This last week has seen me reach another milestone. No, I haven’t finally lurched forward into a crawl, or formulated a word instead of a guttural grunt – I have finally finished creating my first online Art Course. It took 7 weeks and 3 days from deciding to have a bash at this, to posting the last video on the website and alerting my 49 students to go and check it out.

It has been all-consuming. Apart from cooking dinner for my family every night I have been unavailable for all domestic duties. My kids have been on self-support, which they probably prefer actually; the upside being they have learnt how to do their own laundry. The other regular chores like vacuuming, dusting, cleaning bathrooms have been largely undone.

There are tumbleweed like nests of cat fur around the periphery of the living room. Autumn leaves have blown into the house and sprinkle the floor by the front door, and the kids bathroom has stalagmite like sculptures of dried toothpaste growing around the sink. I did once make a mercy dive into their shower and rid it of the black piles of hair and soap that was matting around the sinkhole.

These are all details of life that normally I would be hiding from my best friends, family and especially people I don’t know – what would they all think? After all, aren’t we measured by the state of our sinkholes? But, I have reached the stage of disgustingness that I am actually proud of. Because what this means is that I have freed myself of the expectations of civil living that in the past has propelled me to spend unhappy hours cleaning and tidying with the knowledge that within the same amount of time or if I’m lucky - a day, all my hard grudging labour would probably be undone. A hairball from the cat deposited on my shiny floor, one visit to the garden and back inside with grass clippings stuck to the bottom of HIS shoes, one loop round the house with the dog and back inside with wet paws and feet; these are all my undoing.

But now, folks, I am free. Yes, thank God, I am free at last. We have survived 7 weeks, and why not make it 8 weeks of barely a murmur from the vacuum cleaner. Do we look any different? Are we diseased? I’d say NO, well not that we know of anyway. Our own personal hygiene standards have on the most part been maintained, which given that most of the last 7 weeks was spent in lockdown, is a feat in itself.

I am proud of the course I have created, it gleams within my website, only visible to the paying punter, but no cat, dog, partner or child can undo that labour of love. It’s permanent. To be used and give value. It’s a foundation to be built upon, not to be walked on with muddy shoes or kicked to the side to be cleaned up later.

For once friends, I put MY interests and endeavor over the expectations of my family and probably self-imposed expectations to appear respectable to others, and I have achieved something lasting and greater than a clean floor or sink.

To be honest, at times I probably would have preferred to be running around the house with a whirring vacuum cleaner in hand than grappling with the complexities of facebook ads, or once again videoing myself on the wrong aspect ratio. The learning involved has been huge and made more difficult by the inadequacies of my aging brain – I should have had this epiphany about online courses in my 30’s. Ah the money I would have made by inventing the ‘online’ before I even got to my Courses.

What I have learnt though is that if you have an idea, and you have an inkling it could be successful, then the only way to find out is to put the 7 weeks and 3 days of endless hours into making it a reality and giving it a test run. Chances are it might just work, and if it doesn’t, well I think you will probably have the beginnings of something that will. Everything is a work in progress.

There are sacrifices to be made though – like a clean house, time with friends and family. But I have promised myself to make these a priority once the Course was created. Rest assured those furballs and dead leaves, even the toothpaste monsters – their days are numbered.

If you would like information on my Course STARTS where I teach 5 ways to start an abstract painting go to my gleaming Courses page on my website and register interest so that you will hear when I will be offering it again in mid-July.

Or if you would just like to hang out with me and see my process join The Upbeat Artists Group where I have free tutorials, videos and great chat. We also have a ton of really lovely work being posted and a friendly supportive community.

You can also see more of my work on my Instagram account. Come and follow me there.