denikina's drawing diary: A backup plan is not a good plan at all.

(Slightly longer this time. I was supposed to be posting it on sunday, but life got in my way as it usually does. Better late than later.)

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Next month it will be a year since I started doing digital art seriously - by which I mean focused, daily practice. It means a lot to me - mostly, because after this time I can say out loud: choosing art was the best decision I ever made. Sometimes I regret not starting earlier, but then I realise I am actually very lucky. I got to have a turning point, a big red sign saying: 'You are going nowhere in your life and it is only going to get more miserable'.

Depressing? Not at all. It just meant that I need to stop walking in circles, making a backup plan for my life and start actually living it.

'Backup plan' is my term for all the things people are 'supposed' to do in their lives. Get an education, a degree, stable job, family. It's all well, while you actually want the packet. It goes wrong, when one day you realise, you don't actually care one bit for any of this, but are afraid or unable to pursue your passion. Poland is a great example of a country, which generates more graduates than most countries on the planet, yet it does not translate to better job opportunities. Well, exact the opposite happens - when everybody has a master degree, that degree is no longer sufficient to get the job. This creates only frustration and emigration, but no changes. The quality of education is sinking, yet everybody still claims that it pays off to have a degree, even if 'just in case'. Well, they say, who knows - maybe some day it will come in handy? Two candidates for the job and you might just need that edge? Sure it is a great backup plan, but if one really wants to make jewelry, why is it exactly, that he/she needs to have a master degree in psychology?

Giving yourself over to your passion/dream is like stepping to the other side of the road where there are rainbows and unicorns (or darkness and monsters, if you wish) and they suddenly just make sense. All your hard work, patience and even those low-quality-and-full-of-perspective-mistakes pieces add up, sharpening your skills, letting you create better. Now, just as you think there's nothing more to improve, your perception attunes, showing whole new range of issues you can work on. And that can sustain your passion for a limitless amount of time.

Yet we still choose the backup plan. Partially, because it's safe, partially because everybody else does. On the other hand, we like quick, painless solutions, instant access and gratification. Who wants to invest years of constant practice and work, when a facebook page loads in a fraction of a second. But even though this road is long and rocky, it is truly the only way to go. There are no guarantees of money and fame (they make for a really lame life goals) only immense satisfaction derived from doing what you love the most. And you know what: it's also fun.

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Lastly, some free time sketches and works from last week.