You don't have to be a qualified teacher in order to teach, all you need is enthusiasm and a good knowledge of your subject, so given that you love what you do it should be easy for you to set up and run short workshops to teach various aspects of your art.
There are literally thousands of people out there who would love to learn how you create your artworks, and because every artist is different, even if they use the same materials, subject matter and techniques as you, each student will produce an individual piece that is quite unlike your original work, so you don't need to worry about students copying your style or going away with 'trade secrets'.
So why would you decide to start teaching art, rather than devoting your time to creating art in your studio and working by yourself? I think the most obvious answer to this is that teaching brings in money, and often artists are looking for ways to bring in extra income to support them while they try to make a living from selling their artwork.
Think of it this way, you could run a one-day art workshop once a month and if you had 10 students all paying £50 each for the day you would make £500, which is a pretty good wage for a days work and would certainly help with the cash flow. When you think of how that might add up over a year you can see that this could be worth doing, and you might actually enjoy it very much too.
On top of that, making money is not the only reason for deciding to teach, there are other advantages in holding short workshops too. Many artists teach because they find it helps them to focus on their own technique, and working with others who are enthusiastic and ask thoughtful questions often fires their imagination, bringing in great new ideas for future work. It's often the novices who come up with new and exciting ways to use the art materials, because they have a fresh eye and are not bound by the conventions and 'learned behaviour' of some more experienced artists.
If you're suffering from artist's block, or just feeling a little jaded about your work, teaching others can bring the colour shining vibrantly back into your own pallet and a mass of new ideas into your minds eye.
Holding your workshops in your own studio is a great idea, because inevitably you will have your own work around the place, which increases its exposure and the possibilities of selling to your students or perhaps to someone they know. This is also one good way of letting people see your work, and think about buying it, especially if you're not very forward about marketing it in more direct ways.
You'll get better known in your art community in a variety of ways if you hold regular workshops, and your students will probably turn up to your shows, exhibitions and open studios and bring along their friends, who may also be interested in attending later workshops or buying your artwork.
Holding workshops is a great way of networking with other artists as well, because everyone in the group can share information about art supply outlets, special art techniques, marketing ideas, good art websites etc. By keeping in contact with each other you actually become more effective at both creating and marketing your art than if you were trying to do it alone. Although sometimes artists like to work within a self-created virtual vacuum, it is far more inspirational and effective to maintain good and frequent contacts with the art community at large.
Becoming well known locally as an art teacher can open up new avenues for generating income from your art by giving your work greater exposure. Also, because you are quite likely to be asked to give talks on your art to clubs or groups, or be asked to be a guest teacher at the local art school or for art evening classes, you gather many more contacts who may be interested in buying your art.
Your potential students
People choose to attend short art workshops for a variety of reasons. Many attendees have little previous experience in art and book on a course because they want to see what art is all about, have some fun, and relax while exploring their creative abilities. Some people have fond memories of art classes when they were at school and are hoping to re-experience the same sort of relaxed and enjoyable atmosphere, yet, others have less positive memories of art and want to revisit it to find out whether their first impressions were correct or not.
Other people may want to take art up as a hobby and are looking for a quick and easy way to get started. Not all your students will be amateurs though, sometimes trained artists attend workshops in techniques that are new to them so that they can begin to acquire a new set of skills and practice specialized techniques that are outside their usual areas of expertise.
Generally speaking, your students will want to have learnt at least one new method of working, and to have completed at least one finished painting, or other artwork, by the end of the workshop. So it's important to keep the numbers down to a manageable level so you can make sure that each student has understood the methods you are teaching, and has a completed piece to take away with them at the end of the day. Every teacher is different and you will need to decide how many participants you can manage so that you and your students end the day with a feeling of accomplishment, and you have enjoyed it enough to make it part of your regular working programme.
Another reason for keeping the numbers down to a manageable level is because students attending workshops will expect to have quite a lot of individual attention. One of the main criticisms that students level against workshop teachers is that they didn't receive enough individual attention and support.
Amateur artists, and those who are just beginning to learn, need to have one-to-one tuition to help them before they are ready to carry on by themselves. This means that you will spend quite a bit of your time moving from one student to the next and addressing their particular concerns, and you can be sure that your students will appreciate this hands-on approach.
Art workshops should be enjoyable, especially since many students attend for social reasons and not because they are aspiring artists. Because of this it's a good idea to have frequent breaks for refreshments and try to keep the atmosphere informal and fun. Teaching adults is not the same as teaching children, and you shouldn't have any trouble in keeping control over the proceedings or encouraging people to get on with the ‘work’.
Its not difficult to set up to teach short workshops, and when you consider all the benefits, like extra income and wider exposure for your work, its easy to see why artists are willing to take time out from their own work to teach others. When you remember that teaching others can also inspire creativity, it would be a pity not to give it a go.
| < Prev |
|---|