Lasting Impression
Impressionist painter and children’s book author Jennifer Hansen Rolli approaches each day with the intention to “make my time count.”
Jennifer Hansen Rolli came of age in Bucks County with limitless opportunities to create and explore. Two outsized forces compelled her to unleash her inner artist: her parents, both of whom were creatives; and the landscapes, skies, and other natural resources surrounding her Yardley home.
Today Rolli is considered a modern-day flagbearer of Bucks County Impressionism. When Herman Silverman, the Bucks County entrepreneur and ardent supporter of the arts, opened his eponymous Buckingham gallery in 2011, he chose her as one of the founding four artists, along with Joseph Barrett, Myles Cavanaugh, and Alan Fetterman.
Rolli, a graduate of Pennsbury High School and Kutztown University, paints in her Newtown studio every weekday, at least four hours per day. Her subjects include landscapes and streetscapes, florals, and portraits of intimate moments in everyday American life. She feels a particular kinship with William Langson Lathrop, considered the founder of the Pennsylvania Impressionist movement, as well as his contemporaries Fern Coppedge and Edward Redfield.
Rolli is also an accomplished author. So far she has written and illustrated three books—Claudia & Moth, Just for Me, and Just One More, each published by Penguin Random House—and illustrated How to Trick the Tooth Fairy, a Simon & Schuster book penned by Erin Danielle Russell.
Prior to launching her career as a working artist, Rolli spent many years building her own graphic-design business. She continues to put her entrepreneurial instincts and graphic-design skills to good use. For example, earlier this year she started a new business venture, using her art to beautify everyday products such as smartphone cases, phone stands, and airpod cases.
Q&A
You came from an artistic family. Tell me about the ways you were encouraged to create as a child.
My older sisters and brothers came to me to draw things for their book reports and projects, and I always loved going into art class. I was very close with my dad, and he recognized that in me. One day he brought home a nice adult painter’s box filled with oils and brushes … and he took me out to paint en plein air when he could. He taught me. He showed me how to mix burnt sienna with ultramarine blue and told me, “Now that you know how to do that, you don’t need black.” We just did our thing. I was laying the paint on thick, and I didn’t even know who Monet was at the time. I was experimenting with myself.
You came from an artistic family. Tell me about the ways you were encouraged to create as a child.
My older sisters and brothers came to me to draw things for their book reports and projects, and I always loved going into art class. I was very close with my dad, and he recognized that in me. One day he brought home a nice adult painter’s box filled with oils and brushes … and he took me out to paint en plein air when he could. He taught me. He showed me how to mix burnt sienna with ultramarine blue and told me, “Now that you know how to do that, you don’t need black.” We just did our thing. I was laying the paint on thick, and I didn’t even know who Monet was at the time. I was experimenting with myself.
I sense some nostalgia in your work—old farmhouses and empty fields, children climbing trees and playing on swings, things I loved to do when I was a kid. What ideas or feelings do you hope to communicate through your work?
Growing up, my dad was an outdoorsman who took us canoeing up and down the [Delaware] River and camping up north. Doing all those things while I was growing up made me love my childhood here. You see a lot of that in my work; I don’t do it with an awareness, but it must be my taste. I am attracted to the way light plays on whatever it is I’m painting. It could be a flower in a vase, a flower in a field, a turtle on a rock, or the light in the sky between tree branches. … I don’t want to bring nostalgia to people, but I want them to get sucked into a painting.
You’ve created a lot of beautiful artwork over the years. You’ve written and illustrated children’s books. You’ve run a successful business. What’s next for you?
I feel that every eight to 10 years I’m looking to change things up. Even as a painter things can become monotonous. It’s work, and it can really frustrate you. Sometimes your days are wasted; I can walk out of [my studio] and be further behind than when I came in in the morning. That’s a tough pill to swallow, but it’s part of the process. I love what I do, and I especially love it when my painting is done. …I’m always looking to shake things up. Life is getting shorter and shorter, and I want to make my time count. Every day I want to suck it all in and make the most of it. I want the days to be memorable somehow, in some way. Time with children, friends, and family is so much more important than any work, but for the work I’m doing I want to make it count.
Growing up, my dad was an outdoorsman who took us canoeing up and down the [Delaware] River and camping up north. Doing all those things while I was growing up made me love my childhood here. You see a lot of that in my work; I don’t do it with an awareness, but it must be my taste. I am attracted to the way light plays on whatever it is I’m painting. It could be a flower in a vase, a flower in a field, a turtle on a rock, or the light in the sky between tree branches. … I don’t want to bring nostalgia to people, but I want them to get sucked into a painting.
You’ve created a lot of beautiful artwork over the years. You’ve written and illustrated children’s books. You’ve run a successful business. What’s next for you?
I feel that every eight to 10 years I’m looking to change things up. Even as a painter things can become monotonous. It’s work, and it can really frustrate you. Sometimes your days are wasted; I can walk out of [my studio] and be further behind than when I came in in the morning. That’s a tough pill to swallow, but it’s part of the process. I love what I do, and I especially love it when my painting is done. …I’m always looking to shake things up. Life is getting shorter and shorter, and I want to make my time count. Every day I want to suck it all in and make the most of it. I want the days to be memorable somehow, in some way. Time with children, friends, and family is so much more important than any work, but for the work I’m doing I want to make it count.
Photo by Rachel Santos, courtesy of Jennifer Hansen Rolli
Published (and copyrighted) in Suburban Life, August 2025.
