Jeanne B. de Sainte Marie Illustrator Watercolor Artist 🐝

Season 2, Episode 5  Jeanne B. de Sainte Marie Illustrator Watercolor Artist 🐝 

Recorded: 4/16/26

Released: 5/27/26

Length: 23 Minutes

Welcome to Shaping Our Story with host Louise Krikorian—where inspiring leaders share their passion, purpose, and perseverance to help you thrive. 

Louise Krikorian talks with Jeanne B. de Sainte Marie, an award-winning Franco American artist, author, illustrator, and designer whose creative work spans watercolor painting, animation, children’s books, magazines, and exhibitions. Louise highlights Jeanne’s themes of family, nature, and resilience, noting her book, which was adapted as an app, A Words A Bird and her artistic journey from her family’s French roots to Michigan and back to France.

Jeanne reflects on her background, including studying at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and meeting her husband while working in automotive design in France. Jeanne reveals her underlying reasons for a lifelong passion for art and storytelling.

🔥 What You’ll Learn in This Episode 

·       How creativity and perseverance can shape a lifelong artistic career. 

·       Jeanne B. de Sainte Marie’s journey from studying art in Paris to working internationally as an illustrator, designer, and author. 

·       The importance of storytelling, imagination, and nature in children’s literature and visual art. 

·       How cultural experiences in France and the United States influenced Jeanne's creative voice. 

·       Insights into balancing professional design work with personal artistic passion. 

·       The value of resilience, reinvention, and following one’s purpose through different stages of life. 

·       How art can connect family, memory, and emotional expression across generations.

👍 If this inspired you 

Please like, comment, and share to help others build meaningful connections and live with purpose. 

💻 LEARN MORE about our guest 

·       Website www.jeannedesaintemarie.com

·       Instagram @justjeanneb

·       Facebook @justjeanneb

·       YouTube: Illustrations of Jeanne de Sainte Marie

https://youtu.be/mxbTdVJ4kH4?si=eeJEQ1be7ro4y824

·       Library-arts.org: profile

https://literary-arts.org/bio/jeanne-b-de-sainte-marie/

·       School Library Journal

https://www.slj.com/story/best-of-apps-enhanced-books-september-2013

💡ABOUT US 

On Shaping Our Story, inspiring leaders share lessons in passion, purpose and perseverance. Real people. Real stories. Real strategies to help you thrive. Hosted by Louise Krikorian, award-winning storyteller, educator, and filmmaker, this podcast brings you powerful insights from inspiring voices across industries. #entrepreneur #entrepreneurship #businesslessons #businessleadership ##founders #founderstories #founderstory #angeladuckworth #grit #kellycorrigan #melrobbins #jeffberman #simonsinek #leadership #jeannebdesaintemarie #awordsabird #FrancoAmerican #illustrator #watercolor #children’sbookauthor

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🎙️ The Mel Robbins Podcast How to Create a Successful Mindset: The Science of Passion and Perseverance, Oct 13, 2025 https://youtu.be/rmW3Afu9npY?si=T9mdbxzI9TGxbtcu 

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ℹ️  Information

◽️ Creator, Producer, Host: Louise A Krikorian 

◽️ Editor: Patrick McMullen 

◽️ Years Active: 2025 

◽️ Episodes: 15

◽️ Rating: Clean 

◽️ Hosted with Buzzsprout www.buzzsprout.com 

◽️ Available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify

◽️ Available on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@LouiseKrikorian

Transcript

Shaping Our Story

Season 2 Episode 5 Jeanne B. de Sainte Marie Illustrator Watercolor Artist 🐝

Transcript

Louise Krikorian: Hi, I'm Louise Krikorian, and this is Shaping Our Story where I talk with exemplary leaders about their passion, purpose, and perseverance to encourage you to thrive. Today our guest, Jeanne B. de Sainte Marie, a Franco American artist and author illustrator based in France, has been praised for her Caldecott Award quality watercolor paintings and animation drawings in the app, A Words a Bird. Her talent comes from her passion for nature, illustration, and creative expression, along with her insights on perseverance, artistic purpose, and the courage to let go from children's books, magazines, and exhibitions across the US and Europe, Jeanne de Sainte Marie reveals how childhood influences, family and the natural world shaped her signature style and enduring creative voice. Well, hello Jeanne B. de Saint Marie. Thank you so much for meeting me here. All the way from Provence, France.

