Jan V. Roy began her artistic career as a silk-screen artist in 1979, when she received her first commission from the Portland Symphony Orchestra. For 25 years she designed and printed over 40 posters for various cultural organizations including The Nature Conservancy, The New England Conservatory and the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, for whom she designed an annual poster from 1982 to 2000. Jan's highly successful Brooklyn Bridge Centennial poster crystallized attention on her talent, resulting in one-man shows in Rome, Italy and Paris, France. She also maintained a notecard company, Salt Marsh Graphics.

In 1999, Jan turned her attention to pastels and oil painting. While she still finds shape and color most important in her work, the new medium allows more freedom in dealing with subtleties of light and its nuance in varied settings. She is especially interested in painting landscapes of Portugal, Spain and Morocco, and the nearby Maine coast and salt marshes.