When Judy arrived in England in her early twenties she quickly realised that she wanted to paint seriously and it was the landscape that became her first primary subject. This led to her eyes being opened to the great artists in the landscape tradition. Notably Turner and Constable, especially his small oil studies and, such French painters as Monet, Cezanne, Courbet, Corot and Daubigny.

Later as her early language developed and her own expressive and painterly language emerged, she found in American and European expressionism, painters such as De Kooning, Diebenkorn, Corinth, Auerbach and De Stael. All these and more were influential in her early years.