Karen Welsh is a contemporary, modern landscape painter based in Salisbury, Wiltshire.

Karen’s career began as a sign writer and commercial artist beginning with an apprenticeship in her father’s business 1980 at 18 years old. As well as an excellent sign writer Paul Welsh, Karen’s father, was also an artist interested in life drawing and the landscape. The working day was often interrupted with an excursion into the countryside to paint the landscape or a life drawing session. This is where the love for landscape painting was established.

1982 after completing her apprenticeship, Karen set up her own business producing bespoke signs and pictorial art in the traditional way. The art of colour mixing and painting large scale has influenced her painting today.
28 years of forced modernisation in the sign industry had taken her away from her roots. Creating and painting using the brush had become a rarity.
2008 was the start of the change to get back to pure painting. Karen began to paint on canvas full-time. Moving away from her business gave her the opportunity to relocate wanting a more peaceful life in the country.

Passing through Wiltshire towards the West Country for her new home saw Karen falling for the large open spaces with big skies, chalk hills and wide valleys covered with hardy grasslands, she found the landscape surrounding Salisbury Plain unique and special. This place provided the inspiration she needed to work towards making the paintings she creates today.

Finding this way of painting has found Karen drawn to areas such as the moors of Devon and Cornwall, the Dales and the other beautiful landscapes of Britain.