Elina Parhomenko: From IT to Illustrating at 40
In her own words, Elina Parhomenko, a 40-year-old Latvian artist, shares her journey from IT professional to surface designer. Despite early doubts, her passion for creativity led her to embrace illustration, founding @dumkart and @penguinartclub along the way.
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My name is Elina Parhomenko, I'm from Latvia , and I'm 40 ) my brand name is @dumkart. I work solo and as a part of Penguin art studio (which is quite new). I'm also a co-founder of @penguinartclub.
I always had passion for doing something creative , but in the childhood I was told, that I have no talent to draw, so I never tried. During my second maternity leave I saw the ad that offered to teach illustration drawing from scratch and I decided to take it, never thinking it could become my profession. I had 15 years IT experience at that point, more over I was 36, "too late to start something from scratch 😅 "
Some of Elina's patterns featured on her website
I had really inspiring tutor and supportive community, that helped me a lot to overcome the "newbie syndrome ". We become a friend with two girls and had founded Penguinartclub. Initially it was the community for people who decided to become an illustrators, or those who are in the beginning of their journey, but later we created the subscription based club with classes, courses and so on.
As a creative my passion lies in the surface design field currently. I work on Creative Market, Design Cuts and just started Etsy shop. I tried Spoonflower, Redbubble, DesignBundle but felt that I have no time to manage such different platforms, update illustrations, mock ups for each, drive traffic, follow the trends. So I decided to keep three I mentioned above.
The most challenging part is to grow social media and drive traffic. Its was so hard in the beginning, the most important and challenging is to keep going , be consistent and present. For the moment I drive traffic mainly from Behance, Pinterest and Instagram. When I started I was thinking that artist is doing the art most of the time, but if fact it takes only 20% of the time, and other part is art presentation, marketing, trend analises and so on. It nearly broke me, when I realised that it is not temporary, that's just how things works.
My main advise is for all creative s is to create the art they love, showcase it on mockups, create portfolio at list on Behance or other professional service for creatives, start social media as early as possible (cross-post content), find the community who will support you and not to give up, even if it looks like there is no other way.
You are warmly welcome to check my portfolio https://www.behance.net/dumkart
And Instagram @dumkart