Organizing an Art Class

[ColwynsMommy]

Hey everyone -

So, a few people expressed interest in doing some sort of art class with our group. My sister is a senior at an art college, so I offered to see if she knew anyone who's studying to be an art teacher, who would be willing to get some experience.

My main question is.. how much should we offer to pay such an individual? I mean, there would be materials fees, of course, but to pay the person for their time.. how much? We were kind of thinking like a once a week for 6 weeks type of thing. Someone mentioned really liking a curriculum where the kids studied a piece of art and then created something of their own in response.

Has anyone set up something like this before? I'm assuming that the student probably wouldn't have a whole ton of experience teaching, but it's not like we need anything advanced.. the kids are only 4-8 years old.

[CariOfOz]

We have art classes with a homeschool group, the teacher is a local artist that does classes in her own studio as well, but she comes to us for our class We supply almost all of our own materials (but it's not a great deal of stuff... acrylic paints, pastels, a few brushes and a few odds & ends) and our classes are 6 or 7$ per child. I'm not sure though if the instructor sets an hourly rate and that gets divided by the # of participants signing up or what though.

[moominmamma]

We had an awesome art teacher for a few years. She charged $10 for a 2-hour class and honestly, she was practically giving her time and materials away. I know she did prep at home -- planning her approach, creating or collating examples, readying materials -- and also set-up at the classroom venue for at least half an hour before. She also had at least half an hour worth of clean-up and packing-up at the end. Then there were the materials -- artist-quality paints, dyes, papers, adhesives, brushes, textiles, lino blocks, wood, clay, and the general wear and tear on her own equipment like rollers, trays, easels, vats, etc.

My guess is that with the 8 kids per class (gross: $80), she probably used about $20 in materials and spent four hours of her time. She had to rent the space for $20 a shot, so she was making about $10 an hour. Which was ridiculously low for the expertise and inspiration she provided.

Out of her "profit" she also paid to print photos of the kids' large-scale ephemeral "installations" (natural outdoor sculptures, eg.) and rented a small gallery for a day to host an exhibit of the kids' work.

All of which is to say that while it might seem like you could do this on the cheap for a few kids with a willing student teacher the costs and the time do add up quickly.

In terms of calculating a fair hourly wage, I would take into account prep time and the fact that this is "skilled labour" and ought to be compensated at a rate significantly higher than unskilled work is in your area. Where I live unskilled work pays $8-10/hour (Canadian) so I'd be thinking in the $15/hr range.

Miranda

[Savoir Faire]

I teach a homeschool craft classes for ages five to eight. It is for twelve weeks and it is $15 per kid to cover the fees of getting all the different things needed.

If you guys were just going to be using paint and such...either they could all bring their own (with a note not to just get the cheapest thing out there-- maybe spend $1 or $2 more) or they could pay a supply fee.

She'd teach...what an hour a week? Might want to figure out how much she'd normally make for only working an hour.

Our co-op has a class like that-- I think they call it "Meet the Masters." I saw a 6-year-old with a crazy good painting just the other day.