Carol began creating artwork as soon as she was old enough to hold a crayon and started painting in oils with the Findlay (Ohio) Art League at age ten. You can see the first home portrait she painted at that age in her studio! She earned her degree in Fine Arts from Indiana University in Bloomington and then spent years selling and marketing graphic arts technology for the printing industry.

That knowledge informs her work today. For example, Abbott's acrylic paintings usually begin with a carefully selected color that she paints over using imprimatura. Her preferred medium is acrylics because they provide the benefits of watercolor’s transparency with the opacity of oils for making changes. This allows Carol to paint instinctively and non-analytically without envisioning how a piece will look when completed. Her paintings are sometimes finished in oils and she also still paints using watercolors.

People often say "they look happy" or "I like the happy colors" when seeing Carol's work. She sees art as a language that communicates between people beyond words and even the boundaries of a lifetime.