I’ve spent the past month working on all sorts of hand lettering in what is known as Bootcamp with Lilla Rogers at Make Art that Sells. It’s an annual 3 month art course with 3 main assignments, each preceded by smaller assignments to ease you in. If you’ve followed my blog for a while you’ll have read about previous Bootcamp’s which I’ve taken part in. Below is my completed piece for the first assignment; to design and hand letter the packaging for a chocolate bar wrapper.
Having just completed my first Bootcamp assignment, I thought that someone out there may benefit from reading about why it is that I choose to take so many online art courses. If you’re interested in reading my 5 Reasons to Join an Online Art Class then you can find out more if you keep reading below:
COMMUNITY
Working as a creative is so often a solitary affair and while I welcome the focus and sense of peace that being alone allows, it is also wonderful to connect with other’s through a shared experience. While you always make new friends, you so often come across other familiar faces that you’ve previously taken courses with which is something I particularly enjoy. Your online community gradually grows and there is so much kindness and support offered even once a class has finished.
SKILL DEVELOPMENT
The course you choose to take may not specifically involve some kind of skill development, but I always find that new courses have a tendency to push me out of my comfort zone, stretch my work and propel me forwards. Sometimes it’s the format of the course and the teacher getting you to think differently and sometimes it’s the inspiration you undoubtedly get from other artists working alongside you. Whatever it is though, you get out of a course what you put in and if you’re prepared to apply yourself, you cannot fail to come away from the experience richer for it.
NEW WORK
Art classes are always packed with great new assignments, often on trend that really get your creative juices flowing. Sometimes those assignments come complete with fantastic new colour palettes you probably wouldn’t have thought of yourself. Once you’ve completed the assignments you have the added bonus of new work to present on the portfolio page of your website and share on your socials.
CRITIQUES
There are courses designed for giving feedback on your work. Although, in an online course it’s not always possible for the teacher to give individual feedback to everyone. However, feedback given to others can often be applied to your own work and is still incredibly useful. Online course’s nearly always also have online community groups of some kind or another too. Over the years, I’ve found that some courses definitely have a better community engagement than others, but once you find a course where everyone gets involved in an active community it’s like gold dust and artists will often keep coming back to that platform just because of the positive experience they’ve had. A good community group is another way to get excellent and supportive feedback that can be transformational on your artistic journey.
GETTING YOUR WORK OUT THERE
Sharing your work as an artist can sometimes be hard, especially if you’ve not done it much before. So often creative people hide their artwork away for fear of it not being good enough. The trouble is, if we don’t share our work with the world no one will ever see it and we’ll never get to know one way or another. Besides, I firmly believe that the world needs our art, so think of it this way, by not sharing your work, you are actually doing the world a great disservice. Creativity brings beauty, joy or a deeper understanding of the world around us. Taking part in a course can encourage you to share your work, so it’s a win win all round!
At this point incase anyone has concerns, I should probably mention that it is true that unfortunately some artists work get’s copied without their consent. But worry not, there are platforms to protect you against design theft. If you’re based in the UK and have concerns around the theft of your intellectual property, ACID (Anti-Copying in Design) is a fantastic organisation to look into, you can find them here: https://www.acid.uk.com
(N.B. I am not promoting ACID as an affiliate or for any personal gain).
With so many online art classes to choose from it should’t be hard to find something out there. I will be completing quite a few myself this year, so if you’re interested in reading more then feel free to share my journey as I post about it here.
