Course addict

The other day, the DHL man arrived with a big package. Normally, as I am the only person in my apartment building during the day, I am the caretaker for packages for everyone else. So I was pleasantly surprised to discover this was actually for me.  I opened it to find a big file of the course materials from the Open College of the Arts. Wahoo! How exciting! These were the materials for the illustration course I will be doing over the next year. OK, so maybe some people wouldn't find a stack of course materials that exciting. But here's the thing. My name is Lia and... I am addicted to courses.

Actually, I like to think of it more as been addicted to learning.  For me, there is nothing worse than feeling I am at a standstill, not learning or moving forward with something. I just can’t get enough of learning new things.  When I first got into photography, I did a few courses. And with each one, I always felt I moved on another giant stride. Then, having had a little taste of fashion photography, I took an evening course in fashion illustration, which then led me to a weekend dress-making course, a week long textile design course at Central St Martins and now illustration. Hopefully this will all come together in some grand new career plan, but for the moment, I am just going to enjoy the learning process and see where it takes me.

Obviously one of the great things about taking on a course to learn a new creative skill is the techniques and tips you pick up from your tutor. But the other wonderful thing is the other people you meet on that course, who can inspire you and, in many cases, may become life-long friends with whom you share that particular interest.

So I encourage you to check out what you local community or arts college is offering, see what might be fun and sign up. It doesn’t have to have any career-orientated goal. It’s ok just to pick up a new hobby and make some new friends. It might be a one-time only thing that you do just for fun (like the time I took a tango class) or it might even be something that introduces you to a whole new world and inspires a change of career. Who knows...