Carol Otten grew up in a small north
Florida town beside the broad expanse of the St. John's River. An
environment filled with moss-draped oaks, lush hammocks, and an
abundance of wild life was the perfect backdrop for poetry and
painting. A career homemaker, Carol dabbled in the arts, but it
wasn't until her children were grown that she began to put those
beautiful images of her youth into prose and her career as a writer
began. After publishing eight successful books in Women’s Fiction
(under the pen names Carol Card Otten, C.J. Card and Tena Carlyle,
the last with a writing partner), she was tired of writing
and was drawn again to the visual arts.
In 2005, Carol returned to
painting, honing rusty skills she had not used in more than twenty
years. Throughout the seventies, Carol had studied oil painting
under teacher Ella Ludwig, who had learned how to paint from Helen
Van Wyk, star of PBS-TV series “Welcome to My Studio” and author of
countless art books. Carol contributes everything she knows about
color today to both of these ladies and applies their techniques to
her own paintings.
Carol enjoys all manner of
subjects from stills to landscapes, painting in her studio from her
own photographs. To Carol - there is nothing as exciting as placing
that first stroke on a blank canvas, or that last fulfilling stroke
when your creation is ready to hang upon someone’s wall.