About the Artist

Michele has two practices: oil painting (mostly portraits) and abstract watercolors. She enjoys the challenge of portrait painting and oils are truly her first love. But she also enjoys the fun and spontaneity of her abstract watercolor work.

Michele’s abstract watercolors are improvisational. She uses a specific palette, and has created “rules” around what she paints, but most of the process is riffing one thing after another. Questions she asks while she paints…

“What happens when water is added, changed, or removed?”

“How do colors react when intersected?”

“How do you create a pleasing composition and not cacophony when you’re improvising?”

“How does the work changes as you play the same or similar chords again?”

Watercolor is a beautiful medium for this type of exercise: the speed, the flow, the consistency of the paint.

Michele’s formal education includes a BA in English from the University of South Carolina (she is a proud alumna of the Honors College) and an MA in Liberal Studies from Duke University. She spent most of her professional career in leadership roles in marketing and IT at some of America’s largest corporations.

As an artist, Michele is mostly self-taught, though she has had the honor of taking classes with the amazing figure painter Alia El-Bermani, through whom she honed both her drawing and painting skills.

Michele is also a writer and shares her work, specifically the story of what she learned as she transitioned from Corporate America to a creative life on her blog called “Painting Lessons.”