I still have a few things to tell you about my life during this time. You might have noticed that I traced back to art school on a second post even though I thought I had written a lot of about art school. Then I realised I had a lot more to tell and continued. I still have more about art school that I haven’t covered.

I need to tell you more about my art teachers. One of them was Светлана Анатольевна- Svetlana Anatolyevna. I already told you a bit about her.

She was a nice teacher, younger than the others. She had a blonde bob of hair and smiled often. Her voice was jubilant. One time a new boy came to our class and he was so eager to draw he got out his oil pastels and started before even making any sketchers with a pencil. It was a waste of paper. And I admit it, I was … unimpressed. But how was he supposed to know? I thought I drew better than him. I don’t think that is very fair. Even if that were true, what is the point of dwelling on that?

My teacher let out a soft chuckle, and she was happy with his excitement, and since he was new, he didn’t know what to do first. But first, we plan stuff out on paper. Actually, we would draw mini version of our plan lightly in pencil in the corner of our paper. I think we did it that way.

After years at this art school we were like friends. One of my favourite paintings is one with birds in it. This one took a lot of planning and I lot of fixing. My teacher was very patient, and when she saw that a painting that work very well, she carefully pointed out the weaknesses in it. I would get a little tired of improving the same thing for a long time. But I guess when she saw promise in something, she wouldn’t give up.

This bird painting I had been working on for a long time. Maybe about ten sessions. I really wanted to take it home by now, I didn’t want to see that there was a lot I could do still to make it better I wasn’t much of a perfectionist. I still find it very tedious to weed out small mistakes in a piece of art or a story. It makes it even harder when I have a lot to say. While I was making this painting, my teacher gave me a present for me to remember her. She painted a small purple bird on the side of my painting. I was immensely impressed with her abilities to paint so neatly. The way she managed to control her paintbrush and get it to do exactly what she wanted. For me at that time, it was incredible. I think she got a little carried away painting a whole bird. Mum was a little annoyed because she wanted to use my painting for a design as a dress – with the small purple bird on the right, perking out its head with a tree in the background. It kind of made the picture a team effort.

The last lesson that I had the picture at art school, my teacher wanted me to make a few finishing touches on the picture. But I didn’t want to do the same picture a gain the next lesson. I argued that I had already done the birds which was essentially what the picture was meant to be about. She let me take it home. I suppose she understood my short attention span.

 As well as my desire to paint something that would make people happy. I don’t really like drawing stuff that makes me sad or uneasy. Apart from the picture I made in year five on Good Friday of Jesus on the cross. And a few odd sketches. And the painting my year eight teacher insisted be scary. Well, I didn’t end up making the painting scary, the face was more wistful than scary.

My art teachers were irreplaceable. They taught me things that I didn’t know. I learnt so much better from them than other art teacher in Australia. Mainly because they were experienced artists, not young adults. That is because Russia is more invested it the arts, while Australia is more interested in sport. Also, art is one of those things that develops in older cultures. Well, unique and complexed styles take an old culture to nurture. Although Aboriginal cultures in Australia have sophisticated art. At my art school we learnt traditional painting styles distinct to Russia.

The other three are also important. The one with the fruits is my first picture on paper. One of the pears the other teacher – what was her name? - drew for me. This other teacher was older and chubbier with a warm personality. I think her name was Марина- Marina. But I can’t quite be sure.

The zoo picture had lot of things to colour in, and I realised it was pointless to keep nagging in the teacher about what to do next. I already kind of knew. The cat is one of my earliest pictures. As you can see, it’s a little out of proportion. I guess it kind of shows how much people learn.

I think I’ve told you about art school around this time now then.