Jan studied design at the University of California at Davis (plus a summer of studying art history in Guadalajara, Mexico) before transferring to receive her degree in sociology from Arizona State University. After graduation, she spent thirteen years as a probation officer and youth supervisor at the Juvenile Court Center in Phoenix. During that time, she pursued her artwork by studying privately with a number of instructors, including Mary DeLoyht-Arendt and William Schimmel, Jr. Painting has been her full-time career since 1987.

 

Jan has received numerous awards for her work in juried exhibitions. Community activities include speaking and/or demonstrating at various arts organizations, including the Arizona Artists Guild. She has also served as a judge or juror for numerous local arts groups and shows including the Tempe Festival of the Arts and the Arizona Artists Guild. Galleries in Laguna Beach, Sedona, Santa Fe, Scottsdale, Wickenburg, and Palm Desert have represented her. She exhibited in The Scottsdale Celebration of Fine Arts for seventeen of its first nineteen years. 

Her work is currently published and marketed in prints by Image Conscious. Art Licensing Properties, LLC licenses her work as puzzles, tapestries, and notecards. Her art has appeared in Décor, Arizona Foothills, and Phoenix Home and Gardens magazines. She has been interviewed for the cable television program "House and Home" with Jan d"Artri and for the pilot of "The Style File", as well as the radio station "The Peak." at 98.7 FM. MBNA America Bank purchased over 50 of her paintings before being acquired by Bank of America in 2005.  Other corporate collectors include Salt River Project, UDC Homes, and Camelback Inn.

A lifelong fascination with shapes, especially with those made by shadows, is apparent in most of Jan McLaughlin’s oil paintings. Her unique style of realism, with its soft unfocused quality, make her paintings instantly recognizable as her own.