 Jeanne de Saint Marie: Thank you, Louise. I'm happy to be here.

Louise: Yes, it's been a while since we've met. We met in 2003 in Paris. We were both at a workshop for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators International. And um, I was really just so happy to meet you there and learn about your books. I still have some of your books here with me. Um, I've been wanting to do this for quite some time, so, um, I know that you were born in the United States, but I met you in Paris when you were living there because you married, uh, a Frenchman, but you also have a background, um, of your ancestors. Were from, were our French Canadian

Jeanne: Exactly.

Louise: Yes. But you were born in, uh, Michigan, in the Great Lakes region, and you, um, got your fine arts degree from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Mm-hmm. But then you completed your studies at a school in Paris. What's the name of that school?

Jeanne: It's called the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs is how they,

Louise: okay.

Jeanne: Yeah, it's also called uh, E-N-S-A-D for short.

Louise: Alright. And then you had a career in automotive color and materials design both in the United States and in Europe. But you decided to settle in France.

Jeanne: That's right, yes. I, that I met my husband when I was doing, uh, automotive design in France. Because I had been sent over to work in France from Detroit.

Louise: Okay. Then you have, um, a, a book that's called A Words A Bird, which the School Library Journal selected to create an app, which is you illustrated the animation drawings. And then for that work, um, that won the best of 2013 list and highlighted as the Caldecott Award quality.

Jeanne: Yes, exactly. The, it was a, a collection of poetry written by Orel Protopopescu, who is an American author and poet, and it was originally conceived as an app. We would love someday to make a, a physical paper book out of it, but for the moment it is only been published as an app. Which is unfortunately no longer on the app store, but did receive a lot of recognition for this project. It was done with a, a French startup in Paris and, uh, represented hours and hours of animation work and mm-hmm.

Louise: And it's beautiful and I will include the link to that. In the show notes.

Jeanne: Thank you. Mm-hmm.

Louise: But your work is also exhibited and published, um, both on both sides of the Atlantic, so in the US and then also through in Europe. And, um, you're in the collection of the Bibliothèque Forney in Paris, Art and Graphic Design Library and the Mazza Museum at the University of Findlay in Ohio. And you're also currently exhibiting your paintings in Provence, France, which is where you are right now in your studio. So of all of these pursuits, what would you say is your passion or greatest interest?

Jeanne: Uh, my passion is, um, that I have a lifelong attachment to the natural world and to the small formative moments that shape creative vision.

Jeanne: I've been thinking a lot about this lately because my mother died recently, January, and I remember the hours I spent in childhood watching her tend her garden, and I think all that time I spent watching her, I was learning without knowing Pat about patients care, subtle relationships between warm color and light  Also, picture poetry and picture books played an equally important role because my mother used to read to me a lot, um, in parti, and I get, I think that this opened a path towards seeing landscape, uh, as an emotional space as well as a physical space. Uh, she used to read to me a lot from a child's garden of verses and I memorized by heart the poem, my shadow.

Jeanne: And to this day, I love shadows and my favorite time of day is when the shadows are long. And also all my subject matter came from my mother. And I think this. Love of gardens because my favorite subject matter are flowers, trees, gardens, landscapes, and, um, about gardening. I think it requires an aesthetic eye and, uh, patience and a lot of care.

Jeanne: But I must say that I'm not passionate about garden as much as I love gardens, but I am passionate about drawing and painting.

