When you meet her for the first time carrying a huge polythene paper bag weighing heavily on her shoulders in Nakuru Town, you might mistake her for a second-hand clothes dealer who are a common in the area.

However, when she finally puts down her luggage to show a client what she is carrying, the scene changes dramatically. As she deeps her hand into the luggage and fishes out a huge picture, curious passers-by stop to have a glimpse at some of her beautiful drawings.

The swelling crowd gets more excited when she finally pulls out a beautiful drawing of the former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan.

"Huyu kabisa ni Annan. (This is surely Kofi Annan)," a woman in the crowd exclaims with excitement as the people inch closer to have a better view of the picture.

And as the crowd gets mesmerised by the picture of Annan whom Kenyans shall for ever remain grateful to for bringing our political protagonists together, people start making inquiries on the price of the picture. "This is one picture I would like to hang on my walls as long as I live in this country," says a man in the crowd.

"Ni kweli huyu Mzee wa UN alituokoa (It is true this gentleman from UN saved this country)," says another admirer of the Annan drawing.

But her art work elicits more reactions when she digs deeper into the paper bag and removes another classic artwork of Prime Minister Raila Odinga followed by that of President Kibaki and the retired President Daniel arap Moi.

A closer look of Annan's picture shows that it has two distinct colours - white and blue. There is also a dove holding a green leaf and is standing on the Bible and next to it is a map of Kenya .

Wangui says the dove and the green leaf symbolise life. The white colour translates to peace which followed the mediation by Annan while blue is tranquillity which prevailed after the successful talks.

"I intended to give this picture to Kofi Annan for his good work he did to our country by bringing President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga together but I was unable to do so," says Wangui.

To many, fine art is considered male domain but Wangui is determined to change the perception as she criss-crosses the streets of Nakuru selling her original artwork and soliciting for more business orders.

The 37-year-old Wangui love affair with art began while at Olbolsat Primary School in Ndaragwa division of the newly-created Nyandarua North District.

Art and craft was her favourite subject and she spent a great deal of her primary school time drawing and painting and by the time she was leaving primary school in 1987, she was already an accomplished fine artist.

When she joined Karima Girls Secondary School in Nyandarua District, her appetite for the fine art fizzled out as the subject was no part of the school curriculum. According to Wangui, the only fine art teacher in the school had just been transferred, forcing the school management to suspend the subject.

But as they say, once an artist always an artist. That did not stop the young Wangui from exploiting her God-given talent and during the school parents day meeting, she was the centre of attraction as she made illustrations from the Bible.

After completing her Form Four in 1991, she joined Rift Valley Institute of Science and Technology for an electronics course. However, the only subject she enjoyed was technical drawing.

Life after school proved to be an uphill task and soon she found herself in the streets of Nairobi searching for that elusive white collar job.

The creativity in her saw her start making wall hangings items which she started selling to bookshops in Nakuru Town after life proved to be hard in Nairobi.

"The market was initially good but soon it was flooded and clients started to dwindle," adds Wangui.

The rising cost of living pushed her to start a small-scale business enterprise in the town but the drawing bug was itching her. And as she was hawking her wares in the densely congested Bondeni slum, she came across a man in a fine art stall.

The man was training budding artists in the slum. Wangui was interested and she immediately enrolled to sharpen her skills.

Offered space

After successfully completing the three-month training, Wangui finally settled down when a good Samaritan offered her space outside a building on Kenyatta Lane in Nakuru to carry on with her artwork.

Incidentally, she had met the man who admired her artwork and when she narrated the ordeal she was undergoing as she had no place to carry out her work, the good Samaritan offered her an open space behind the building.

Despite having a place to carry on her work, Wangui still faces serious challenges which she says are hindering her to expand her art works.

Lack of capital to buy quality materials like paints, brushes, canvas, papers to boost her business is a problem which has slowed down her progress.