Only one person signed up for my painting class, so it's not happening. Even if I get the money from one person, I end up losing money teaching that one person for 3 hours. I'm only charging $40 per person for a three hour painting class. I have to buy supplies for a still life and paint them - let's say that costs around $15 for supplies and the equivalent value of the paint. I have to spend over an hour and a half in transit (total) - so let's say that's about $7 in gas. It also costs $12 per person per 3 hours' use of the studio.
Even with that low estimate, I make $6 for almost 5 hours of my time (including transit). It's really not worth it. I had to make it a minimum of two students to hold the class, because then at least I could make more than $20 for my afternoon!
You can even look on the studio's website and see that people have posted on the message board specifically requesting drawing and painting classes. Until now, the only classes offered have been jewelry-making classes, one soap-making class and one fruit-carving class.
JewishGuy suggested that the reason is the class is too expensive. I don't think it's expensive, even compared to the other classes in the same studio. Most jewelry-making classes are around $30-40. These classes don't provide the students with supplies, either, so it's not like they can reasonably say to themselves, "$40?! And I have to buy my own paint and canvas? WTF, mate?"
Any single-day painting class at any studio in the city costs at least $100 if not $200. I have looked, because I was interested in taking one of these workshops. They also do not include supplies. Maybe students in this area (about 45 minutes from the city) would take a $15 painting or drawing class. Maybe they think it's only worth $15 for three hours of an instructor's time because they don't realize the inherent costs of renting studio space, setting up still-lifes. If the reason they don't want to take the class is because they don't want to spend $40 for three hours, well, that's just really annoying.
I'd rather believe there's not enough interest...
2 comments:
Maybe you should lower the price and have people supply the art supplies. Maybe if people saw a lower price they wouldn't mind paying?
I believe you that it's not expensive compared to other classes... but 40$ would be too much a lesson for me. Though that might be cause I'm converting to Shekels. That said, if you were in Israel, I'd sign up instead of spending all my money on yarn :)
Unfortunately, there's no other expense I could put on the students. The supplies would be for my still life - I'd have to go to the thrift stores and pick up some junk, but I can't just pick up three things. I'd need one still life for painting and one for drawing. Then, at least for the drawing class, I would have to paint them a solid color... This is a one-time expense for each class, but I still have to buy it, you know?
It all just depends on my costs and how much I think my time is worth. I don't think my time is worth $1.25/hour (above expenses), especially if I could be doing other things like preparing for class for the week or working on my own artwork. I wish I could teach the class for less!
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