Jenny deFouw Geuder is an artist and educator who holds both a Bachelor’s and a
Master’s degree in Art Education. A middle-school art teacher for 16 years, Jenny
has always loved spending time outdoors and creating art in her home studio. Her love
of nature, gardening, and hiking led her to birding—and soon enough to sketching the
subjects she discovered outside. She acquired a bird feeder and was charmed by its
many visitors. In no time, that one bird feeder grew to two, four, and now about
eight—along with multiple bird baths! As Jenny immersed herself in bird-watching, she
began to fine-tune her garden by introducing native plants that benefited birds and other
wildlife.
Jenny then began to paint her backyard finds—everything from leaves and flowers to
birds—and it became one of her favorite pastimes. She found herself constantly
learning more about the subjects of her paintings, and she recorded her notes and
observations, leading naturally to the publication of her first book Drawn to Birds: A
Naturalist’s Sketchbook—coming to a bookstore near you May 10, 2022.
Jenny’s skills and specialties include creating art with watercolors, oils, colored pencils,
graphite, charcoal, and even ceramic sculpture. She lives in the Michigan countryside
with her husband, two small boys, a dog, five cats, a hedgehog, chickens, and
occasionally two ponies. Jenny spends most of her summers at a rustic log cabin on a
lake in northern Michigan, where she enjoys hiking and fishing amid the natural beauty
of the area.