We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Yaroslava Apollonova a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Yaroslava, appreciate you joining us today. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?
Being an artist has always brought me joy and served as a means of self-expression. However, in recent years, I’ve come to realization that building a successful career requires more than just artistic talent and good skills. It involves taking on roles such as social media manager, content creator, writer, blogger, and even accountant—tasks that often drain my creative energy. Despite the relief of having an agent to handle client interactions, negotiations, and reading all the contracts, promoting my art online remains a significant part of my responsibilities. Social media platforms constantly change their algorithms, demanding more than just posting a simple and cute picture; engagement through videos, showing the process, and meaningful captions are now essential.
Many of my artist friends, including myself, have started questioning the impact of social media on our lives and mental health. The joy we once felt in sharing our creations with the world has been overshadowed by stress and constant anxiety. The threat to be scraped by AI instruments, the people who use AI to create “art”, based on what we were learning for years, think that art is a privilege and therefore justifies stealing, really discourage us from keeping sharing our art online. It’s incredibly difficult to gain visibility and attract new clients, which can be demoralizing for someone in a creative profession. The thought of regular job, such as working at the book or plant shop, is attractive because it doesn’t demand constant creativity or extreme usage of our mental capacity, unlike the multiple roles they artists often have to take on besides their actual artistic work.
Despite these challenges, I’ve never doubted my career choice, which I made at the age of 12. I still find a lot of joy in the creative process of making art. The happiness I experience when people appreciate and connect with my work outweighs the frustrations and doubts. I believe that the more clients and consumers of our content support us the more powerful we can become in this AI and social media era. It’s a constant battle, but one that’s worth fighting for. After all, people need people. Real art remains a powerful tool capable of evoking genuine human emotions and bringing smiles to their faces—something machines simply can’t replicate. That’s why I keep doing what I do and nothing can stop me.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Yaroslava, but everyone calls me Yara, because this long slavic name is quite difficult to pronounce, haha. I’m a professional kidlit illustrator and character designer, living in Berlin, Germany. Throughout my career I’ve explored many different fields of art. I’ve created illustrations for one of the biggest social medias, I illustrated book covers for adults, collaborated with apps and clients big and small. Currently, I’ve found my niche in children’s books and art for kids.
Over the past two years in the kidlit field, I’ve illustrated eight activity books, several book covers, and worked on a few TV shows for kids as a character designer. After being diagnosed with ADHD, I’ve realized that I’ve chosen the perfect career path for myself. Currently, I’m writing and illustrating my own books, as I found that there are not many books for neurodivergent kids. The diversity of projects I work on keeps me entertained, focused, and fulfilled. I’ve learned to decline projects that don’t align with my interests. I strongly believe that art comes from the heart, and when your heart is controlled by a neurodivergent brain, it’s better to listen to it and choose wisely the projects you actually feel connected to.
Being diagnosed really helped me to understand what I want to do with my art and what message I want to bring into this world. There were times when I thought my main goal was simply to improve my technical skills and become a better artist. Now, I realize that anyone, with any skill on any point of their career can bring a strong message with their art when they put intentions into it. And that’s essentially what I do—tell stories with my art.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
The best way to support a real artist is to educate yourself about AI tools and understand what they are trained on. As I mentioned before, many people mistakenly believe that art is a privilege, but the truth is, anyone can pick up a pencil and any piece of paper to start creating. I don’t believe in talent; I believe in hard work and dedication. If you think you can skip these essential steps and instantly become an artist using AI tools, you’re not truly supporting us.
Listening to artists that you admire is a key. Many of us continue to educate about the unethical use of AI, and all we ask is for you to hear us out and stop using tools that harm the entire industry. While established artists may navigate this challenge better, consider the impact on aspiring artists just starting their journey. Imagine the discouragement of trying to break into an industry already overcrowded and increasingly dominated by AI-generated art. Think of those artists.
Would you prefer an illustration by your favorite artist or something created from stolen images scattered across the internet? Think of yourself or your friends—wouldn’t you rather have something intentional and unique, crafted by a human being over hours of dedication and years of learning? That human touch is what’s truly valuable and what can truly support us. People connect with people, and we ask you to choose people over machines.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.
Certainly! As an artist, I want to emphasize the distinction between creating an illustration and generating an image using a prompt. I’ve spent years honing my drawing skills and training my mind to think creatively. Throughout my life, I’ve developed my own visual library—a collection of images based on what I’ve seen and remembered. I don’t have a perfect memory, nor can I save images in my brain. My work is always based in my own observations, interpretations, and creative process.
We artists can reimagine and reshape visual information to create original artwork. We spend years mastering anatomy, composition, and color theory. We put a lot of intentions into our work, every single stroke that we draw has a meaning and it’s done in a particular way for a reason. We never stop learning, thinking and creating. Something that machine simply cannot do. AI doesn’t create anything new, doesn’t consider everything it knew before and doesn’t use imagination, solely because artificial intelligence doesn’t have it. It’s everything and nothing at the same time.
Artists are valuable for their experience and unique approaches, that’s what you should always keep in mind about us. This is what makes us who we are, our art is a result of every single second of our live. To be creative requires a lot of dedication, our brains always analyse everything around us and shape our skills. And if you also want to be an artist, there is always a way to start. Take a pen, a paper and just draw. That’s how we all started, we weren’t born with it, we just kept the pen long enough in our hands to unlock it’s magic. So can you.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://odntamyara.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/odnatamyara/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/odnatamyara
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/odnatamyara
