После дождя

1865–1868

Study at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts

Vasilyev quit his clerical job and enrolled at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts in St. Petersburg, combining evening classes with work for P. K. Sokolov, a restorer at the Academy of Arts.

1866

Acquaintance with Ivan Shishkin

Shishkin, who had fallen in love with Vasilyev's sister Yevgenia, made Fyodor's acquaintance and began teaching him landscape painting; he later introduced him to the circle of Kramskoy, Repin, Tretyakov, and Stroganov.

June – autumn 1867

Trip to Valaam with Shishkin

Together with Shishkin, Vasilyev worked on the island of Valaam for more than five months, from June until late autumn 1867. The sketches and studies formed the basis of the paintings After the Rain, Village Yard, and In the Church Enclosure. Valaam.

autumn 1868

First Prize for "The Return of the Herd"

Vasilyev spent the summer months of 1868 with Shishkin in the village of Konstantinovka near St. Petersburg; The Return of the Herd, painted there, won first prize for landscape painting at the competitive exhibition of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, and the Academy of Arts awarded him the title of free artist.

1869

Visits to Count Stroganov's Estates

In the summer Vasilyev traveled to the village of Znamenskoye in Tambov Governorate, and in the autumn to the village of Khoten in Ukraine — estates of Count P. S. Stroganov. The trips played a beneficial role in the development of his talent.