University classes in drawing, painting and the fine arts followed, after which Dan packed away his paints and brushes – for more than three decades.

Not until the summer of 2007, following the death of his dad, did Dan dust off his old travel box and buy some fresh oils, and pick up a new plein air French easel.

He studyied plein air oil painting under Frederick Markham of The Art League in Alexandria, Virginia; and, within a year, was recognized in a competition open to artists nationwide who used Lukas oil colors, a competition sponsored by The World of Art.

Later in 2007, Dan started the McLaughlin Gallery online.  And since then, more than 150 McLaughlin paintings have sold. 

"Art." he believes, "is about convincing people - via the use of composition, color, contrast, temperature, and multiple vanishing points - that they see a perception of a familiar reality."

Many of Dan's Florida landscapes have been displayed in a U.S. Senate office in Washington, D.C., and others sold at various charity auctions, including that of former CNN talk-show host Larry King.

In 2014, a private art gallery in Jacksonville, Florida  - STELLERS GALLERY of San Marco - contacted Dan after seeing his work on Facebook, and began representing him on select pieces.

Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Dan was raised in the Tampa Bay area of West Central Florida.  

He worked more than 20 years in the field of political communications, after having spent nearly two decades with daily newspapers, in various posts from reporter to editor to newsroom manager. 

He also has been an adjunct university instructor of politics and the media at James Madison University in Virginia and at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

During his time in political communications, and since, he's traveled throughout Europe, China, Africa, the Middle East, Central and South America and the Caribbean, including to Cuba - not to mention spending some time once with the real cowboys who still ride the Florida Cracker Trail every year. 

It is the landscapes of old Florida that shaped Dan's artistic view and his contemporary impressionist style. 

He's been inspired and influenced by a handful of  Florida artists whose work also is displayed on this site.

These inspirational painters include the late A.E. "Bean" Backus, of Fort Pierce, along with other Florida masters and Indian River School painters such as James F. Hutchinson, Therese B. Knowles, Don D. Brown and Sam Vinikoff.