There, she studied typography and type design, creating artwork that expressed ideas through letterforms rendered in a variety of media, including pencil, ink, paint, and cut paper. Inspired by countless hours of drawing the human figure and animals, she developed her first fully illustrated alphabet design, A to Zoo, as her senior illustration thesis. On graduation day in 1981, she delivered her first professional assignment to Pratt, where her animal illustrations appeared on the covers of the institute’s admissions handbook. A to Zoo has remained in the marketplace ever since.
Over the years, her menagerie of illustrated characters has been published and exhibited internationally. The artwork has appeared in the movie Three Men and a Baby and the television series Dynasty. A to Zoo was licensed by the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association, and selected critters are included in the art collection of actor Jimmy Stewart.
“A to Zoo” is a legacy piece for me. Creating something like this so early in my art and design career is not something I take for granted. I feel blessed by it. But one does not rest on laurels so I continue to make more alphabets and type-inspired creations. I have two concepts in the works and one rendering currently under way. As long as there are 26 alphabet letters—and ten numerals—there is always inspiration!" said Jeanine.
With her strong design background, it was a natural progression for Jeanine’s artistic expression to evolve into images derived from words and letters. Her body of work includes Art of the State (2012), a typographic map of the United States where typography meets topography; What’s Your Sign? (2016), a series inspired by astrology; and A to Z Cactus (2020), an alphabet influenced by the beauty of the Sonoran Desert.
Nature and animals remain the primary inspirations behind her typographic artwork. Every piece begins as a pencil concept and is later developed using ink, pastel, or paint.
The greatest reward of her work? “Seeing the delight that people experience when they acquire a piece of my art for themselves or as a gift to share with others.”
Jeanine is a member of the Southern Arizona Artists Guild (SAAG) and enjoys being part of its vibrant artistic community. She especially values the in-person meetings where artists gather to share their work, ideas, and creative experiences.
Passionate about education, Jeanine enjoys sharing her artistic knowledge and experience through instruction. She specializes in helping adults discover that they can draw and paint, regardless of their experience level. She has taught at the Pima County Public Library, St. Philip’s in the Hills Episcopal Church, SaddleBrooke Fine Arts Guild, and the Jewish Community Center.
Most recently she has a number of workshops coming up at the SAAG Gallery, including watercolor, art tools, and “Things with Wings”.
Visit Jeanine’s website and Instagram to enjoy more of her art!
Website: https://www.jcda.com/shop-art
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeaninecolini/