Louise: Mm-hmm. Well, first I want to say I'm so sorry about your mom's and your loss. Thank you. Yeah. So you started drawing and illustrating when you were young. Mm-hmm. Um, who would you say was the first person who inspired you?

Jeanne: I think it was probably my father, because my father loved to make things and I love to make things. My father, uh, worked at Chrysler Corporation as an engineer in the design department doing the technical development for materials. And, but he, um, he built the first house that our family ever lived in. Uh, it wouldn't structure. He sent away for the plan and the instructions from the magazine. Popular Mechanics. Once they had a, 

Louise: On my gosh.

Jeanne: A number of of issue about, um, building a house, building houses. And then he started to build furniture. And then later on he built, he bought a lei and he made beautiful bowls. He made wooden thing, toys for our children. And um, he also, my father also. When I was in grade school, took me to, to the studio of a man he worked with who was a designer or a stylist at the time they call him. Mm-hmm. He also, his name was Dudley Smart, and Dudley Smart, gave me my first paintbrushes and a box of pastels.

Louise: Oh, my goodness.

Jeanne: And so that was important to me. But I think it really is about the fact that my father loved to make things and I, I used to like the samples he would bring home. I would cut them up and make dollhouses. I would make landscape architecture in the sandbox. I would, uh, I was always making things as a kid and drawing of course. And you can,

Louise: That's wonderful. What a beautiful environment. You're in your mother's garden, you're in nature, and then your father is nurturing this, you, you probably have it in your genes too, because it's part of your DNA is to, is to be artistic since your father. 

Jeanne: Yes, and I'm fortunate to have been encouraged by my parents too.

Louise: Yes, very much so. What would you say is your purpose with your work?

Jeanne: My purpose. Um, I would say it comes from a deeply felt sense of wonder about the world, uh, and also about admiration for the ingenuity of creative people, like, like architects, designers, crafts people, gardeners, um. I feel like my purpose is to, uh, this is gonna sound like a tall order, and I'm certainly not gonna ever do this by myself. I need help, but, um, bring beauty into the world and to, to find creative solutions to things.

Louise: Mm-hmm. Well, I love the creative solutions that you have behind you.

Jeanne: Thank you.

Louise: Those illustrations are beautiful. So I find it interesting that you went from drawing. I want to, in my mind, I'm imagining you drawing in the garden, but you go from nature to automotive design, although as you said that your father worked in automotive, but

Jeanne: mm-hmm.

Louise: Taking that, those two completely different environments, but then also. Working, working in corporate world, then working as an illustrator, working with children's books, working with authors, and then writing your own books, illustrating them, and then exhibiting your own illustrations. What would you say has been your biggest professional failure and what did you learn from it?

Jeanne: Well, first of all, about the variety of things I've done. Um. You know, for, I studied fine art and the automotive design was a sort of need to make money after I finished my studies. 

Louise: Mm-hmm. 

Jeanne: However, I did find once that I had this job in the design world, it was very interesting and I was working with color and fabrics and everything, and then when my children were young, I did not want to go to an office every day. And I started thinking about what I was really passionate about and I, I remembered I had this memory of my mother reading and the how much I love picture books, which then started the picture book thing. And, but I've always, always, um, even when I was working in the corporate world at night, I would do watercolors. I did a lot of silk screening too. I've done a lot of different things. But, um, back to the. The question, which was,

Louise: What was your biggest professional failure and what did you learn from it?

Jeanne: My biggest professional failure, I'd have to say, is when I was, um, I, I had a book project that I wrote. It was about, it took place in the Middle Ages, and I adore medieval manuscripts. And I had gone to a show at the Bibliothèque Nationale about 

Louise: mm-hmm. 

Jeanne: Uh, animal illustration, uh, during the Middle Ages. And I, so I had this project and I, I bought the catalog. I went to all kinds of bookstores. I went to the library. Tons and tons of documentation in my studio. And then I started to try and design the book in a way that was contemporary, but had a medieval feel for it.  And I just couldn't get away from the original material that I was so mesmerized by.

