Nina Zhdanova, a painter, a graphic artist and a master of watercolor, was born in 1950 in Gorky (nowadays Nizhny Novgorod). Even a cursory look at her paintings suggests that she’s had an exemplary education in fine arts. And it’s totally true: she graduated from the Gorky Art Academy, which offers a very expansive education, and from the Moscow State Stroganov Academy of Industrial and Applied Arts.
Immediately after her graduation from the Stroganov Academy, Zhdanova started to take part in city and regional exhibitions. After being admitted to the Union of Artists of Russia in the late 1990s and early 2000s, she had her personal exhibitions in Nizhny Novgorod. Currently, she combines her work as a painter with teaching at children’s art schools.
Zhdanova’s small painting ‘A Golden Morning on the Lake’ is made in watercolor, using the ‘a la prima’ technique, which literally means ‘in one sitting’ in Italian. This technique involves working with raw watercolor paper: on the wet surface of the paper, the paint spreads in a unique way, which makes the picture light, ethereal, transparent, and filled with fresh air. It is no coincidence that the painting created by using the ‘a la prima’ technique is literally impossible to copy, since each brush on a wet paper is unique and can’t be imitated.
By combining various colors with a variety of tonal solutions in the painting “A Golden Morning on the Lake”, Zhdanova achieved amazing play of colors and gradations between the subtlest shades, and, at the same time, the “a la prima” technique helped her preserve the maximum freshness and richness of the picture. This technique allowed her to authentically capture the quivering movement of the stork’s wings, as well as to depict the beautiful unevenly bent branches of the trees.
This painting has both an almost dreamlike atmosphere and a delicate sensuality. Art critics also point out this feature in Zhdanova’s works: they think that she captured the lyricism of the female soul and the subtlety of perception of the world around. They also believe that the painter can see the beauty in everyday phenomena not only with her eyes, but also with her soul, and the watercolor helps her to show all the extraordinary play of colors in the world around.
Immediately after her graduation from the Stroganov Academy, Zhdanova started to take part in city and regional exhibitions. After being admitted to the Union of Artists of Russia in the late 1990s and early 2000s, she had her personal exhibitions in Nizhny Novgorod. Currently, she combines her work as a painter with teaching at children’s art schools.
Zhdanova’s small painting ‘A Golden Morning on the Lake’ is made in watercolor, using the ‘a la prima’ technique, which literally means ‘in one sitting’ in Italian. This technique involves working with raw watercolor paper: on the wet surface of the paper, the paint spreads in a unique way, which makes the picture light, ethereal, transparent, and filled with fresh air. It is no coincidence that the painting created by using the ‘a la prima’ technique is literally impossible to copy, since each brush on a wet paper is unique and can’t be imitated.
By combining various colors with a variety of tonal solutions in the painting “A Golden Morning on the Lake”, Zhdanova achieved amazing play of colors and gradations between the subtlest shades, and, at the same time, the “a la prima” technique helped her preserve the maximum freshness and richness of the picture. This technique allowed her to authentically capture the quivering movement of the stork’s wings, as well as to depict the beautiful unevenly bent branches of the trees.
This painting has both an almost dreamlike atmosphere and a delicate sensuality. Art critics also point out this feature in Zhdanova’s works: they think that she captured the lyricism of the female soul and the subtlety of perception of the world around. They also believe that the painter can see the beauty in everyday phenomena not only with her eyes, but also with her soul, and the watercolor helps her to show all the extraordinary play of colors in the world around.
