If you are a good artists or painter, you may want to consider conducting teaching classes to earn an extra income… and have fun doing it at the same time.
There are 3 ways to teach:
1. Teach via classes by going to homes
2. Teach by renting a place or creating a studio in your home
3. Teach online
Teach via classes
When I was in secondary school, I was hopeless in drawing, which was one of the subjects that I had to take examination for. One of my friend’s brother’s friend was a graphic designer by profession. With my friend and me as his students, he came to teach us to paint once a week. At the same time we would discuss class assignments and he would guide us on how to prepare for the assignment.
With his help, I gone from someone who knew nothing about painting to being able to at least produce something plausible through understanding some basic rules in painting. In my mid high school exams I scored all As except for art where I got C3. If I did not take tuition, I would have probably fail the paper. But I guess I forgotten most of what I have learnt the moment I exit the examination hall.
But one thing I remember about my tutor… he loved to paint and was an artist at heart but he could not earn a full time living being a painter. So he got into a profession that is closest to his interest and he taught art lessons part time. Because of his love for art, he was an excellent teacher who helped us improve our art.
You can consider conducting art lessons for students. Even though art is no longer a compulsory topic in school, many parents are aware of the benefits of cultivating creativity in their kids from a young age.
Teaching via a dedicated place or studio
There is a lady who was also a graphic designer by profession. After she became a mother, she decided to resign from her job to become a full time homemaker. She then started offering art lessons to children from her home.
Eventually as the number of students increase, she set up her own studio to teach art and crafts to both children and adults.
She prefer to conduct her classes in a studio rather than from her home. The studio does become a second home for her family. Art is not only limited to children but adults as well. If a person have the inclination to draw, it can become a very therapeutic hobby and an excellent way to destress…. much more than playing Candy Crush Saga , watching Netflix or YouTube videos.
When one express one’s creativity through art or craft, it allows the mind to expand and relax. Most of the time we tend to utilize the logical side of our brain especially when we are studying or when it comes to earning a living.
There is also a sense of achievement when we are able to produce something from our own hands and ability…. it is different than the feeling of going up the the high levels of online games. Because we would only remain on the top for a short time only before someone beat us to our score.
Whereas when it comes to painting or crafting, every piece is very individual. There is usually not much room for comparison because no two pieces are identical (unlike factory produced pieces).
Teach via online
The final way of earning a living is to teach your skills via online. There are 2 major ways of doing it:
- Create a course and upload in a course sharing platform like Teachable and SkillShare then charge a fee for it
- Upload videos via YouTube and earn through ad monetization or affliate links
The beauty of teaching online is that it is scaleable. If you are teaching classes, you would get paid by the number of students that you have. The more students, the more you would earn.
On the other hand, if you teach online, you are able to reach a much wider audience. They can buy your course and learn the skill. Even though you would tend to earn less per person, but you can potentially reach hundreds or thousands of potential customers.
The overhead cost to set up is low and you do not need to rent your own premise to do this. You can video yourself teaching the course or pay someone else to take the video and edit it for you.
As for YouTube videos, there are very popular. Usually from YouTube the artist would not show all the secrets to the skill. But watching such videos are very addictive and a well made video (with good audio and video quality) can easily get hundreds of thousands of views. Once you are able to meet the minimum requirements to monetize your videos, an advertisement would be displayed before or during your video. Even if you only earn 10 cents per ad, if you get 200k views, you would be earning $20k.
It would take a long time and many hours of teaching in order to earn that amount.
But….
Nowadays everyone is uploading courses and videos online. It is really competitive. In order for your videos to be displayed, you would need to be very active producing and uploading videos. Likely you would learn to buy the equipment, film and do the editing yourself.
During the beginning, you would not see results and you may feel very discouraged. Your videos may get very low viewership. But you have to go at it…. continue making videos after videos and one day your channel may just go viral. Some YouTubers go at it for months or for more than a year before they could see results.
In order to continue day after day, you need to have interest, patience and perseverance. But once you start to gain traction, the traffic would usually rise exponentially.
Conclusion:
When I resigned from a well paying corporate job to be a caregiver for my mom it was not easy for me both financially and emotionally. I cannot draw, but I’ve always love blogging and have been doing it on the side for years. I revived my blogs and started to monetize them.
Even though I do not earn much from my blogs, but it has given me a sense of fulfillment and accomplishment. In the end, instead of suffering from caregiver burnout, I was grateful that this role allowed me to write and to explore blogging again.
If you have unique skills, you can utilize it to help you to earn additional income. For example, if you are a stay at home mom or a caregiver who gave a up career for your family, you can still earn extra income doing something you are passionate about and fully enjoy. It would make your life more rich, fulfilling and enjoyable. Consider giving it a try 🙂
