Why does every single art workshop assume I have a full day to paint?
Signed up for a "Sunday afternoon landscape workshop" at the local community center. $65, reasonable. Show up and it's 1pm to 6pm. That's not an afternoon, that's a full work shift. I've got to pick up my 8 year old at 4:30. So I got to do the underpainting and then pack up while everyone else was adding their second layer.
I asked if they ever do shorter versions and the instructor said "well, you really need the full time to develop the piece" like I hadn't just paid to develop about 40% of a piece. I get that you can't rush painting but also I have a life??? I'd pay the same $65 for a tight 2.5 hour session that actually fits into a Saturday.
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I get the frustration. But five hours for a landscape workshop doesn't sound unreasonable to me, that's pretty standard, even on the shorter side. The real problem is they called it "afternoon" and didn't make the schedule clear before you paid. That's on them.
The instructor's comment about needing full time to develop the piece isn't wrong either, but it's not helpful when you've got a kid to pick up. They should be upfront about the time commitment and maybe offer a shorter option, even if it's just a study rather than a finished piece.
Hope you find something that works better with your schedule. Community centres near me sometimes do two-hour sketch sessions that might suit.
I think you're being rather generous to the workshop organiser. Calling a five-hour session an "afternoon" class is a meaningful omission, and the instructor's response was dismissive. I teach botanical watercolour workshops myself, and I always list the exact hours in the description, along with a note about what level of completion students can reasonably expect. A shorter session focused on a study rather than a finished piece is a perfectly valid option, not everyone is retired or child-free. The assumption that a student has five uninterrupted hours on a Sunday is a privilege the organiser should not project onto paying participants.
That's really thoughtful of you to lay out the hours clearly like that. I wish more teachers did. I honestly would've been fine with a shorter study session, I'd rather come away with something I can actually finish at home than feel rushed out the door with half a painting and no instruction for the rest. Would've been nice if the workshop description gave people that choice instead of just assuming everyone's got the whole afternoon free.
Yeah, you're right that 5 hours isn't crazy for a workshop, I've done full day ones before and that's 8 or 9. It's more that "afternoon" to me is like 1-4, not 1-6. And I would have just picked a different day if I'd known.
The study idea is good actually. I might suggest that to them, even if it's just a 2-hour sketch-and-talk kind of thing. Can't be the only one with limited weekend time.