Teen Artist Travels Florida Art Circuit Showing His Work

ESTERO, FL — While most kids dabble in the arts for fun, 13-year-old Nalin Isme takes his talent more seriously, creating a brand and business for his work, which he sells online and at fine art festivals throughout Southwest Florida.

The Estero seventh grader, who hopes to one day become an architect, picked up his first crayon at 5 years old.

“At first, I did scribble art, but my mom saw that I was really good at that and she gave me her old art paints, watercolors and pastels,” he said. “And I just started practicing with them.”

Nalin and his mother, Nancy Isme, bonded over their mutual love of art and creating. Often, he’d watch her work.

“She would take her time on one painting, spending months and months trying to get everything perfect,” he said. “She has this hummingbird (painting) that I really love.”

Nancy encouraged her son to show his work at public events.

“She always wanted me to sell my work, to go further with it. She saw potential with me,” Nalin said.

Three years ago, he set up a booth at an art festival season and hasn’t looked back. Since then, he’s traveled throughout Southwest Florida — he’s frequently at art events in Sarasota, including January’s HotWorks.org Sarasota Open Air Fine Art Show at Phillippi Estate Park — and has traveled as far as Orlando to show his work.

Saturday, 1 to 5 p.m., he’ll exhibit his new collection of work at Strachan’s Ice Cream & Desserts in Dunedin. His uncle manages the ice cream shop, so he thought it would be a good way to visit family and connect with a new audience for his work.

Widening his reach as an artist has allowed Nalin to grow as an artist, as well. Frequently, even at other youth-specific events, he’s the youngest artist showing his work and he learns a lot from the other artists.

“I’ve been introduced to many different techniques and artists that have been using these techniques in different ways,” he said.

Now, he’s trying to find his own style, adding that these days, he prefers working with acrylic paints.

“Right now, I like to do faces. These pictures, these faces, come in my mind and I just do them,” he said.

Nalin has also began publishing. His first book is the illustrated “Alphatales: Animal Tales Letters A-D,” which is geared toward elementary-aged students. He plans to release additional titles, completing the alphabet, in this fun series.

“The next book will be (letters) ‘E’ through – well, I don’t want to give it away,” he said.

The books are inspired by projects he created during Authors Week at his elementary school. During this annual celebration of books, students would create their own books to enter into a contest, and the winners would parade around the school with their work and meet visiting published authors.

“The parade was a lot of fun and motivated me to write,” he said. “We got to march around the bus ramp with our book if we won.”

Two years ago, when reviewing his old books, he saw that several of them had an animal theme, and he used this as the basis for “Alphatales.”

His mother helped him find an illustrator for his book and they published it through LifeRich Publishing in 2019.

Now that the art festival season and the school year are coming to an end, Nalin plans to use the summer to hone his craft and try some new artistic methods.

“This summer I’ll spend time doing my artwork, trying to find new techniques to do and get a whole bunch done for the new fall season,” he said. “I got some new brushes and markers and neon liquids. I’m trying to learn inks, too, to do some inks for my backgrounds.”

Learn more about Nalin and his art online here.