Turn Your Creative Interest into a Workshop
Are you interested in sharing your creative skills with a wider community?
Do you want to include your art practice in your stream of income?
I want to walk you through what I’ve learnt as a lifelong creative who has turned her interests into workshops and classes. I’ve taught private parties, at after school education centers, freelance workshops, and out of my in home studio.
The path is going to be unique for each person, however I’ve found some clues as to what works, so let’s dive in!
First of all, beginning to teach and share your skills can be really scary! I was so nervous when I started teaching, and in fact any time I’m teaching a new medium, or at a new venue, I still get the jitters. Fear doesn’t go away, you move through it over time and what used to be scary becomes more familiar and comfortable. Each time you teach, you are building a history for yourself to look back on and see that you can make it through, that you can teach, and that people respond well to what you are offering!
A common fear is that nobody will come to the workshop. Sometimes that happens, and that is okay, it doesn’t make you a failure, and you can still put your workshop out into the world, and be persistent in seeing it through. If only a few people show up - still give it your all! Small groups are incredible - you get to go so much deeper with them and really get to know one another. Honestly, it’s my favourite! Take a few minutes to journal and see what fears arise for you. Write everything down, and then go back and examine each one by asking, is this 100% true? If it’s not… what are some alternative stories you could write?
Once your fears have been gently taken care of, it’s a good idea to take stock of your skills, interests, and projects you’ve already completed. Jot down these three categories; previously harnessed skills, current interests, and completed projects. Journal for 5 to 10 minutes to get a sense of what you already know, as well as where your enthusiasm currently lies. Striking a balance between including work you’ve already put in, alongside what you are currently interested in/where you’d like to go will help give you solid content as well as instilling the enthusiasm necessary to see a project through.
For some of us, this can change swiftly, so come back to this again and again, to help root down into what you already have going for you, while still enabling you to bring fresh energy and newly acquired skills into the equation.
Once you have some specific workshop ideas forming, there are some practicalities to consider. What kind of prep would be required on your end? What would the material cost be, and would it be accessible to your demographic? Is the workshop seasonably appropriate? Does your idea flow better as a one-off workshop or would it work better as a class broken into several sessions? What age range would you like to offer this to?
The biggest tip I can offer at this stage in planning, is to simplify your idea. Consider that the participants coming to your class will inhabit a wide range of experience - even when you say something is a “beginner’s class” you will have some complete newbies as well as some folks who are highly proficient in the subject, but would like to be creating in community, could benefit from encouragement, or have one or two specific things they are hoping to learn from you. Adults tend to take more time than I initially anticipate, so simplify the process and expect any advanced or additional skills you want to offer as bonus sprinkles! Kids tend to finish projects quickly, so in that case, it’s helpful to encourage them to go deeper with a given project and/or have back-up material ready.
Examining your workshop idea more deeply now - break down the skill(s) you will be teaching into it’s individual components. For example, if you are teaching an acrylic painting workshop, there is; using different paintbrushes, selecting and preparing your canvas or paper, colour theory/mixing, etc. Recognize that each little step along the way is an opportunity to offer insights to your students, and will set them up for success. If there are any new physical motions, find ways for people to be more tactile and do it on a larger scale. A great example of this is having students do arm crochet before even picking up a hook! If some students feel overwhelmed by starting to use a hook, they can fall back on practicing arm crochet while others begin to learn the next steps. Prepare models, process examples, and printouts to help highlight the steps you’ll be covering in the class.
Doing a test run with friends never hurts - I often realize there are gaps in my knowledge like how things differ for people who are right-handed vs left-handed, steps I forgot to break down, or additional supplies that would be handy to have available. This can also help reveal how long a given project will take a group of students.
How you deliver the workshop is also variable, and can reflect your natural way of being and style of interacting with others. If you prefer in-person, you’ll want to consider what locations could work well, whereas if you enjoy connecting with people online, you have the option to offer live or pre-recorded content. The number of participants in the class can be dictated by both your chosen subject, as well as your personal preference. Once again, consider the practicality of your chosen subject matter - I find detail oriented classes like crochet or beading, work best as a small group session, whereas something like zine making works with large numbers of people. If your workshop benefits from seeing what the instructor is doing close-up, then I’d limit my class size or teach live with a projected video to demonstrate the finicky steps of the process.
There are some pros and cons to both hosting the workshop yourself, or organizing the class through a commercial space. At home or in your personal studio, you get to keep all the cash, however all the marketing and set-up is left to you. Hosting through a commercial space can be nice because they typically have an established audience who they can advertise to, however each place asks for a different split of the profits, making for variable income. There is typically also travel time and fuel to consider if you’re hosting elsewhere. If you decide to find an external workshop location, find a location that matches what you want to offer. Who are the people who will be attracted to your workshop? Where do they already go? What other things do they like? Use the answers you come up with to find a suitable location.
Community building is a large reason people attend workshops, so ensure that it is an intimate environment that is conducive to creating relationships. You can make a space more welcoming and cozy by making it beautiful with tablecloths, plants, music, a charcuterie board, fairy lights, candles… And arrange the space so that the energy flows well. To encourage students to talk with one another, seat them in small groups close together, or along a long skinny table. You’re not just teaching, you are facilitating space and relationships!
Find clever ways to make people feel welcome and safe in a space. I like to learn everyone’s names, however going around in a circle saying names while everyone else is silent can be very intimidating to some folks! Play with creative ways to open people up and share naturally rather than putting them in the spotlight. An example could be having a print-out on the tables with suggestions on how to introduce yourself to your tablemates, or getting everyone to do blind drawings of each other and then learning their name after they have drawn their portrait!
Each time you teach a workshop you have the opportunity to invite more people into your teaching and personal creative practice! Strengthen these new connections by adding your website and socials on any printouts you give students, and spend a few minutes at the end of the workshop explaining what you do, and inviting folks to join your newsletter. If you don’t already have one, a newsletter is a really great way to build a community that truly wants to hear from you! I get people to type their emails directly into my phone notes because I’ve found that when I’ve had a sheet of paper for people to write on, I lose maybe 10% of the emails because I simply cannot read what they say!
Additional ideas to prepare for the end of a class are some free handouts related to the subject, and/or pre-made kits to make more of their newly learnt skill at home on their own.
Now you may ask, how should I price my workshop?
Well this does depend if you’re hosting on your own, or if you’re splitting profit with a venue. I have a set hourly rate I aim for, so I try to make the workshop fee accessible for folks, and then set my student minimum high enough that with the smallest group of students, I would still make my hourly rate. Any additional participants is bonus money. Ask for what you’re worth- you sharing your art is a gift to the world that people want to reciprocate and pay for your generosity and skill!
On the flip side, sometimes it’s great to host a workshop for free. So long as the workshop isn’t costing you, then holding free workshops here and there will help you build community, invite more people into your circle, and deepen your connections. Most content creators give away a large percentage of their work for free, which helps cast a big net. The small percentage of their work that has a paywall attracts their biggest fans and creates a loyal community who want to pay in gratitude for all the amazing free content they’ve received over the years!
Now get out there and organize a workshop with friends, family, or your community at large!