Darleen was raised in the Okanagan and Shuswap, where she was early influenced by the quaintness of her paternal grandmother's home on Richter Street in Kelowna. Backed by Mill Creek, her grandmother's tenderly-cared flower gardens, fruit trees, tidy porches and letterpane windows had a lasting influence on Darleen's sense of beauty.

She paints a variety of subjects, but concentrates mostly on landscape, still life, florals, and people, always enjoying the challenge of using new techniques and different approaches when painting. The strongest influence on her work continues to be the Impressionist painters.

"It's because I love the emotional impact of the Impressionist style that I have incorporated it in my own work," Darleen says. "Painting is about what I feel, more than what I see. I feel very connected to the things I paint and become totally engrossed in them. I especially love the colours and the brush strokes."