While growing up in Maryland, Karen's family traveled often to visit family in rural Virginia. Countless trips to Grandad's farm created a strong familial connection to Virginia's Shenandoah Valley and the Blue Ridge Mountains. Her father hailed from Virginia's Northern Neck and spent a great deal of time hunting, fishing and boating with the family in and around the Chesapeake Bay. Karen comes quite naturally by her special love of farm life and animals, old barns, the mountains, and all things shore! She loves the outdoors, reading good books, and trying new things. Karen has also spent time living in Virginia, Oregon, and Indiana prior to coming back to her roots to settle on Maryland's Eastern Shore. She likes nothing better than to make others smile when they make a connection with her art! ?Karen has worked in various drawing media as well as watercolor and acrylic before deciding her true love is oils. She's had a life-long love of creating and aside from several years of drawing in high school, has been largely self-taught up through beginning as an oil painter and desiring to take her art to new levels. She is constantly learning as an artist and has gained valuable insight and experience through workshop experiences with various master artists, as well as in lectures, demos, and facilitated field painting with many of the world's top plein air painters as a two-time Plein Air Convention and Expo alumnus. Plein air painting brings a unique knowledge of life and light that she loves being able to bring into her studio pieces as well. A former classroom teacher, Karen loves teaching as much as she does painting. Her patience and desire to help artists of all ages, coupled with many years of teaching experience, shows in her instruction.
