Vera
Volkova

Vera Gennadievna Volkova was born in St. Petersburg in 1980.
Dad was born in Volkhovstroy and came to Leningrad for permanent residence in the second half of the 20th century. It's a two hour drive from Peter. All paternal relatives live there: cousin and brother, his children, aunt, uncle, etc. All his life he worked at the Vodokanal of St. Petersburg. 40 years in one place. At 50 he retired. He died at 65.
Mom was born in the village of Pesochnoe. This is the closest suburb of St. Petersburg. Then she was sent to a monastery on Lake Ladoga. After the war, an orphanage was organized there, where she lived until the age of 18. At the age of 18 she came to St. Petersburg, worked at a weaving factory as an innkeeper. She made threads on a loom. Then she worked at the Krasnaya Zarya plant, which is the only one in the union that produces stationary telephones.
No one in the family was an artist from famous relatives and did not paint professionally.
Vera has been drawing children's drawings in gouache on paper since she was five. Then the parents proudly showed them to friends and colleagues.
Then for three years, from the first to the end of the third grade of secondary school, I went to the children's art school. Sviridov in St. Petersburg.
By the way, initially they lived far enough from this thin. schools. But in 1984 they moved so that now she was a five-minute walk and could be seen from the window. And the child could go there without parents.
And there they drew for hours. Moreover, the drawing teacher did not puzzle herself at all by explaining literacy to children. Just draw something on a given topic. And she constantly emphasized that Vera was good at drawing, compared to other children of the same age. She constantly instilled in children: "Mix colors."
In summer, artists sit by the Hermitage and paint portraits. At the age of 16, Vera approached one such adult uncle in June and said that she also wants to be an artist. To which this 40 - 50 year old man gave the basics of drawing a human face: how to really draw a nose, mouth, eyes, face oval. Blend the charcoal gently to accentuate the shadow. I talked about the advantages of coal in front of a simple pencil. And he showed it by drawing a portrait of a real person. Vera then painted parts of a person's face in an album for a month. So, absolutely for free, the artist explained what the teacher did not want to tell the children after three years of receiving her salary.

Vera has been professionally engaged in painting since 2000 for 20 years.
Then some clairvoyant said remotely: "You are oil on canvas. Strangers will bring flowers to your grave."
Then in 2000 Vera bought two books teaching drawing with her own money. And she herself began to learn drawing. She immediately threw away one book, and the second turned out to be quite sensible for herself.