Local artist Jackie Dummer uses watercolors to immortalize special places, whether they are barns, churches, homes or any other place that is near and dear to people’s hearts. She enjoys turnings clients’ favorite spots on Earth into timeless works of art. Artwork: Jackie Dummer
Edina artist paints house portraits using watercolor, making memories last a lifetime.
For an Edina artist, making something meaningful for others fills her bucket. Jackie Dummer uses her talent and passion to paint home portraits, preserving memories for people to last a lifetime.
“After my kids were grown and I had more time on my hands, I wanted to get back to my art, and I’m all about making something for someone,” Dummer says. She started with pet portraits and now does cabins, churches and landscapes—anything meaningful that holds a special story in someone’s life. “The first house I did was the home I grew up in, in Ames, Iowa,” she says. “It was an old Tudor-style home, and I just loved it.”
With a background in graphic design and a love of using watercolors, Dummer says homes hold important chapters in people’s lives. She’s painted first homes, places where people have met, churches that have been the site of weddings or baptisms and more. “Every structure is so deeply meaningful. Once you paint something, it evokes memories and thoughts about what went on underneath those roofs,” she says.
To paint a structure, Dummer requires several photographs (if possible) of the site and talks to her clients about details beyond what the camera may have captured. She says some clients want flowers that once grew near a home or a dog on the front porch.
Stephanie Schoening of Edina is a longtime client and friend of Dummer’s. She credited Dummer’s attention to detail as being one of the main reasons she loves her work and often gifts the paintings to family. “She painted the church where my grandchild’s baptism took place. The church has a clock on it, and she put the time of the baptism on the clock,” Schoening says. “We had her do the baptism invitations using that portrait. That one has been the most special to me.”
Dummer says her portraits typically are sized 5×7, 8×10 or 11×14 inches, which are the easiest to frame. She uses her design background to turn her portraits into other keepsakes like invitations or ornaments.
The artist has a layered approach to her work, beginning with pencil sketches to capture small details like bricks and rocks. After sketching, she goes over the pencil with ink. She then builds depth with watercolor to bring the piece to life. The results often move clients to tears, which Dummer jokes is a good thing because that means her work touches them.
“When my work is meaningful to people, that means everything to me,” she says. “I go right into it as if I’m part of their story.”
For Dummer, painting homes and special places is more than art. It’s a unique way to preserve a place into a keepsake that can be enjoyed for generations.
Jackie Dummer
Instagram: @jackie.dummer
