Taking the plunge: the fear and thrill of quitting your day job

But as she got less emotionally invested in advertising, she soon stopped giving it her all. She started to feel guilty about letting her team down. “I felt like that was it. I had to try to make a living out of drawing,” she says. “It became more than just a hobby for me. I loved it enough to fight for it. I knew I needed to chase this dream or I’d forever wonder, ‘What if?’”

After three years of practicing drawing every day, Martcellia had started to get freelance commissions from big brands. After almost a year’s worth of planning and five months’ salary in the bank, she felt secure enough to quit. “I felt proud of myself to finally have the courage,” she says, “because it wasn’t easy to let go of a safety net with no parental support.”

Her employers were supportive of her chasing her dream. Martcellia lost no time to celebrations and immersed herself in her new career, absorbing every article or podcast she could that offered advice on freelance illustration. Her colourful, cute and whimsical style has since caught the eye of brands from Google and Netflix to Harper’s Bazaar.

Her advice for creatives on taking the plunge? “Do it! But with preparation. Be a realistic dreamer: save up some money, share your work, grow your audience, do the work and the money will follow. It is so scary but worth it.”

Luckily for London-based artist Daisy Parris, their day jobs had a common and delicious thread: pizza. “Anyone who knows me knows I love pizza,” they say. “Pizza is a form of therapy and comfort for me, but equally I’m really interested in the process of making and prepping pizza.”

Quitting their day job had always been part of Daisy’s game plan. Growing up in Kent, they started exhibiting their vibrant and emotionally charged paintings from a young age, and went on to art college and university in London. “All I could think about was art,” Daisy says.

They started supporting themselves with a job at a cinema, where among ushering and dealing with customers they got to work in the kitchen. “That’s where I learned to cook and make pizza,” they explain. “My dad used to fit cinema seats and I always thought it would be so cool to be in the cinema when no one else is there. It is a magical experience having the theatre to yourself.”

But Daisy found the social demands of the job overwhelming and the bosses less than sympathetic. They found a new role in a restaurant. “Working as a full-time pizza chef allowed me to continue my passion for cooking but, for the most part, cut out talking to the public,” they explain. “I was much better suited to this role. I’d paint in the studio in between and after work, which allowed me to come back to myself again and recover from all the communicating I had to do at the restaurant.”

A natural multi-tasker, Daisy found ways to make progress with their personal work while on shift. “I got all of my work done of course, but I managed to draw or get emails, interviews and other admin bits done when it was quiet. I was working while working,” they say. “It’s painful when time isn’t your own and I find it painful not to paint when I need to, but you have to sacrifice your time.”

Of course, some sacrifices aren’t worth it. The pizza place turned out to be a pretty sexist and homophobic environment, and one day Daisy had a panic attack at work. “When it gets to a point where your mind, body and values are compromised, then you have to get out of there,” they say. “When I handed in my notice, I think it was on Christmas Eve, I felt so punk rock and free. I was proud of myself for making changes to my life when I was unhappy. It was scary but it felt good knowing that I was going to start my new year right.”

To allow more time to prepare for the jump to full-time art, Daisy gave six weeks’ notice. They stocked up on art materials and made sure they had enough money saved for two or three months’ home and studio rent.

“But the first step I took was to realign my energy,” they say. “I gave less energy to work because it was draining me. I also went into overdrive accepting opportunities and making sure I was busy in my practice, because I knew more creative work would come from that. I took it week by week in the end and wasn’t expecting it to last four years, but I’ll do everything to keep my full-time practice going.”

Of course, there should be no shame at all in supporting yourself however you choose or need to do so. As we found out in this article as part of our Next Generation series, there is far too much stigma attached to having a side job in the creative industries and it shouldn’t be seen to have any bearing on your success.

This is something the photographer Yavez Anthonio knows all too well. He had been shooting his own personal work on the side since his student days and got a job at an advertising agency in Amsterdam straight after graduating. “I knew that the job would be short term, but at that moment I just wanted to earn money and this was the easiest way to do so,” he explains. “I also felt pressured to ‘know’ what I wanted and to not risk anything after getting my degree.”

The agency was happy to let Yavez take time out of the office to shoot, but – like for Martcellia and Daisy – this wasn’t enough to make him truly happy. “I had zero connection to the brands I was working for and I found myself bored out of my mind most of the time,” he says. “But the money was good so I tried to make it work for as long as possible. I remember procrastinating a lot and browsing the internet for cameras or inspiration.”