In the halcyon days, she would row a boat across the lake, anchor in an inlet and paint small watercolor landscapes.

These days contributed largely to her interest in art, and specifically, in landscapes which recur in various forms during her painting career.

"[3] Harwood’s progression toward Hard-edge painting first developed while pursuing her BFA at Syracuse University in the 1950s, where a focus on Abstract Expressionism, classicism, and balance led to her trademark style.

[2] Harwood’s early paintings consisted of rigid, flat planes of color and interlocking forms – pure abstraction with no representational content.

[5] Times art critic Christopher Knight, in reviewing a 2003 retrospective of her work at NoHo Modern in North Hollywood, said, "Following the trajectory of these paintings is rather like watching tectonic plates begin to shift, break apart and slowly bend beneath unseen forces of stoppable pressure – rather like the unfolding decade of the 1960s itself.

Most significantly in “California Hard Edge Painting” and Dave Hickey’s 2004 homage to “The Los Angeles School” exhibited at Otis College of Art and Design.