Kushner moved to Southern California in 1947. Before that she had lived and taught in New York City where she earned a masters degree at Columbia University Teachers’ College. She also studied at the Art Students’ League with Reginald Marsh. Prior to New York she had lived and studied in Kansas City, Missouri where she painted studies in watercolor of local buildings. Her earliest California pieces were freely painted watercolors continuing her Kansas City work—but with a new vigor and panache.

She studied with James Couper Wright, a leading West Coast watercolorist who taught a group in one of the parks. Dorothy followed his lead with the use of larger formats, stronger colors, bold black lines, and more dynamic compositions. Although she lived in the suburbs, she favored grittier nearby locales such as oil wells, gravel pits and other industrial locations. She also painted picturesque barns and old rural California buildings, which were rapidly disappearing due to development, and the San Gabriel Mountains, which were visible outside her Altadena studio windows.