When Kelly Cottingham moved to the area in 2013, she found the kind of everyday setting that feels like a small luxury: a place where you can step outside and hear quiet, yet still reach a city with an easy drive. “It’s a good mix of rural and urban,” she says—an in‑between landscape that changes by the hour as weather, season, and light roll through.

     That sensitivity to light was first shaped behind a camera. Cottingham spent about a decade working as a photographer, always chasing a compelling composition. Over time, she started craving a different kind of making—one that was slower, messier, and less tethered to a screen. Oil painting delivered all of it. “I was hooked almost immediately,” she says. What keeps her coming back is the tactile pleasure of paint and the steady mental challenge: each canvas is a puzzle to solve, one brushstroke at a time.

     Her process often begins in a familiar place—photography—but ends somewhere entirely analog. Cottingham snaps reference images as she goes about her day, collecting interesting angles and lighting. Back in the studio, she refines the idea with a pencil sketch, then commits to oils for the final piece. The result isn’t a copy of a photo so much as a translation: soft edges become decisive marks, shadows shift, and color gets to be playful.

     Ask what she paints and she’ll tell you it’s less about the subject than the arrangement. Even the ordinary can feel electric in the right light, and she likes the freedom of variety—landscapes, portraits, still life, whatever offers a strong composition. Lately, she’s been leaning into plein air work, taking her paints outdoors to work from life. En plein air is the act of painting outdoors, contrasting with studio painting or academic rules. No matter what’s in front of her, she tries to keep the paint alive: expressive brushwork, constant color experiments, and an attitude that making art should feel—at least some of the time—like fun.

That sense of play shows up clearly in one of her most memorable projects: two quirky paintings of her dogs. In one, a pair of hands frames her pup’s face like makeshift eyeglasses; in the other, a hand forms a mustache under a nose. “They make me smile every time I see them,” she says—proof that fine art can be both skillful and delightfully unserious.

     While painting can be solitary, Cottingham has found community through the Hershey Area Art Association (HAAA). She credits the group with helping her grow by offering classes and workshops, monthly lectures from local artists, and several shows each year. For anyone building a creative practice—especially one that requires long stretches alone with your thoughts—having a place to share work, learn, and stay inspired can be the difference between dabbling and really developing.

     Ultimately, she hopes the joy of the creative process comes through in the finished work—and that viewers can feel a little of the pleasure she finds in noticing, composing, and translating light. If you’d like to see her paintings in person, Cottingham currently has original work available at Salt Gallery in Hershey. More pieces and information can be found at www.kellycottingham.com/painting.