How to sell art lessons online

Featured article by Acrylic University

My name is Peter Stout! I started Acrylic University with professional artist Jed Dorsey and his wife Renae Dorsey. I remember meeting Renae at church one Sunday. Jed Dorsey was looking to start selling lessons online. He was a successful Acrylic artist born and raised in the Northwest. I was a young video guy looking for work.

Little did we know this meeting would lead to an epic friendship between not just us – but also other artists all over the world. Here’s a quick story of our journey to this point.

When we started our goal was to film painting lessons and sell them. That’s it! We were so inexperienced. “Build it and they will come!’ we thought. I remember wrapping filming the first set of lessons. We released the lessons early to a handful of people for free so they could give us feedback on the lessons. “The lessons are great, there’s no way we’re going to change thelessons!” I remember thinking to myself.

The other thing we were not expecting is how amazing the community was going to be. Now we have over 150 (and counting) high quality lessons on the site. But the best part of Acrylic University is the PEOPLE! Artists from all walks of life and all corners of the globe are a part of Acrylic University. We’ve gotten to know our members personally through our private Facebook group and our community events:

Jed printed out the first round of feedback. Jed, Renae and I gathered to read it. This piece of paper showed us just how inexperienced we really were. There was so much amazing feedback! So much important information was excluded from the lessons because we really had no idea what we were doing. We ended up re-shooting the entire course TWICE!

Live Q&A

Every Tuesday morning we go live on Facebook. Our friends can ask us anything! We answer all sorts of questions about painting and painting business. Normally Jed answers questions but we’ve also featured other amazing artists including Rick Delanty, Dianna Shyne, and this Tuesday we’re hosting renowned artist Mike Svob!

Friday Night Live Painting Party

Every Friday night live we go LIVE on YouTube and do what we like to call our Friday Night Live Painting Parties. Jed paints a quick painting in about an hour. While painting, Jed and I talk with each other and with our members in the YouTube chat. We have our own inside jokes and fun things to talk about with our members – it’s a lot of fun. Oh and did I mention we give away things every week? Most of the time Jed gives away the painting for free to someone in the chat. Many of our members have a beautiful Jed Dorsey Original hanging in their home. Sometimes Jed needs to paint for his show so we giveaway Blick gift cards instead.

Acrylic University Member Showcase

In Spring 2020, we did a show (like you would in any other gallery) for our members. We had over 40 submissions from our members. We put all the beautiful paintings in an online gallery for everyone to see. In October of this year we hosted another member show and had over 150 submissions! It was my job to set up the gallery on the website for this show and it was so inspiring seeing all the amazing works of art our friends had created.

Acrylic University Road Trip

Starting in January, we’retraveling! (Kind of). Members are going to send us their paintings from their travels. We’re going to be laying out a map and traveling virtually around the world while Jed paints all these beautiful pictures from our members. 

The Road Ahead

Our plan going forward is to bring Acrylic painting to as many people as possible – but more importantly to give artists everywhere an epic community to be a part of. We’ve kicked around a bunch of big ideas – including hitting the road and livestreaming all over the United States. We’ll see where our journey takes us, it’s always in a direction we never expect!