For Rohnert Park artist Nancy Woods, there’s no greater payment than when someone compliments her oil paintings.

Although she graduated in 1989 from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, she’s spent her career in winery management and wine sales. She never imagined she’d one day be exhibiting her landscapes and pet portraits throughout Sonoma County.

Woods, 57, put her artwork on the back burner for more than 20 years. She’d worked in graphic design for a few years, but the exacting work left her with wrist pain so severe she often sought relief by placing her wrists on ice packs.

“I thought, ‘That’s not what I want in my life’,” she said.

She’d worked at a Sonoma winery while in college, enjoyed the wine industry and figured it could provide a steady income. Even though she designed winery brochures and advertisements, it wasn’t exactly a creative outlet.

Woods only began painting after a rotating art exhibit was featured at Balletto Vineyards in Santa Rosa, where she was working.

“I got to look at the beautiful artwork all day while I was working at the winery,” she said. “I was thinking, ‘Gosh, I wish I could do that.’ I didn’t think I could.”

She met one of the featured artists, Petaluma fine art oil painter Samantha Buller, whose artwork “looked so effortless,” Woods said. They hit it off (and discovered they’d attended the same art school), and Buller encouraged Woods to pursue painting.

“She had the talent and skills. Most people just need a little push, someone in their corner cheering them on and I am happy to do that for Nancy,” Buller said in an email. “I am so proud of her for having the self-discipline to pick up a brush again. It is a very daunting task to start something like that after passed time.”

Woods initially worked in acrylics, pulling out a set of 20-year-old “gloopy” paints that were “old and gross.” She soon switched to oils, with her work immediately “10 times better,” she said.

She’s been at it ever since, making time for painting whenever she can. Her artwork has been featured in several exhibits, and she posts photos of her paintings on Instagram and Facebook, where she has plenty of fans who offer support and encouragement.

“If it wasn’t for Facebook and Samantha, I wouldn’t be painting today,” Woods said. “I get excited when people love my work. That inspires me to keep going.”

She’s been painting in oils for about nine years. Her skills and style are still evolving, she said, but she’s encouraged with every compliment and every improvement she makes to her work.

“I don’t have a goal to be in an art gallery or to get rich from it,” she said. “I do it for me, really.”

Things came full circle for her in 2013, when she had her first solo art show – at Balletto Vineyards, where she’d been inspired to paint. The exhibit included about 10 of her paintings.

“It was great. It was my first (show) where I got to hang everything,” she said.

Since then her artwork – often of bucolic countryside scenes, vineyards, barns, still lifes of fruit, dogs of numerous breeds, cats of every color, grazing cows and sheep – has been displayed at several wineries and the Sebastopol Center for the Arts, Healdsburg Center for the Arts and Riverfront Gallery in Petaluma.

Although she first painted from photographs, using a spare bedroom as her studio, Woods recently began plein air painting, taking her easel and oils outdoors.

“I’m very social,” she said. “That’s why I don’t like painting in my studio. I get bored.”

She joined the Marin & Sonoma Plein Air Group on Facebook and enjoys painting where “people stop to talk to you.”

Woods began plein air painting more frequently during the coronavirus pandemic. She left her job at a Sonoma County winery early in March of 2020, just before the pandemic, to start an outbound wine sales business from home. The business was successful from the start, with multiple winery clients and “people who were home and answering their phones.” The work also allowed her greater freedom for painting.

She ordered supplies for plein air painting, which arrived as she was diagnosed a year ago with macular degeneration, an eye disease that can cause visual impairment. Her right eye is affected, with low-light conditions problematic.

“I have trouble seeing in the shade,” Woods said.

The condition hasn’t slowed her from painting. She returned earlier this month from a three-day painting workshop in Murphys in the Sierra Nevada foothills, one of two multi-day classes she’s taken with professional artists.

