Anna Miklashevich:

It is not a story about a talented artist who was born with a brush in the hand.
It is not even a story about a person who paints from her childhood. It’s all about me, a person who believes that everyone can become anyone.

I haven’t planned to tell you boring stories about my childhood. If (when) I become at least as rich and as popular as Monet, I’ll start to do it for sure 🙂 

Now I’ll say only one thing about my childhood – at school I liked to write essays. I wrote such touching stories, that my teacher cried and laughed and then read it aloud to other teachers.

But when I decided to become a professional writer and earn money from it, I was told that I need to study how to write. That was a new one for me because I thought I write really good. A lot of awards from school championships was a good background of my confidence. But it was not enough.

I was sharpening my skills for years writing dozens of pages every day. Thanks to those times, I understood that the process of writing never ends. It lasts even when you sleep, walk, eat etc. 

So, the main thing I was taught: 

FIRSTLY, YOU SHOULD BECOME A WRITER IN YOUR THOUGHTS.

Secondly, give yourself years of practicing to become a writer in real life and lastly – never end practicing. When I first tried to oil paint, I was so inspired by both process and result (even though the result was not something special), that a bold idea immediately appeared in my mind: I want to study how to paint better in order to teach other people and show them, that they also can do that!
It was about 8 years ago.

From that moment, I paint a lot. Really a lot. Important to say, that painting never was a hobby for me. From the beginning of our relationships, everything was really serious.
I had own little business at that time – I worked as a copywriter and organization manager. So I had money for sponsoring my painting process. I worked 10-12 hours a day to earn money and other time I was practicing painting.
As I was also practicing Taichi and Qigong, I used Chinese method of studying – from teacher to student, from hand to hand. I searched teachers, went to their workshops, stayed with them for hours watching how they work, working with them. A lot.

After 2 years I closed my business and moved to Kyiv to start my painting career 🙂 Brave decision. And you know how people around perceive that types of decisions.
But I knew I should do a huge step in order to let painting fill my life.
Now it would be good for my story to tell you I had no money and life was not easy :)))
Yes, it was not easy to live first few months in a one-room painting studio and breath painting liquids 24 hours a day, but I was really inspired to BECOME A FULL-TIME ARTIST.
From that moment my journey was started. Since then I didn’t betray painting even for a day. I have been painting and teaching, and living as an artist over the last 8 years.
I continue to study painting. I stay a student who never stops searching and practicing. 

In 2017 I took one more chance and moved to Slovenia. 

Now I live and work in a beautiful city Idrija. I have a super studio and nature around, where I work and teach students from all over the World. I teach them how to paint, but also, I show them by example how to be an artist no matter what everybody else says, no matter who you were yesterday, no matter what you can and what you think you cannot do.

And every my painting I create as a manifest: EVERYONE CAN BECOME ANYONE.

Languages of teaching: Ukrainian, Russian, English, Slovenian

International teaching experience: Ukraine, Slovenia, the Netherlands, Russia

Some of the already sold paintings and prints are located in private collections in USA, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Ukraine, Russia, etc.