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I was born in Moscow, USSR on January 21, 1957. According the Chinese calendar, I thought I am rooster. I only just learned ten years ago, that year of rooster began later in 1957 than January 21. So I guess I am a monkey. For better or for worse. I have drawn all my life. Even when teachers at school were angry when I drew during class I would explain that it is my way to focus my attention. And it is true!

When I served as sailor in the Navy, on North Fleet in Murmansk, I made pencil sketches for my friends. Some of my pictures were sent home by mail. When I was back home, after my time in the Navy, I decided to attend one of Moscow's art colleges. It was very competitive and difficult to get accepted. I was rejected the first time I applied because the college did not think the pictures I presented were of a high enough level of skill. The professors told me that I will only lose time for exams. Next year my effort to be accepted was more successful. But because of administrative error, I wasn't included in group of students that passed the drawing exams, and after this mistake was finally fixed, I hadn't the power in my soul to continue tests. So I didn't get a high enough grade to be accepted. The third time was lucky for me. By then, I was 24 years old and my daughter was 6 months old.

During summer vacation I went with my friends on Ural and Siberia to work like artists. We did various kinds of jobs: painted on interior walls, carved decorative figures from tree trunks, did street decorations, and some mosaics. After college, I worked in a design office and made projects of exhibitions and city decoration.

After Perestroyka, our life seriously changed. This period in time presented a lot of interesting problems. I worked as a woodworker, as a company manager, and as freelance artist. But I dreamed about computers. I was afraid that I would spend a lot of money and not be able to understand how to work with the PC.

At the end of 1994, an advertising company hired me to work as a designer, and I got my chance to learn the new technology. I began with Windows 95 and CorelDRAW 5. In the Spring of 1995, I bought my own P-100 and 14" monitor. I was so happy. My friends, a family of American missionaries, gave me their modem when they left for home and I started to use the internet. On Xara.com I saw pictures by Gary Priester, Gary David Bouton, and some others. I wanted to work with Xara. I saw a simple, but impressive still-life made with Xara in our computer magazine, and I was impressed with Xara's features. So in 1996 I started to learn that application.

Some time later, I found some information about the COREL World Design Contest and I decided to submit my entry. I was so surprised that my picture was selected as the Monthly winner. It was The Road to the Church. Next year I submitted A Time Machine and was awarded an honorable mention. Sun's Fiction did not win anything but PROfile was a monthly winner. PROfile was a continuation of Party as a concept to create foreground and change the background to reflect various surfaces. Here I used canvas, but it could have been wood, stone, paper and so on. The last image I submitted was the Steam Engine which I entered in the technical drawing category. It was the very last contest and this entry was a Grand Prize winner! I created all of these pictures using only Xara. Later I used Xara for various images: Gas station - printed advertising, City Architecture - Posters, Microwave ball, Pocket-Sized Art - illustrations.

—Valery Kouleshov
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XARA Artists Wanted! We are always looking for new artists to feature on this page. If you would like to be considered for one of the future featured artists, Click Here to contact us. Please don't send images at this time. What works best is for you to place some of your best images on a Web page and send us the URL. If we decide to feature you and your images, we will contact you and provide further instructions.

Xara makes several graphics products and all of them are fun and easy to use. And Xara makes this site possible so it would be nice if you just went to these pages and had a look see. Thanks.

You are probably aware of Xara Xtreme but have you downloaded Xara Xtreme Pro? All the tutorials in this Workbook are done in Xtreme Pro, so if you don't have it, get it now.

Here are some other products made by Xara and links to the Xara.com Website.

• Xara Xtreme Pro Xara's flagship product. Now with full PDF import and export support and Flash animation capabilities which you can see demonstrated in the upper left corner of this page. Xara is the world's faster vector drawing program and as the artwork in the Featured Artist Gallery attests, one heck of a program. Click here to download your FREE trial version or to upgrade to Xara Xtreme Pro today!
   
• Xara Graphics Studio Xara's three most popular products in one irresistible bundle. Xara Graphic Studio contains Xara Xtreme, Xara-3D 6 and Webstyle 4. This bundle will save you a bundle!
   
• Xara Menu Maker Create professional graphical NavBars and DHTML menus in an instant with Xara Menu Maker - no technical or design skills required. (And Xara does all of the heavy lifting!)
   
• Xara Webstyle 4 Everyone can make quality web graphics with Xara Webstyle, whatever your skill level. From banner ads to complete web pages, simply customize the templates.
   
• Xara Screenmaker 3D A 3D screensaver maker that's fast, fun and easy to use. Create animated 3D text or tumbling picture cube screensavers. (This application will make you a hero in your office or home. And it is embarrassingly inexpensive!)
   
• Xara 3D-6 Xara 3D is the Number 1 tool for creating stunning, professional-quality 3D web graphics. See why for yourself. You can use a 3D program and drive yourself nuts trying to figure out all that X Y and Z axis nonsense, or you can make your life easy (and fun) with Xara 3D. It's up to you.
   
• Xara 3D Heading Maker Add this great interactive tool to your web site and let your visitors make 3D graphics online.
   
• Xara Online Web pages stand out with Xara Online's state-of-the-art web page add -ons. Choose graphics, text and photo effects, or advanced applications, all fully-customizable and on your site in minutes.
   
• BuyFonts.Com All designers need fonts - get yours for as little as $2 US. Question: Is life a contest to see how few fonts you can use? With low prices and high quality fonts that you get at BuyFonts.com, do you need to ask?

©2007 Gary W. Priester
All art is copyright of the artist and may be used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the author.

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