Joy McGinnis, a painter of portraits as well as still life and landscape, describes her style as impressionistic to realistic. Like the Plein Air painters, her focus is on light and color. Since color appears more vibrant in outdoor light, she likes to photograph her subjects in that light in a relaxed setting, where the subject appears unaware that they are being photographed. She refers to these images as portraitures, in contrast to a more posed head and shoulder portrait image.

In addition to having acquired a college degree in Art, Joy has attended workshops with nationally renowned artists such as Wolf Kahn, Daniel Greene, Elaine de Kooning, Kim English, Charles Sovek, and Burt Silverman. Most recently she traveled to Spain to study the paintings of Joaquin Sorolla and to paint in the Mediterranean light for which he was so famous.