Louise: Mm-hmm.

Jeanne: And it kind of put me into a depression. 

Louise: Oh.

Jeanne: I, I, I just overboard. I mean, it wasn't literally depression, but I, I was just fed up and my studio was. You know, I had books everywhere and in my studio, and I ended up hiring someone who professionally goes to your house and organizes things. When she came into the studio, I had told her what I just told you, 

Louise: Right.

Jeanne: and she said, you have to get those books away from your

Louise: Yes.

Jeanne: Drawing it. It's blocking you, you know?

Louise: Yes.

Jeanne: And um. So I did that and then I said to myself, okay, I'm never gonna write or illustrate another book in my life. And I went off, I started doing yoga and I just put the project aside.

Louise: Good.

Jeanne: And the lesson from that obviously is learn to let go, you know, which I, I wasn't ready to do. 'cause I really wanted to finish this project and send it out to an editor, but it, it wasn't working and I needed to let go. And that was the lesson.

Louise: Hmm.

Jeanne: And

Louise: that's wonderful that that really speaks to perseverance and it's important to know when to let go.

Jeanne: Yes.

Louise: Really is. So that's, that's a wonderful lesson. Would you say that what you do comes easy to you or comes naturally?

Jeanne: Well, I would say it comes naturally because I've been doing it for, since childhood, but I would not say it's always easy. I think, you know, sometimes there's frustration or disappointment when you have, you know what you want to do, but it's not working out.And then also, I would say, and I think a lot of artists would tell you this, that the business side can be, 

Louise: Mm-mm.

Jeanne: but if you're doing it seriously, you have to deal with the business side of art. You know?

Louise: You do. Yeah. Do you give up when things are hard?

Jeanne: No. In fact, on the contrary, sometimes I hold on too long, uh, as I told you earlier. 

Louise: Right. So what keeps you ins, oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Jeanne: No, I, I do have a lot of perseverance, I think. Yeah.

Louise: That's important.

Jeanne: Hmm. But you have to learn to let go.

Louise: Yes, definitely. What, so what keeps you inspired?

Jeanne: I would say often it's chance encounters. Like if I'm on a hike, I'll see a beautiful flower or a majestic landscape, or I'll be looking through a magazine and see something that I really like. Or I'll go to an exhibit. I go to a lot of art shows and exhibits. 

Louise: Mm-hmm. 

Jeanne: Um, and when I see a new way of looking at something, that often inspires me. And then I think also there's some mysterious. Force that it sometimes comes from nowhere, you know, like the change of the seasons or,

Louise: That's wonderful. Just seeing the different colors and then of course the light in Provence.

Jeanne: Yes. It's very inspiring.

Louise: Mm-hmm. What are you hoping to do next? 

Jeanne: Uh, I ha I would like to develop my a more wet on wet watercolor technique. I do a lot of watercolors, but, uh, I, I wanna go more towards that sort of technique. And I also have an idea, and this is also after having. Gone through my mother's things after her death. I would like to do a series of large banners on fabric per perhaps using, um, collage elements like, like buttons. Maybe I'll do button trees or something. I don't know. But I, I have this, I have that in the back of my mind as another project that I would do parallel to continuing the watercolors.

Louise: Mm-hmm. What is your advice for someone starting their own journey?

Jeanne:Uh, I would say keep at it. Um, develop a consistent practice. Um, don't be afraid to venture out into the world and show your work, but also be prepared for a rejection. Um, you know, but you have to keep on course. Um. And, um, if someone gives you advice, you can either, uh, take that advice and learn from it, or if you are sure of what you're doing, just keep going. I, what comes to my mind is, um, the quote from Nietzsche, which is, let's see, I wrote it down. No one can build you the bridge, which you and only you must cross the river of life. 'cause I think there's many ways of going on a journey. 

Louise: Right. 

Jeanne: And creative journey is no different.

Louise: Mm-hmm. That's beautiful. Have you ever thought about drawing that?

