When Isabel Farrell set out to find subjects for her paintings in 2007, little did she know she would immortalize a Beaufort County scene destined for destruction. Now her painting of small tobacco barns that were destroyed by an EF3 tornado on April 25 is for sale — as a fundraiser to benefit the victims of the storm.

Farrell is selling reproductions of her watercolor work as notecards and a print suitable for framing. The barns were located at the northwest corner of the U.S. Highway 264 East and N.C. Highway 32 North intersection.

“They were very cute and everyone always noticed them driving to and from and now they’re not there anymore,” Farrell said. “I think the subject matter here is very fitting for a tornado fundraiser.”

Farrell’s watercolor of the barns at Douglas Crossroads was part of her initial foray into painting.

“I went up and down Route 32 and I was taking pictures of old barns and this was in my collection of photographs that I painted at the time,” Farrell said.

The original painting sold at the Beaufort County Arts Council’s Members Show — it was the first painting Farrell ever sold.

Farrell came to painting later in life, though she’d always been involved in the arts, at one point managing an arts center at Penn State University.

“I’d always managed and enabled everyone to do art, except me,” she said.

Shortly after she moved to her Washington Park home, several events occurred that would change that, however. First, Hurricane Isabel in 2003 would flood her new home; two months later, she would be diagnosed with breast cancer and spend the next year battling the disease.

“Cancer people have this awakening and they say, ‘What are you going to do with the rest of your life, now that you’ve been given this gift,’” Farrell said, regarding beating the disease.

Farrell chose to paint. Watercolor classes were all she could find at the time, so she started with classes at Beaufort County Community College taught by Nancy Collis and Pat Boyd. Then she studied with Linda Boyer at the North Carolina Estuarium before signing up with American Watercolor Society signature artist Jeff Jakub.

“I went through everybody — kept moving up,” Farrell said.

Now she’s using her talent to help her neighbors. She sold her initial print order to friends on Facebook — all out-of-state friends, she mentioned. Her next order of notecards and prints can found at the Beaufort County Arts Council’s Lane Gift Shop, the North Carolina Estuarium, Riverwalk Gallery and Arts Center and the Inner Banks Artisans’ Center in Washington. The notecards sell $10 for four, or $4 each, and prints sell for $25.

For more information or to make an order, Farrell can be reached at 252-367-9822 or imf747@suddenlink.net.