Jeannette Hay's Page

It was obvious from an early age that Jeannette Hay had a special love for animals and that animals responded back to her in a special way as well.

As a teenager – she enrolled into the Chantry School of Art in the heart of beautiful Devonshire, England. She studied Fine Arts there but always had a natural bent for the more Graphic side of art.

After graduating, Jeannette spent three years as a potter, painter and translator in Spain before returning to her native home, Canada. While in Toronto, she enrolled into George Brown College where she obtained her Certificate in Graphic Design.

There followed some years of specializing in logo design both in Canada and Massachusetts, USA before returning to her first love, that of animals and becoming an animal artist.

On her return to Toronto, Canada she was in high demand as an animal portraitist and went from client to client, solely on word of mouth. It was at this time that she got the cover of Canadian Arabian News magazine depicting a stallion named Triple A Sabar.

During this period she entered and won the Toronto (Ontario, Canada) Library competition and received a medallion for Outstanding Artistic Achievement.
from the Mayor of East York, a borough of Toronto.

Concerned by the rapid disappearance and number shrinkage of endangered species, and in particularly those of the big cats, she started to paint and draw them, donating ten percent of her earnings to the World Wildlife Fund.

Her concern for the environment and all that live within it has urged her into works that often have an environmental message in them.

"With each of my paintings I endeavour to move people emotionally. Hopefully that emotion will motivate them to safeguard and improve their own environment. Everyone needs to be brought to an understanding that to protect their own personal environment they must first protect those of our endangered species.
Man is the only one who is actually actively destroying his own environment on this planet as we plunder our natural resources and sacrifice our wildlife. Ultimately – you reap what you sow - so let’s all work towards a single goal - for all of us to survive in abundance!"

Jeannette is accomplished in watercolour, coloured pencils, oils, photography and scratchboard techniques. More recently, she has been working in acrylics, which have become a new passion for her.

"I started working in coloured pencils before it was "fashionable" or accepted. Now of course it is a fully accepted medium. I love them because it gives me the bounce and clarity of watercolour without trying to balance the water, paint and brushes when for example I am in a horse stable or out in the field. "

In the December of 2000 she worked on a public art project called the Community of Angeles with her friend and fellow artist Lura Schmiedeke.
Their design was picked out of 2000 submitted and was in the first 20 sponsored to be painted and completed in a matter of two months.It was one of the 400 angles to go on public display in downtown Los Angels from Feb 2001-May 2001. It was also one of eighty decorated angels to be auctioned off at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles with the proceeds going to Catholic Big Brothers and Volunteers of America.

Her work can be found in various private collections both in Europe, Canada and the USA. She is a member of both the Artists for A Better World International and Toronto Artists for a Better World.