A sheepshead fish flashing its buck-toothed grin with the printed message reminding everyone to “brush your teeth”; two alligators with fishing poles are fishing in a pond near a sunken cabin cruiser, and a grouper closes in on a fishing lure while a pinfish nicknamed “Grouper Candy” watches.
These acrylic creations and other “whimsical” canvas paintings are the work of Hudson artist Nancy Welling, whose boundless sense of wonder and humor is on full display in her artwork.
Mostly retired from the medical field, Welling, who with her husband share a love of the Gulf and all things aquatic, picked up a brush after encouragement from her artistic sister during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her style and her often comical creations were driven by a desire to be different. In that, most would agree she has succeeded.
“There are so many painters out there, I wanted to do paintings that are different and unique,” she said, sitting amidst several of the works she currently has listed on Facebook Marketplace, her primary sales channel. “I choose interesting frames and sometimes even paint them, too.”
Almost everything Welling paints has a nautical or water theme, reflecting her lifelong attachment to boats, water and nature.
“We used to have a boat and go out all the time fishing,” she said, adding that with the boat sold a while back she taps into her fondest memories and combines them with the quirky side of her nature to come up with her ideas. “I stick with the nautical realm — boats, fish, waterbirds, crabs; It’s really beautiful here (on the Nature Coast) and I want to show that.”
While all ideas for subjects are hers, she often gets the spark by browsing art on Pinterest online, which she develops into imagery that she combines with a message, sometimes written as a caption in the painting itself, and others written on the back.
“They are sayings, thoughts or the back-story behind the painting,” she said.
Her patrons are people in the area who are looking for something “completely unique and different,” Welling said, adding that a buyer was on her way to pick up a painting as she spoke.
Erin Knebel, also of Hudson, arrived a little later to claim a painting that depicts a strange half-great egret and half-flying fish creature preparing for takeoff on a starlit beach. As a conversation starter, it will be hard to top.
“I love to support local artists,” said Knebel, who added that she wanted a unique painting for a redecorating project. “I could go to a store, but those paintings aren’t special; local art is so important to the community.”
Welling said her most expensive paintings sell for $95, and she accepts commissions. And while she’s best known for whimsical works, she has done many realistic landscapes, waterfront scenes, fish studies, ships and boats underway, it’s just that she likes tickling the fancy of buyers looking for something fun and fanciful.
“I don’t do portraits though, she said.
So what will be the subject of her next work?
“Who knows,” she responded, her eyes upturned as if she were trying to conjure up something wild and wonderful. “It could be almost anything.”
