“I painted portraits for several years but then at a national portrait conference, I heard Everett Raymond Kinstler say that if you want to be a better portrait painter, get out and paint the landscape from life. So I began going out West to study with landscape artists whose work I really loved. Well, I fell in love with the West and with landscape painting in general.”

Elaine McCardel is a member of Oil Painters of America, Great Lakes Plein Air Painters, Great Lakes Pastel Society, Portrait Society of America and the Portrait Society of Atlanta. She has studied with Scott Christensen, Matt Smith, Carolyn Anderson, and Daniel Greene.