9 Blues courses delivered Live Online

Monthly online ekphrastic writing workshops exploring contemporary artworks for story inspiration.

Enjoy our outstanding blues singing courses for adults and develop the blues growl used by Bessie Smith, Big Bill Broonzy or Little Richard. Discover amazing vocal techniques that will make your blues feel authentic and enhance your vocal abilities under the tutoring of experts.

Be it a career change, an exciting new hobby, perfecting existing skills or simply enhancing professional employment prospects– we help you unlock creativity through our industry aligned all-encompassing Graphic Design Course. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- " Having done my level 1 and level 2 in graphic design, I felt that I still had gaps in my knowledge and I wasn't comfortable with what I knew. I signed up with Blue Sky Graphics and I am really glad I did. I am definitely better now than when I started and this is all thanks to my tutor and Blue Sky Graphics 🙂 " -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Comprehensive Advanced Course The graphic design course is a structured academic and industry aligned advanced course suitable for complete beginners, intermediates or those wanting to improve their existing skill set. The graphic design course is comprehensive and through our teaching methodology is designed to train participants to become professional Graphic Designers. There is an emphasis on corporate illustration, composition, painting and logos as well as advertisement designs while focusing on vectors, lines, features, shapes, and spaces. All this will be integrated into how graphic elements are printed after they are processed in graphic design software for the purpose of visually illustrating emotions and messages. During the course you will be exposed to: advertisements, magazines, newspapers, corporate graphic designs particular to company cultures and brand identity, stationery, letterheads, business cards, logos, books, packaging and much more. The graphic design course teaches you to understand and learn how to operate a labyrinthine yet amazing world of Adobe software. With this software we explore the uses of words, shapes, textures, forms, sizes and colours to communicate by combining ideas and images to make a new concept. Graphic design through common misconception is not just about layout and typography, but much more about ideas behind visual meaning. Graphic design can make a company more successful in the world if it makes communication smart, attractive and able to captivate its audience. Graphic design can effectively be used by businesses to make (or break) their brand identity, increase sales, promote web traffic or promote services and products through advertising on their websites to convey complex data to its readers in a clear way. Elements of graphic design include: Colour, Size, Texture, Line, Shape, Space and, Form. It is important that each element is understood correctly, and this is one of the key principles we teach on our graphic design course. In other terms, graphic design communicates certain ideas or messages through visuals. These visuals can be as simple as a business logo, or as complex as pages of web design. This course goes beyond just the practical side of graphic design and includes the theory and substance behind modern graphic design. Your teacher will guide you on: What salary you can expect at the start of your career? How to get new clients for your business for freelance designers ? How to find work for the new graphic designer starting out in the big world? How to quickly integrate into the graphic design field? How to combine working from home versus working at a studio ? BEGIN ONE-TO-ONE ONLINE LEARNING WITH YOUR VERY OWN PRIVATE TUTOR -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- INTERESTED? Our course is 7 months long, consisting of 1 hour 30 minutes of online one-to-one sessions. When you enrol at Blue Sky Graphics expect at least 90 minutes of class sessions and 2 – 4 hours of homework per week. If we accommodate the course delivery into a shorter time frame, (for e.g. over 4 months instead of 7 months the Flexi 3 doubles from £265.00 to £450.00 over 4 months) the instalment is billed at the delivery rate.  The cost of traditional schooling is typically more expensive than online courses, but in the end it all comes down to how good the tutors are. With our online courses you can gain skills that are a necessity for graphic design remotely. That’s right! Learn the skills needed to use Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and portfolio! The online courses cost £1799.00 (VAT inclusive) with no extra hidden costs and there are affordable instalment options too. Pay via debit or credit card or use a payment plan. A deposit of £294.00 is required to secure your position.

Fans of Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga or Michael Jackson will be pleased to attend our fantastic pop singing courses offered in a relaxed and non-judgmental environment. Sing your favourite songs while improving your vocal abilities immensely. Open to adults from beginners to advanced.

