The Biggest Thing I Learned From Making Art After Work

How I Went From "I'm Too Tired to Paint" to Painting Every Day (After a Full-Time Job)

I wanted to share something that has been a big part of my artistic journey, and that is finding the energy and time to create art with a full-time job. First things first, creating art after work is HARD!

In my first year I found it exhausting, and not just because I had an intense and demanding job, but because I was in the early stages of developing my artistic skills so finishing an illustration took more time. This meant my art journey hasn’t been very linear, I would try to find time where I could to create, between dog walks with my gorgeous dog Mila, cooking dinner and having a social life, there would be weeks where I didn’t pick up a brush.

This wasn’t because I didn’t want to create art, it’s because with the other demands of life, I would sometimes struggle to find the energy. I fell into a trap of telling myself; “If only I could work part-time, then I could make this a career” or “If my circumstances were different, then I could focus more on it”. In truth, despite always loving art and painting, I never saw it as a stable career, which drove me to pursue a career that I saw as more stable. It almost felt like pursuing a career in art was reserved for those with a financial safety net, and without one I could never whole-heartedly pursue it as a full-time job.

So what changed?

In an effort to pursue art more seriously, I joined an illustration course to learn more about the industry, and improve my technical drawing skills. It was during this course that I met other artists who had a similar situation to me, working full-time, fitting in art where they could, some had family responsibilites they also needed to prioritise. Until then, I'd never met anyone building an illustration career alongside a full-time job. Seeing other artists doing exactly that completely changed how I viewed my own future.

I couldn’t believe how many people like myself, who were working in non-creative sectors, were fitting in time to create art. I felt intensely hopeful about my future.

But that’s not the reason why creating art has become easier now 2 years into my art journey. Another factor is my skill has improved. Some illustrations that use to take me a couple of hours or a whole day, now only take 1 hour, or even less depending on the subject. Looking back, I don't think I realised how mentally demanding learning a new skill was. Every illustration required so many decisions: what colours to choose, how to draw the subject, whether the composition worked. It was mentally exhausting. But as my confidence grew, those decisions became more instinctive, and creating art after work no longer felt quite so overwhelming.

Now I feel so much more confident when I start a piece, even if I’m drawing something I’m not used to (at the moment I’m learning to draw more people in my work, scary!) because I have that confidence that even if a piece I’m working on starts out not as I imagined, I know I can improve it and make it work, whereas before if I was working on something and it didn’t turn out well, I’d abandon it and spend ages coming up with a new idea.

However, almost counteracting this point, another reason I started making more art after work is I realised, if I don’t put in the time, it’ll never become my full time job. These days I have little rituals that help me switch from work mode to creative mode (lighting candles on my art desk is my go to). Luckily it’s rare I need to encourage myself, in fact I now really crave the time I can sit and make art.

What I want to get across in this blog is that it is totally possible to work full time and pursue illustration, it just takes time to get into the flow of it. Maybe it means you only post on Instagram once a month, or have one day a week after work that’s your time to create. Being kind to yourself and allowing yourself time to grow is important. It might be slower than you imagined, and it certainly won't be perfect, but it is possible.

I spent a long time believing I needed different circumstances before I could become an illustrator. More time. More money. More confidence. What I've realised instead is that I just needed to keep showing up, even if that meant painting for an hour after work or only illustrating at weekends. Those small pockets of time have slowly built the portfolio I'm so proud of today.

If you're trying to build something creative alongside a full-time job, I hope this reminds you that you're not behind. You're simply building it one evening at a time.