Mastered a technique and want to spread the love? Yellow Workshops might be the place for you

It wasn't enough for Sakshee Vijay to be an artist who could share what she knew with others through workshops. She also wanted to help others share their art with the world. In January 2020, she decided to put her plan into action and she started Yellow Workshops. But before we talk about how she connected with other artists, let's understand how she connected with art herself.

One of the artist she is working with is Niranjan P who teaches calligraphy and runs Niru's Calligraphy

After completing her MS in Computational Linguistics by Research from IIIT Hyderabad, Sakshee took up a job with Booking.com, a travel search engine, in Amsterdam. And it was here that she fell in love with art. "The culture in Europe enthused me so much," says the 25-year-old. This is where she learnt how to paint and dabble in other styles of art, including the abstract and beautiful style of resin art. She returned to India in 2019 and took ten workshops in cities like Bengaluru and Jaipur, and this made her fall in love with art even more. "This January, I started helping other artists too. The initial investment to conduct these workshops is quite high because one needs to book the venue, source the materials and so on," she explains. And though there are other brands who help artists, they charge hefty commissions and there is no transparency. Sakshee promised herself, and others, that Yellow Workshops would be different.

Sakshee Vijay | (Pic: Yellow Workshops)
 

Currently working as a Software Engineer at Uber, Sakshee is approached by many artists for help, but she selects only a handful who have worked hard and perfected their style of art. She talks to them about their goals, helps them prepare for their first workshop, spreads the word on social media, is present while they conduct their workshop and even offers constructive feedback. Did we mention that she also lets them use her home studio and collaborates with leading art suppliers to get handsome discounts on bulk-bought art supplies? "You have to understand that organising a workshop can be hard work and takes up much of the artist's time. So, the artist can choose to be as involved in organising it as they want to be," she explains. 

"One has to create a friendly environment for people to learn and make them feel comfortable," says Sakshee

Sakshee believes in letting these artistic fledglings fly out of the nest as soon as they can - if anyone feels they have got the hang of things after five to six workshops, they are free to organise it themselves. She has six artists on board and has helped them organise multiple workshops across cities. "Next, I want to start conducting workshops in Tier II cities and I want to conduct one in Bhopal to begin with," she says. The timing of the workshop, venue, the kind of advertising - there are many more variables that need to be taken care of and Yellow Workshops can help with it all. But Sakshee wants to go a step further, she will soon be organising a workshop in Tokyo for another artist and this could be the start of another chapter in this artpreneur's life.

According to Sakshee, here's what you should look for before opting for a workshop:
- Talk to the artist and see if they are able to convey what you expect
- Check out the work of the artist's students
- Check out the reviews other students have given them
- Try to find out for how long they have been doing this

Scenes from the workshops:

For more on them, check out instagram.com/yellowworkshops