Original Painting by Val Carson.

Val Carson, a Contemporary California Impressionist enjoys traveling, capturing on canvas the world of light and color which inspires her. She began formal art education at age 11. At 16 she was painting in watercolors en plein air in the Arizona desert culminating in a group exhibition at the Phoenix Art Museum. Val supports the arts and has exhibited in numerous museums including The San Bernardino County Museum of Art 1997, San Luis Obispo Museum of Art 2002, 2004 & San Diego Maritime Museum 5th place 2002, Bowers Museum 2005 3rd place, 2007, 2010, Laguna Art Museum 2009 Invitational, Olaf Weighorst Museum, 2010, 2016, Womens Museum of CA 2014 Pasadena Museum of History 2014 and Oceanside Museum of Art 2017and the Santa Paula Museum of Art 2017. She has exhibited in galleries throughout the U.S. as well as internationally in Florence Italy and China. Val is a member of and has exhibited with California Art Club, Oil painters of America, Signature member American Impressionist Society, and signature member Women Artists of the West. She also shows with Laguna Plein Air Painters, and was a founding member of So. CA Plein Air Painters. She holds a BA in Art from the Universities of California as well as a Masters of Art equivalency conferred on her by Coast Community College. She has studied with many artists including George Strickland, John Budicin and Charles Sovak of Plein Air Painters of America, Calvin Liang, and Scott Christensen. Val has shared her knowledge and love of art with others by teaching art at all levels, including creating the curriculum for plein air workshops at Coast Community College, and Artists' Retreats in Tuscany 2001-2007 & Venice Italy 2010. Val believes learning to paint is learning to see and that all artists are works in progress themselves. When she paints large paintings in the studio she uses her plein air studies as a reference. Val hopes to convey to her collectors and viewers the joy each painting brings to her to paint it.