Can I take a moment to talk to anyone out there who is doing online art-mentoring?

Hey everyone! I wanted speak directly to any of my readers who are teaching workshops or doing online events. I have a open offer for you guys!

I know many of you have passionate online followings; some of you are teaching in-person workshops, doing streaming and youtube, and some are probably working on your own multi-session online courses.

If you’re interested in an easy-to-use private community, where you can offer classroom-style mentoring with your own private community of artists – completely free of charge for you – and where you keep the great majority of whatever you charge students; I’d like to offer up the platform created for this year’s #30x30DirectWatercolor.

This is my “Pod” where I hosted this year’s #30x30DirectWatercolor painting marathon.

And here is the FAQ for creators. which has a lot of good information for you.

Many of you know that I’m the co-creator of #30x30DirectWatercolor, alongside my fellow UrbanSketchers.org instructor Uma Kelkar. For the last eight years we’ve been doing this free event, both for the love of sharing art with an inspiring community, my selfish desire to keep working with her, and mostly just so I can be motivated to paint every summer :)

All this time we’ve wanted a better option for hosting the event – something streamlined, made from scratch for artists, without all the ads, spam, and data-harvesting-guilt that plague the social media giants.

This year – the eighth year of the event – Uma has made it possible!

We hosted 400 participants from all over the world on her own platform, Vivify.com, which she has personally coded from the ground up :)

This is something you can use to take your art beyond the one-way broadcasting of social media, and into a small space, with no outside distractions, where you and your students can interact, exchange images, and learn from each other.

Besides the basics of community image-sharing, some key features include:

• You set your own fees, change them any time.
• Your students pay-as-they-go for your ‘modules’. Not a subscription service. (I think this is a good thing – ongoing content from you becomes a treadmill :)
• You keep up to 87% of the income.
• Work from anywhere you can be online. Your laptop or PC of course; but also check-in on your phone, and students of course mostly preferred uploading from mobile.
• Share unlimited images, as well as videos and attachments.
• Annotate / retouch directly on student images (non-destructively of course).
• Students may freely talk amongst themselves (vital for your workshop vibe!)
• Personal contact with the tech-founder. (Uma!) Request features! Shape the platform!

If you think this is something you might be able to use for your own activities – I just wanted to make you that offer. Take the leap and visit; https://www.vivify.ai/create/new/class.

My apologies to everyone who’s just here for the art! I’m just trying to help Uma with her brave venture; and see if we can make something really special for artists who are seeking community.

Thanks guys!

~m