Woods studied commercial illustration in art school and earned an associate of arts degree in graphics from Santa Rosa Junior College. She wasn’t trained specifically as a fine artist.

“I had to teach myself how to paint,” she said.

Her first painting was of a friend’s dog. She’s painted countless animals since then, including a pink-nosed pig and a strutting rooster. A framed portrait of her own cat, Brady, hangs in her home, a gift she painted for her husband, Don Woods.

She painted the same goat twice from a photograph, with about 10 years in between, both versions capturing the animal’s particular charm and Wood's evolving style. She was excited when the first portrait was purchased by a winery co-worker for $25 – her first-ever art sale.

“It’s funny how animals are so easy for me (to paint),” Woods said.

She donated her time and talents painting four pet portraits as a fundraiser for Pets Lifeline, Sonoma Valley’s nonprofit animal shelter. She’s also donated pet paintings to the Humane Society of Sonoma County for fundraisers.

Woods was surprised to discover one of her Pets Lifeline paintings was for friends of hers. She painted an orange cat from a submitted photo, with no idea who commissioned the portrait. When it was complete, Woods was given the contact person: Tiffany Delalay had ordered it as a Christmas gift for her sister, Marianne Anderson. The sisters are childhood friends of Woods in Sonoma Valley.

“My sister absolutely loved it and it was a great surprise,” Delalay said in an email. “It turned out beautiful, of course, and looks exactly like him.”

Woods was happy the cat, Link, connected them. It’s one of many times that her paintings have sparked joy – Woods’ real reward.

Woods also perfectly portrayed another pet on canvas, a painting of a Basenji-Chi named Gus she painted as a gift for her friend, Sara Harrie.

“He passed a couple of years ago, but seeing his painting every day reminds me of what a special little dog he was,” Harrie said in an email of her “adorable, goofy mutt who was all personality.” She said the portrait and a few other paintings done by Woods “are some of the first things I grab as part of my (fire season) evacuation kit.”

Both Harrie and Delalay enjoy following Woods on Facebook, where Woods posts completed paintings and some of her works in progress. She also posts an occasional painting done by her father, Ed Lang of Ukiah.

While Woods credits Buller with inspiring her to paint, she paid it forward by inspiring her father to begin painting at age 79. Today, at 88, he’s proficient with acrylic painting, particularly of buildings and landscapes, and makes his own frames. “He’s really good, considering he has no background (in painting),” Woods said.

She believes it’s never too late to start – or return to – a creative outlet.

Although she had her first solo show less than a year after she began painting, Woods considers her talents a work in progress. She’s drawn to bright colors and a broad palette, but now works with fewer colors.

“Now I’m down to a very limited palette and I really enjoy that,” she said. “It forces me to make my paintings more cohesive.” She’s also working on her technique, like specific brush strokes. “I want to be loose but I’m detail-oriented.”

She’s also training herself to narrow her focus. When she finds herself in a scenic location, with endless beauty around her, it can be tough to find a point of inspiration.

“It’s a whole different ballgame painting outside,” Woods said. “It’s so much harder. You have all this (scenery) to look at and you have to figure out what to paint.” She’s found it helpful to make a thumbnail drawing “so you know what to paint out of all you see.”

There’s no shortage of inspiration. She’s painted while in Montana, Lake Tahoe and Bodega and closer to home along the backroads of Penngrove and west Petaluma. She’s painted the Sonoma Mission in her hometown and has captured vineyards in various seasons throughout the county.

She admits, though, there are times when nothing draws her attention.

“I don’t know until I get there. You go look and see whatever inspires you at the moment.” During a visit to San Francisco, “I kept driving around and driving around and driving around and nothing inspired me.”

Woods is grateful for that long-ago art show at Balletto Vineyards – the one that inspired her to pick up her paints and brushes again and pursue her passion.

“It’s creative,” she said, “and I like to be creative.”

For more information, visit nancywoodsart.com or @nancywoodsart on Instagram.

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