Judy Walters’ impressionistic oil paintings illuminate her highly developed sense of place, light and scale. With a tendency to think big, her paintings of majestic skies, endless marshes and sparkling beaches speak to her creative sensibilities. As demand for her works have grown, so have her canvases. Her recent large-scale paintings range from 4-by-6 feet to
8-by-9 feet.

With a home studio on Daniel Island, Walters often paints en plein air from her open-air studio situated aboard her boat. She and her husband, Jack, spend much time cruising the Atlantic seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico. She takes inspiration and reference photos from the coastlines and marshes she explores along the way.

Although her expansive ambitions in art and life sprang from childhood, her upbringing occurred in a much more intimate scale—as a coal miner’s daughter from Pikeville, Kentucky. Walters and her siblings were raised on a working farm with loving parents. There she learned the value of family togetherness and appreciation for every small blessing and beautiful treasure from the land.

Today, Walters applies her fond memories to her artistic achievement. “In my art career, I am reminded about what I learned from my mother, that something lovely can always be created simply and with humble hands. As an artist, all I need is paint and my deep love of a subject,” she says.

The common thread between her childhood and her career is a deep love of art making. Walters studied at the Florence Academy of Art and refined her skills through workshops with national and international artists. Her travels through countries in Asia, Europe and Africa honed her eye for picturesque landscapes. Those travels—specifically in Greece, France and Italy—remain her favorite art adventures. She is particularly drawn to impressionism, capturing everyday rural life and landscapes, such as those found in the works of Millet and Corot.

Walters’ artistic style is characterized by vibrant hues applied with loose, expressive brushstrokes. Her paintings mostly tell stories about nature’s ever-changing light patterns and the lovely ways atmospheric light gives form to land and water. Her paintings also celebrate the Lowcountry, where she captures subjects whose lives are shaped by both nature and historic roots.

Walters is a sought-after gallery and commissions artist. Viewing art making as a collaborative process, she works with collectors on subject, palette colors and eventual placement of the artwork. Walters shows her work at the Charleston Artist Guild Gallery in Charleston and Perspective Gallery in Mount Pleasant.