Jeanne: Uh, no. But there you go. There's another project

Louise: because I see that visually. 'cause I'm looking at all the artwork that's on the wall behind you and to the side. Mm-hmm. And I, and I'm, so, I'm more inspired to think visually.

Jeanne: Mm-hmm.

Louise: And um. So I think of that what you just said in, in a sort of an art illustration form. You had also mentioned being consistent. So what do you do consistently every day to help you pursue your passion?

Jeanne: I go to, to my studio almost every day and do something. I also never go out without a sketchbook or my iPad. I've been drawing more on iPad, lately.

Louise: Oh.

Jeanne: Um, I mean, my art is just integrated into my life and I'm constantly open to these chance encounters or I seeing something, you know, I'll take a picture. I'll say, oh. I want to remember that for a project or something, so.

Louise: Mm-hmm. So what's, uh, what's the size of your, of the drawing pad that you have?

Jeanne: Oh, I have a rather large one. It's, um. Hmm.

Louise: And you carry it with you?

Jeanne: Well, I, if I, I often carry a small sketchbook. It depends on where I'm going, you know?

Louise: Okay.

Jeanne: If I'm going out to draw in the field or something, I actually don't like using the iPad outdoors that much because 

Louise: Mm-hmm. 

Jeanne: It, it, there's a reflection, you know, reflects 

Louise: Right. 

Jeanne: I don't know how David, David Hockney works a lot on an iPad and I don't know how he works outdoors with it. I work indoors with my iPad mostly. Or if, or sometimes I'll take it to a museum.

Louise: Mm-hmm.

Jeanne: But it's a big one, so it's rather, it's rather heavy. But I do design work on it too, so I wanted it to be fairly large. But I have different shapes of sketchbooks. I have small ones, you know, I and larger ones, and depends on what.

Louise: I would love to see some of the sketches, but I, uh, when I've looked online for your work, I've gone to your website and I've seen your beautiful artwork. Um, you have Instagram, Facebook, uh, YouTube, and, um, then you're, you also have a profile on the library arts.org. So your, your website is Jean, which is J-E-A-N-N-E- D-E, saint, S-A-I-N-T-E, marie, M-A-R-I-E dot com. Your Instagram is at just jean b. Which is at J-U-S-T-J-E-A-N-N-E-B. And your Facebook is the same address, right?

Jeanne: Mm-hmm.

Louise: And then the YouTube is, I will include those links in the, in the show notes.

Jeanne: Mm-hmm.

Louise: And, um, the library arts profile is also very beautiful. It starts with a black and white picture of you. Which is very nice.

Jeanne: I had set up, I, I wasn't aware, but I

Louise: had. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate this time.

Jeanne: Well, thank you for interviewing me and it's really wonderful to reconnect with you, as you said after all.

Louise: And I hope that I'll be able to come and visit you either in Paris as I did last time, or perhaps meet you in Provence in your studio.

Jeanne: Please do.

Louise: Okay. Thank you so much.

Jeanne: Thank you, Louise.

Louise: Mm-hmm. Bye

Jeanne: Bye.

Louise: Thank you for joining us at Shaping Our Story. And thanks to our guest, Jeanne B.de Sainte Marie, whose ability to consistently go to her art studio almost every day, never go out without a sketchbook or her iPad, and integrate art into everyday life by always being open to chance encounters of seeing something new is proof that she combines her passion with perseverance. If you enjoyed this week's episode, click on follow and leave a comment to inspire us or suggest a guest. And remember, if this 

YouTube: Illustrations of Jeanne de Sainte Marie

https://youtu.be/mxbTdVJ4kH4?si=eeJEQ1be7ro4y824

Library-arts.org: profile

https://literary-arts.org/bio/jeanne-b-de-sainte-marie/

Website www.jeannedesaintemarie.com

Instagram @justjeanneb

Facebook @justjeanneb

School Library Journal

https://www.slj.com/story/best-of-apps-enhanced-books-september-2013