Shelli Walters was intensely interested in art as a child and still has some pieces around her home to prove it.

But as a young adult, “I discovered design,” she said. And for most of her working life, she channeled her artistic side into her career as a graphic designer, she told GO! Magazine during an interview a week ago at her northeast Bend home.

Walters grew up just a mile from here and spent hot days tubing on the nearby irrigation canal. In those days, “no one ever set foot in the river,” she said.

After graduating from Mountain View High, where she’d been mostly into drawing and sculpture, she was set to attend Pacific Northwest College of Art. Family issues kept her living at home and working and saving money for the next three years.

“Which turned out to be a really good thing, because when I was ready to go back, I was ready and focused and I knew what I wanted to do,” she said. “I chose to go down the design path, knowing that (otherwise) I was going to starve, and always knowing that I could still paint or be in touch with my fine art design, but make a living.”

In 1994, a year after graduating, she landed a graphic design position at DVA Advertising in Bend. Today, she’s the art director and director of design there.

“I love design,” Walters said, so much so that it was only when she turned 40 that she realized she’d better take up the brush again.

“That really motivated me to get back to painting because I realized how the 10 years between 30 and 40 went so fast. That was four years ago, and it’s the best thing I ever did for myself,” she said.

Look at Walters’ works that will be on exhibit starting tonight at Crow’s Feet Commons, and you’ll see she’s been prolific. Since 2011, she’s been part of group shows at Downtown Bend Public Library and St. Charles Bend. And tonight, a new exhibit of her brightly colored works — she often paints flowers, bicycles, landscapes and animals such as bison and bears — opens at Crow’s Feet (see “If you go”).

“This is my first First Friday, so I’m really excited about that,” she said.

Her advertising colleagues have been very supportive of her art pursuits over the past few years, Walters said.

“They know how important it is for a creative person to be fulfilled,” Walters said. “And I think they realize doing this makes me a stronger designer. And I know being a designer absolutely makes me a stronger painter. They really complement each other.”

Making her way back to fine art wasn’t easy, however.

“When I started painting again, it was really tough getting back. It was frustrating and painful — you know, all the stuff you go through,” she said. “And it was totally worth it.”

Though Walters describes herself as something of a neat freak, her tendency toward order is sidelined a bit in creative endeavors.

She paints using acrylics at her kitchen table, with seemingly all the tools she’d need at arm’s reach. She used to paint in a nearby spare bedroom, currently occupied by paper — lots of paper, which is what eventually pushed the painting part of the operation into the kitchen — cut in various shapes and sizes.

The effect is like a coral reef of colors. She cuts some of the material from magazines, but Walters also paints overlapping layers of different colors on a sheet of plastic. After the acrylics dry — and acrylic dries quickly, part of the appeal for her — these “skins,” as she calls them, can be peeled off the plastic, and voila, more collage options.

“I’m really drawn to bold, bright color. It’s about passion and living life to the fullest,” she said.

Walters believes the key to life is being happy, and she wants people to feel “empowered and joyful” when they see her work.

“I hear (it) a lot, people say, ‘It just makes me happy,’ so when I hear people say that, I’m just like, ‘Awesome. Mission accomplished.’”

If you go

What: Mixed-media paintings by Shelli Walters

When: Opens from 5:30 to 9 tonight during First Friday Gallery Walk, displays through July

Where: Crow’s Feet Commons, 875 N.W. Brooks St., Bend

Cost: Free

Contact: 541-728-0006