About

An Olympia pastel artist and recently retired academic Family Physician, Jan Carlton started painting in 2003 in order to pursue her lifelong passion for art. Initially a watercolor painter, she discovered soft pastels in 2015 and fell in love with the luminescent quality of dry pigment on paper. She favors a loose impressionistic style, focusing on vibrant colors and the effects of light. Her subjects are mostly landscapes and still- lifes. She is primarily self-taught
but has studied with incredible pastel artists such as Alain Picard, Barbara Jaenike and Teresa Saia. She has done several commissions and welcomes new challenges.
"Color helps to express light, not the physical phenomenon, but the only light that really exists, that is in the artist's brain." -- Henri Matisse