Jim Fuller’s fate was written—or, perhaps more accurately, drawn—on the wall by the age of 12. An avid drawer and painter, his parents saw his interest in the arts and enrolled him in private classes with an artist in Atlanta who helped hone his talent over the next few years. He eventually went on to graduate from Georgia State University with a Bachelor of Visual Arts in painting, with a heavy emphasis in art history.

Fuller spent years as a freelance artist in Atlanta, where he met his now wife, Elaine, a successful interior designer who had begun focusing on real estate. He put his art career on hold to focus full-time on real estate, as well, and did so for the next three decades before he returned to his first love. Ten years in, he has proven that a dream deferred can still be realized.

Self-described as “slightly modern realism,” Fuller’s work leans heavily on botanicals. “I find them to be one of the most interesting things you can paint,” he says. “I enjoy doing them because of the freedom flowers and plants allow you—the colors, the textures, they’re infinitely interesting and unique.”

Fuller’s portfolio also includes what he calls “rurals”—pieces that feature pastoral scenes, from barns and mountains to landscapes with livestock. His tropical paintings rely heavily on the inclusion of “some kind of warm weather stuff,” whether an orchid or a beach or a heron in front of a beach.

A part-time resident of Florida, the North Carolina-based artist draws heavily on the dichotomy of his surroundings. “Each place results in a different look and feel to my paintings,” says Fuller, who also shares an additional home in Atlanta with his wife, giving him three studios from which to work.

Regardless of what he’s painting or where, it is the color and textures of Fuller’s work that are most striking—even when his hues are muted. The dreamlike tonality of his pieces gives them a whimsical quality that lies in direct contrast with the precision of his brushstrokes, and his textural application makes it seem as though you can feel the flower petals of his florals, the puff of a cloud, the bumps of a seashell. “I like to paint because I like to create something that wasn’t there,” he says. “It’s fulfilling to see something come into existence that wasn’t there before.”