The series is named after one of the works it includes.
Here’s what happened that day: as usual, I wet the sheet with water, painted in watercolor what seemed to me an adequate reflection of what I saw, and was quite pleased with the result. Only a few details remained. But then the rain started — a downpour. It instantly washed everything off the paper. I was so upset I nearly cried, because I had really liked what I’d painted.
I was about to pack up and leave, but my stubbornness stopped me. How could I walk away and have nothing to show for that day? I had been going out to paint studies every day, sometimes two a day. So I decided to fight the weather. On the same sheet, now empty and soaked with rain, I began to paint again — almost with fury — determined to overcome the dampness and the total spreading of the colors.
What began to emerge was a completely different mood, almost the opposite of the first version. And then a woman with a dog passed by — they completed the composition. I was satisfied again, and this time proud. Proud that I had managed to overcome the circumstances and, most importantly, myself within them — not to despair, not to take offense, and not to walk away with nothing.
It was October 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Going out to paint every day for two months in Izmailovsky Park in Moscow became my way of coping with the circumstances the world had offered.
An etude in overcoming given circumstances
A Sudden Injection of Light Before the Day Died
Polyphony of Color. The Wind of Autumn
Tries to Fish, Walks, Runs
The Sun Breaks Through, Not Quite Here
A Sudden Injection of Light Before the Day Died
Transition to Monochrome
Sphere of Reflection
Falling Away
Glowing
Walking into Minimalism
The Thickening of November
Snow on the Water
First Snow
