Finding My Path To Watercolor

This is how I found about my love of watercolors:

By 2005, I had a gotten some use of my right side back from my stroke, but my entire left side of my brain would never able to fully function again. Also, I wouldn't be able to work again. So, I tried tole painting. Using a book with directions, I painted a stool. So, I did several projects using step by step instructions.

I was a real painter, now. Smiles.

Before the stroke I was very Left Brained,  great with math, and didn't really care much about culture, museums, opera, these were never my thing. I knew nothing about art. Seriously. Nada. But, I love country music, camping, fishing and just having fun. I guess I am a little bit country (and I grew up in California, who knew?)

I thought that only oils were used on canvas. I was shocked to learn that a person could paint with acrylic on canvas. So, with the $1 paint (I didn't  know that there was any other kind of acrylic paint), I painted a cat.
 

My daughter, Jordann, still has the both of the above- now that is true love. The cat is in her master bathroom (at least no one sees it) and she is using the step stool for her 2 year old son to go the toilet.

I have been trying to get rid some my earlier works, but nobody will give them back. My mother had one of my earlier pieces on her living room wall that she refused to give back. So a few weeks ago she went on vacation and I went and took it back, and then put it in the trashcan, never to be seen again (and that's why you don't have a picture of it). I replaced it with a giclee on canvas of a painting that is currently in March 2015 Georgia Nationals. 

I took classes in different mediums, acrylic, oils, and pastels. I am the messiest painter, even in watercolors but in oil- oh my -it was in my hair, face, and my bra- don't ask. For me all of the other mediums you just work and work and work until it's right....very boring. And I certainly couldn't draw.

With watercolor you never know what will happen- now that exciting. A teacher asked to keep one of my paintings. I was just playing with watercolor and I guess it spoke it her.

This blog is not to show you what a wonderful artist I am. I am and will always be growing as an artist. I would like my to show my failures, mishaps, and hopefully some successes.

I won't  be famous, there will be no books written by me (do blogs counts?), I won't make any DVDs, or teach and travel far and wide (well, I teach at the senior center). 

I have felt true joy from watercolor, not from the success or failure of a painting but the fun watching watercolor move onto paper in exciting ways- you never know what will happen. Let watercolor do the work for you. 

Enjoy the now, feel the color moving around paper and watch it. If you don't like it, flip over, it's just piece of paper!


Michelle Manriquez 

P.S. Just have to show you I am not as bad 10 years later as the above paintings. This is currently in the Georgia National Watercolor Show, March-May, 2015.