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To be an art teacher can take several forms among the numerous different teachers in the UK.
Some are directly hired by schools as contract employees or even employed (this is the case for private schools of applied arts). Tutoring jobs are often seen and alternative jobs for ex teachers in fact.
Others are staff employees (this is the case for the professors of art in universities).
As regards to the particular professors of drawing, several choices exist to exercise this activity at home without committing fraud.
As for you, you are fascinated by China ink, oil painting, charcoal drawing or you master the art of the portrait or the still life? Make the most of it giving private lessons of painting and drawing to those who want to learn near you!
SuperProf helps you review all the possibilities to give a drawing, painting or plastic arts course, as you want it.
How To be a Drawing Teacher in Private or Public Schools
First of all, let's get back to the issue of the required qualifications of teachers in primary, secondary or higher education.
The art teacher is not like the others, a little bit silly, covered in paint, with an artistic style, brushes in the hair, they share, nevertheless, the status of his peers.

Teaching Art in a Public School
A professor of arts who teaches history of art, painting or other in a public institution, whether it's a primary school, a secondary school or a university can have two statuses.
Do you know them?
- At first, they can be a full professor and a state employee. With an art diploma obtained in the public program. There employer is then the State, and they are a member of the public service.
- They can be also hired under contract to do the same work in a private school and teach the painting (gouache, oil, acrylic), drawing (black stone, graphite, soft pastels, etc.) techniques without limit.
Giving drawing and painting classes in a private school.
Whether the art teacher takes care of a year 11 class in secondary school or teaches in a prestigious school of applied arts, they can have various statuses according to if the private school is under contract or off contract.
The point to know which status you will have by leading arts courses in school:
- For a private school under contract, the art teacher will have a contractual status with a remuneration and an hourly workload modelled on that of other employees.
- In a private school off contract, there is no concourse to obtain the position, nor pay scale for the drawing courses.
Indeed, private schools under contract cannot issue the status of state employees to the professionals who give the drawing or painting workshops, or who give art history courses.
At the beginning of his career, a drawing professor can make approximately £1400 a month.
Namely that to teach at secondary education, it will be necessary to obtain a vocational certificate in the functions of private education.
It happens that private schools have difficulties to find replacements for art teachers. In this case, they can give the chance to people who do not have all the required diplomas. However, you have to know that if the permanent teacher appears, you will be kicked out without remorse.
And it doesn't matter your excellent control of the charcoal drawing technique or your extraordinary work on Caravaggio.
A former art teacher of primary school can become a professor and give online drawing courses during his retirement.
To do that, he will have to create a new status, except if he wants to make this activity in a hidden way.

How to give Legitimate Private Drawing Lessons?
If you don't work in a school, you can choose among various status to be able to charge your services of drawing techniques, painting or sanguine chalk course.
You want to design and offer painting workshops on your porch?
You love the idea of passing on all the artistic knowledge that you have gathered in these last years?
You are a retired professor of arts and you miss teaching children?
To become a freelancer and give art and design courses.
By becoming a freelancer, you will be an independent art teacher or a freelancer if you prefer, capable of giving drawing courses for children and adults.
You can either work from your home, go to your student's home or still join an artists' association. The leitmotif is the same: paint, draw, teach the techniques of colour, learn to create a painting, etc. to passionate students.
The simplest way today is to declare an auto-entrepreneur activity directly on the corresponding portal.
This way, you can charge a service of painting or artistic workshop within the rules of regular labour. Every service results in a numbered invoice and obliges you to keep an account book.
Don't worry, even the worst mathematician can get away thanks to a simplified tax system and a right to not charge the VAT. Phew, because for artists the paperwork is never the favourite thing to do.
To facilitate your everyday life and your accounting, it's recommended to propose packages of courses to avoid charging your students after every drawing or painting workshop.
Thus, you can issue, for example, invoices for 10 courses all at once. Obviously, this does not prevent you from granting facilities for payment to your drawing apprentices.
The professional activity of art teacher, which indeed consists of leading particular drawing or painting workshops at home or in a different place is registered in the list of liberal professions.
And yes, don't forget that a freelancer giving courses of drawing technique, oil painting or soft pastel has the right to earn no more than £30,000 a year.
Can anyone give drawing tutorials?As long as you've got the talent, yes!
The school holidays will be the opportunity to live your passion by organising training courses of watercolour, teaching the technique of shades and the light or still by learning to draw manga in a drawing class.

Fortunately, released from the administrative duties, you will have plenty of time for your courses of India ink, internships of painting or still drawing workshops of "still life".
Having a society to propose particular or collective creative drawing or painting workshops.
If you are a speaker in schools of art on a case-by-case basis or if your revenue is significant by means of the creative workshops you give, you will need another legal and fiscal status.
Already know that if you create a real company as an art professor, not subjected to the system of the micro-company, you will need an accountant.
What type of company to choose as an activity for an art teacher?
- LTD: Private company limited by shares if you want to work with other associate artists.
- One Man Company: little risk and little investment
- Unipersonal Company: limited liability company with a single shareholder with few start-up capitals
Subsequently, the status chosen to exercise the activity of art teacher will have no impact on the proposed activities.
You can prepare students for the entrance examinations of the best art schools, teach young children the bases of the painting, or give watercolour classes to your neighbour Monica.
Discover how to set your rates as an art tutor...
Is a Professional Status Mandatory to Host Painting and Drawing Workshops?
The temptation can be great to give art and design courses without declaring them to whom it may concern. £25 here and there, that won't hurt anyone!
Because within the framework of illicit work, the method of payment is made in cash, from hand to hand.
For one student it can be harmless, but if you really plan to settle down as a drawing or painting teacher, making your publicity, and living on this activity, this is not the solution.
What are you putting at risk when working without declaring your resources?
The biggest risk is, without doubt, denunciation.
Indeed, why would another professional proposing the same services let you propose courses potentially cheaper without declaring them?
The threat is to prevent the institution managing social security payments from hiring an investigator without your knowledge and observes the "carousel" of your private drawing lessons clandestinely.
Have caution with your art lovers students too, you never know!
Follow these tips to find students for your art classes!

To give your drawing, plastic art, and painting courses, you have several choices of status according to your profile. If you give courses to round off your month or because you're simply on your own, choose to begin with a freelance status. Check first if that works.
Looking to find students for your drawing course? Join as a art tutor on SuperProf without forgetting to look at the profiles of other enthusiasts of drawing.
The course offers are multiple:
- Discovering the brush,
- Initiation into the bases of the drawing,
- Improvement with painting workshops,
- Learning of the sculpture,
- Learning prospecting, modelling and the exercises of the sketch,
- And course for preparation for fine arts.
To begin teaching, most of the artists will have to obtain a master's degree or even a doctorate to make them more competitive. The majority begins as part-time teachers and assistants of teachers, then as consultant professors, then to obtain finally full-time jobs. It's a domain which experiences a lot of competition and is not an easy path to choose due to limited positions as full-time jobs.
Discover all you need to know about becoming an art tutor...
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