Challenges come in many different forms

Challenges come in many different forms and I certainly didn’t expect the challenge that came into my Insta message box last month. I was approached by Sktchy Art School, an online art school based in America, to see if I would like to become a teacher, for a July challenge 30Places/30days. Joining 15 other artists, I was challenged with delivering 2 classes of my own, drawing or painting landscapes. I was quite shocked to be honest. Have you got the right person I asked? But I have never done anything like this before? I only started watercolour painting seriously, last year?  Each time, the answer was ‘yes, we love your work’ and sending me back a few of my own Insta posts as examples.

Decisions Decisions

This was a massive decision for me. I have never taught. Never delivered any teaching of any kind. I am relatively new to watercolour painting. My self-confidence is low. And recording myself on camera?! The horror – I hate the sound of my own voice and I have aged a lot this last year. That sounds vain I know, but it is an obstacle I had to overcome if I were to take the challenge on. They were offering to pay me with a proper contract. I was absolutely thrilled to be asked and despite all the misgivings, I knew I had to accept. For myself, I had to accept. Here was someone saying my art is good enough, good enough to teach to others. That’s pretty good isn’t it! As scared as I was, I accepted. From there on in, it was like being on a roller coaster!

Business Club Support & Encouragement

I am lucky to belong to A Handcrafted Business Club, who were great at offering me support and encouragement. I received some brilliant advice on kit that I would need to produce my videos and after some research, bought a super-duper 176 bulb LED lamp and an extendable arm clamp to hold my phone above my work.

The school sent me a spreadsheet of ‘deliverables’ and video productions notes and promo materials. The communication with them has been absolutely brilliant. Alexander, who is my contact has literally had the patience of a saint! I imagine she has never received so many questions on multiple emails!

The schedule was quite tight, especially as this was so completely new to me. I had just over 2 ½ weeks to deliver the deliverables!

Sktchy were keen for me to draw one of my lessons. I draw for myself so I set about doing some research on graphite drawing, watching videos and reading extracts from drawing books I have. I can draw, but what about the terminology? It’s something you do without thinking about it. Now I needed to think about it!

To Cut a Long Story Short

To cut what is a long story shorter, I recorded that first lesson 5 times! I had all sorts of issues. My first video lesson was over 2 ½ hours – the class was to be 30 – 60 minutes, or 90 at the very most! My phone, a reasonably recent Samsung, let me down three times! The 2^nd video I tried to use a better recording quality – I thought it was recording, but it had stopped part way through. Geeze! 3^rd time – I tried again, recording in 10 minute segments, but since the school were going to have to edit it all, I felt that just wasn’t good enough. 4^th time, I put the frame rate back down, it coped better, but when I replayed the video it looked like the table was literally shaking! Not a good look! Learning from my mistakes – eventually! I used my husbands iphone. It worked, finally, I had my first video lesson recorded. But then we couldn’t upload the videos. I was pulling my hair out – my husband wanted to pull my hair out too!! We sat up until nearly 2am and left his ancient Mac to it’s own devices. I got up, super hopeful the next morning, 5.30 am only to find my Dropbox had run out of storage space! I think you can imagine some of the swear words I might have used! I purchased more space and tried to re-load the last video – we were going away at mid-day for the weekend…. Please. Please. Please work!! And it did! I can’t tell you how relived I was!

2nd Time, Valuable Lessons Learnt!

I’m sure you will pleased to know my 2^nd video lesson was completely different. This lesson was watercolour, something I have researched to death this past year and a bit and so knew I had some valuable knowledge. I sounded a bit more confident. Lessons had been learned with all the tech. I had tons of answers to the tens of questions I had asked previously.  I had reached the top of one of the steepest learning curves I have ever been on. I just hope my lessons, both of which ended up at 90 minutes, are enjoyed by the participants.

Would I Do it Again?

Would I do it again? All the stress. That first week I hardly slept and couldn’t eat. But Yes! I would! It has been the most brilliant, if at times painful, experience. I have learnt SO much, including that I can deliver in a short time frame, something I have never delivered before. It has been a real confidence booster and looking back, I have enjoyed it. I have been super lucky with my extraordinarily patient contact at Sktchy. Without her kind support, it might have been a different story. And of course credit has to go to my poor husband, not quite so patient as Alexander but then he does actually have to live with me and he didn’t have the ‘luxury’ of the Atlantic ocean to preserve his sanity!