There are many ways to get paid teaching art online nowadays. In fact, most of my income right now is made by teaching other people how to draw online!
I know it can sometimes be a bit scary to try new things and get yourself “out there” trying to teach people. But it really isn’t as hard as it looks at first glance.
So let me show you how you can make money teaching your art skills!
Here are the ways to get paid teaching art online.
- Teaching Art Courses Online
- Working Remote Jobs From Home
- Crowdsourcing Your Art Skills
Let’s go now through each platform that you can use to make money teaching online, and which one you should focus on!
Table Of Contents
Platforms To Teach Art Courses Online
One of the best ways to get paid teaching art courses online is to create art courses that you can sell.
To start creating these courses, you will need a microphone, a camera, and some know-how on editing videos (this can be learned quickly online).
In fact, if you can’t afford a camera right now, use your cellphone! You will be fine if it’s recording in 1080p or above.
Here are some of the platforms you can host your art courses online.
Udemy
One of my favorite platforms to host my art courses online is Udemy.
They have a very helpful community and staff and will actively market your course for free.
Or rather, they will take a cut of the profits of your course when they’re the ones sending the student to your course.
Udemy is a numbers game though, it’s all about getting a huge volume of students that you can market to repeatedly.
You must think as those students that Udemy markets to as an extra student that you wouldn’t get otherwise.
If you’d rather do your marketing instead, you can opt out of the Udemy promotions and sell it yourself with your own customized coupons and their percentages.
But if you’re doing this, I would rather go with another option like Teachable (which we discuss below).
Summing it up, Udemy is great if you’re looking for a new place to post your course(s) and don’t have a lot of followers and email subscribers. You also don’t need to create a website or have any upfront fees.
Skillshare is very similar to Udemy in some ways but very different in others.
Like Udemy, Skillshare allows you to host your course(s) right on the platform without setting up your own website.
But unlike Udemy, you get paid by the minutes your students watch instead of a price paid per student.
This might make you think “oh, then I should just make huge courses so that I get more minutes watched!”. Well, yes and no.
Yes, if you can create long courses where your students just get glued in by your teaching method and watch a video after another, your minutes will increase quickly. But, from my experience, the shorter classes do just as well or better!
In fact, my highest earning course on Skillshare so far is only 12 minutes long!
That means that if you can create a really good and short class where a lot of people join in and enjoy the content, you can make a lot of money.
Of course, you don’t have to do just a short class, but I’ll talk about some strategies a bit later in this post.
Teachable
If you want to have more control over your courses price and marketing, Teachable is a great platform for you.
This is the best place to sell your courses at a more expensive price and build your own community and marketing efforts over time.
They have several payment options (starting free) that you can adjust to your liking. They also include a “subscription” type of recurring payment for your students, if you want that option.
Teachable is an amazing platform if you just want to have more control over everything. Including getting your student’s email to add to your own email list, and handy analytics to study and adapt your marketing efforts.
Thinkific
Very similar to what Teachable does, Thinkific is another platform to host your courses. It also includes several pricing points, from free up to 499$/month.
Each tier increases your options and features on the platform, but if you’re just starting out you can try the free option and see if you need to upgrade later on.
The overall features between Thinkific and Teachable are very similar. I just want to include it here since some people prefer one over the other.
In my opinion, since they both have a free plan, give them both a try and see which interface and online course builder you like the most. It’s really down to personal preference.
Tips For Creating And Selling Your Course
Now that we’ve got some platforms out of the way, here are some tips for creating your course and selling it.
Start by researching well what exactly it is that you want to teach. Search online for courses that already exist in that topic and see what they are missing, or if there is a shortage of good quality courses.
Think about that specific technique that you don’t see people talking much about, but you believe is very important to learn for example.
In fact, that is how I got to my Gesture Drawing class on Skillshare. It was a technique that I learned and helped a LOT in improving my overall art very quickly, and I just had to share it.
Once you’ve done the research, layout a plan on how you’re going to split up your course content. Make an introduction, a conclusion, and a practical assignment so people can practice what they’ve learned right away.
Then hit record. Repeat your takes as much as you have to, don’t give up. You can also write a script beforehand and use an AI Voice Generator to narrate your video.
Once that’s done, edit all your videos and get them ready to upload on the platforms you want.
Try using an AI video editor to simplify your editing process. It can save you time by handling tasks like cutting clips, adding transitions, and even adding subtitles.
Plus, with a background noise remover, you can easily clean up unwanted sounds, making your audio clear and crisp.
If you want a final tip, start by creating a big course and hosting it on Udemy. And then split that course into small ones and host them on Skillshare!
