Steven Welch is shown on March 25 in Salina with a mural of a jungle that he painted for a client to show off a stuffed Bengal Tiger. After years of painting and drawing as a hobby, Welch is finding new fulfillment in marketing his work to others.

Salina ? For as long as he can remember, Steven Welch has loved to draw and paint.

But never in dreams as vivid as his landscapes did he ever imagine he could make a living at it.

So he dabbled in other things. Lots of other things. He worked as a cook and mechanic, toiled in construction and in a warehouse and was deskbound for years as a bookkeeper and business manager.

But he never put away his pencils and brushes.

“Early on, it was more something I did for fun,” said Welch, who lives east of Falun in a house that once belonged to his grandparents. “I always had a desire to do it.”

He was living in Hawaii when his fortunes changed.

Welch, a graduate of Brown Mackie College, had moved to the islands after seeing a want-ad for a bookkeeper for a shopping center complex.

With the beach right across the road from his house, seascapes became a fascination for the former Kansan. His work eventually attracted the attention of a local art dealer.

“I got in with a gallery over there and it took off,” he said. “I’d get one (painting) done and it was sold.”

Success was bittersweet, however. His wife was diagnosed with cancer, and nearing the end, she wanted to return to Kansas to be near family. They moved back in 1991 and she died the next year.

This forced Welch back into the daily grind. He polished his multiple job skills and worked as a carpenter and a warehouseman and eventually remarried.

Then he suffered a hernia and couldn’t work, which was a blessing in disguise.

“I had so much time off work, it gave me time to paint,” he said.

It also gave him time to get his name out, and soon, he was back in the artist business.

He landed a job as an illustrator for a series of children’s books, and a fellow in California plans to use some of Welch’s work in a short film.

“The new year started off great,” Welch confessed.

Except, that is, for a foot injury, but even that turned out well.

Welch limped in to see Salina podiatrist Bill Myers, who just happened to be in need of a muralist.

Myers and wife Del purchased a trio of wild animal mounts at auction, surplus from Rolling Hills Wildlife Adventure.

“I wanted to have a background for one of the mounts I bought,” Myers said.

“(Welch) was a patient of mine, and in the course of knowing him, he commented that he was an artist,” Myers said. “It popped into my head if he would be interested in doing it, and he enthusiastically said yes.”

So now, in the Myers’ house, visitors can come nose-to-claws with a crouching Bengal tiger that seems to be right at home in the two-dimensional jungle of Welch’s creation.

Myers said the mural turned out so well he wants Welch to paint other backdrops for the other two specimens: a spotted leopard and an ocelot.

“He’s a delightful fellow,” Myers said of Welch. “He’s very humble, a very nice guy.”

Welch’s contentment with life may explain his demeanor.

“I’ve worked at this a long time, and to get to this point, I would say it’s a sense of freedom,” he said. “First and foremost, it has to be fun. You’ve got to be able to enjoy what you do.”