Art is how I translate my experiences into paintings. When stepping into the organic world of nature what I experience is an immediate positive uplift. My breathing deepens, stresses fall away and I feel a calming, centering and humbling pleasure. It happens every single time and my whole being laps it up. This experience has given me an appreciation and reverence for nature and that is what I want to capture and expose. I use my camera and Adobe Photoshop to extensively study my subjects and plan my piece. Only when it is well prepared will I then choose my paints, usually oil or acrylic and begin to execute it. I employ painting styles from high realism to highly textured and painterly, whatever I think will convey my experience of each scene and subject most effectively. When you look at my paintings you will see that I like strong. Strong shapes, compositions, colors and values. This reflects both my personality and the powerful experiences with nature that my paintings portray.

Biography
Carol McArdle's oil and acrylic paintings of Natural Florida are bold and powerful. They re-tell the stories of the pleasure and respect she feels and the centering experiences she has when in the midst of the organic world of nature.

In a very short time since starting this series (2006) she has been invited to have many solo exhibits and her paintings have been winning awards and are being shown and collected around the USA. Some select highlights include her art being juried into the finals of the 2008 International Guild of Realism Annual Juried Exhibition; the 2009 Birds in Art at the Leigh Yawkey Woodsen Museum; the 2009 Paint America Top 200 and the 2009 Paint the Parks Top 100 which went on tour for a year around the USA . She was chosen to be the 2008 Resident Artist of Delnor Wiggins State Park, Naples FL.