You’ll get extra income from two different platforms without having to record more content. It’s a win-win.
And of course, don’t worry if it doesn’t work right at the beginning, this will take time and many tries, so just press on and don’t give up.
Remote Jobs From Home
There are many websites where you can find remote jobs nowadays. But here are some of the top that I found that are trustworthy.
Jooble
Jooble has been around since 2007, meaning they have a solid platform with many job opportunities.
I did a quick search of “Remote Art Teacher” on Jooble and was able to find literally thousands of options in several languages.
You can also filter it down further by selecting the “Remote job” option on the “Location” settings on the sidebar filters. This way, you’ll find several teaching jobs that you can do from the comfort of your home.
Other options that gave some interesting results were:
- Drawing Teacher
- Remote Art Instructor
So be sure to check those out and see if you can find something you like!
And I know this is an article about getting paid to teach art online, but you can also find positions offline near where you live. So consider using Jooble for that purpose as well!
Indeed
The website “indeed” has been around for a long time. And it has quite a few listings of remote jobs that you can take. These include teaching jobs that you can do from home.
Most of the teaching jobs you find are mostly related to teaching English, but you can find a few now and then on teaching Art.
Not only that, but you can also consider getting a part-time as a graphic designer or do some commission work through that website.
Be sure to search with the “remote” keyword to find remote jobs.
WeWorkRemotely
The “weWorkRemotely” website focus exactly on what we’re looking for. Working remotely.
Just like the website before, you can find a lot of remote jobs here. Most are for Design opportunities and other areas, but you can find some for teaching online as well.
Consider checking this website daily to watch for new opportunities in your area.
FlexJobs
This website has both flex part-time jobs as well as remote jobs, so check each one by one!
Just want to include this website here as well, flexjobs is a good option if you’ve exhausted the other platforms above and still didn’t quite find what you wanted.
You can search for “Art Instructor” or “Art Teacher” to better find teaching jobs on this website.
Bonus: Crowdsourcing Your Art Skills
If you already have a following on social media, an email list, or if you want to start one, crowdsourcing your art can be the right option for you.
Patreon
Patreon is a great platform to get paid for your artwork or teaching expertise. You can give incentives to your backers by, for example, offering 1-on-1 coaching, giving reviews of people’s work, or helping your backers with tips and tricks.
This can take some time to get up and running, but if you’re someone that enjoys working with social media and marketing, Patreon is the right platform for you.
You will get a monthly recurring payment (as long as the backer doesn’t cancel it), which a great added bonus to your income.
Youtube
Youtube is a platform that everyone knows about. Still, there are a lot of holes everywhere when it comes to good quality content. This means that you can create a lot of teaching material and host it for free.
“But… I want to get paid by my teaching skills!”. I hear you.
There are 3 ways that I recommend you getting paid by teaching on YouTube.
- You can rely on youtube Ads to get some money. You will need a lot of views to get some real money, but even if it’s just a few cents at the beginning, it’s still a nice extra income.
- You can apply to affiliate websites like Amazon and do product reviews. Once people buy the product through your link, you will get a commission. You can do this with drawing supplies, drawing tablets, art books and much more!
- Post short parts of your online courses for free on youtube and leave a link to your full course on the platform of your choice (Udemy, Skillshare, Teachable,…). If your content is good, people will want to see more of it and buy your full course!
Kickstarter
If you already have a following or an email list, using Kickstarter or a similar crowdsourcing platform is a great way to make some extra money.
You can back up your upcoming art course by offering incentives to your backers.
For example, a reduced price, a bonus e-book or even a private coaching call for your bigger backers.
This is great if you want to create a larger course that will take a lot of working hours and you need the extra money while you do so.
Keep in mind, you really need a high outreach for this to work. Either by having a big social following or by being very good at general marketing.
Related Questions
Can I become an Art Teacher without a degree? Yes! To teach online, you need knowledge and a platform. No need to show a degree to anyone. Just don’t lie that you have a degree in X or Y if you don’t.
Do I need to make a video course to teach online? Not necessarily. Although teaching with video is both easier (for the student) and quicker to explain, you can create e-books to sell or even create blog posts and teach in your own website!
Also, we’ve mentioned crowdsourcing, so you might want to learn to make money by Selling Art Commissions here!
Or just get into one of my online drawing courses to level up your skills here.
Patricia Caldeira is the main writer here at Don Corgi. She's an art teacher with over 20.000 happy students across many platforms and courses!
Enjoy your stay and as always:
Keep on drawing!