1 - 1 Guitar lessons for beginners.  Adults and children welcome. Classes are taught via Zoom. Hi! My name is Iain and I’m a Guitar addict. I’ve been learning since I was 10 years old and have fallen in love with playing Guitar over and over again over the last 30 (or more) years. I started teaching Music in 2003. At the time I was doing a World Music degree at SOAS, studying everything from West African Blues to Indian Raga. My first teaching gig was at an after school club and I immediately loved teaching Music. After graduating I got a job as Music teacher at Carlton Primary School and over the next several years I taught Music and Guitar for Hackney and Camden Music services. This gave me the opportunity to work in many different schools, teaching whole classes, small groups and one to one lessons. Working in such a wide variety of settings was the best experience any young teacher could hope for.  In 2012 I got my teaching qualification form the University of East London and went to work for Beal High School in Ilford. I started as a Guitar/Music teacher and then moved into their Autistic provision as a class teacher. This really made me aware of the importance of teaching in a way that suits the individual’s needs and avoiding a ‘one size fits all’ approach to education. In 2015 I started work as a Music teacher for Harmeny Education Trust in Edinburgh. Harmey provides for children who have experienced significant trauma in their early lives and takes a therapeutic approach to education. It’s a great place to work and we’re now working on expanding from just Music lessons to doing media projects as well – making Youtube videos and podcasts and exploring all sorts of ways to record and express ourselves. I have always done small bits of private teaching alongside school work and in January 2020 I decided to start a proper Guitar teaching business. And then 2 months later the pandemic hit and lockdowns started! But, as they say, necessity is the mother of invention and I’ve been lucky to find some wonderful students online who are learning via Zoom and also expand my Youtube channel along the way.

As technology continues to develop and increasingly interact with our daily lives, so must our sales techniques to ensure we're leveraging advances in how people do business to our advantage. It is essential for all salespeople to understand how to navigate the various tools at our disposal and grow their skills and confidence to put them into action in order to build a solid business pipeline. We have developed this programme to be practical, fun and interactive, whilst ensuring that participants will learn how to utilise new technology to their advantage, self-generate new business leads and opportunities, gain additional business and referrals from existing contacts, and save time and effort using proven business development skills. This course will help participants: * Understand the 'organized persistence' model of sales prospecting * Develop skills in using video, online and social media to generate interest * Understand how to write effective sales and outreach emails and using online tools * Develop techniques for effectively managing telephone appointments * Learn ways to use LinkedIn for connecting with customers and prospects * Develop networking skills and learn how to source and develop referrals and professional introductions 1 KEY PRINCIPLES OF SMART SALES PROSPECTING * Set your sales prospecting goals and objectives * Elevator pitch, core messages and your value proposition * Targeting and segmenting your market * 'Organised persistence' using your CRM effectively 2 SETTING APPOINTMENTS BY TELEPHONE - PLANNING AND PREPARATION * Why calling still works and the best times to call * Creating a call prompt sheet: * Opening a call and taking control * Giving a reason to meet * Key questions to ask * Overcoming the cold calling blues 3 SETTING APPOINTMENTS BY TELEPHONE - ADVANCED SKILLS * Giving a reason to meet and 'selling the appointment' * Key questions to ask that will create interest and motivation to meet * Voice tone, power words, phrasing, pausing, responding * Getting past gatekeepers and getting through 4 USING LINKEDIN FOR RESEARCH AND FOLLOW-UP * Why LinkedIn matters and how to use it * Finding new contacts, connecting and Inmailing * Short-cuts and advanced skills 5 EMAIL STRATEGIES THAT WORK * Using AIDA and other templates for sales emails * Using personalized video emails to create interest * Vertical targeting emails, with examples * Building awareness with an email chain

Experience Nature’s Beautiful Blues in this online indigo dyeing workshop with dye expert Debbie Tomkies. Join and dye along or watch later! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In this relaxed, online workshop Debbie will be showing you how to set up a simple dye vat using sodium carbonate (soda ash) and thiourea dioxide (spectralite). This reliable, easy to use vat can be created easily at home with our Natural Indigo starter kit and some basic equipment. Debbie will be showing you how to prepare fabric for dyeing, some simple tie-dye techniques, how to dye your fabric, building up colour, finishing and a brief look at overdyeing. Course level: This event is suitable for complete beginners as well as those who want to brush up their skills or just enjoy a couple of hours indigo dyeing! What you will learn: * How to set up and maintain a simple indigo vat * Preparing your fabric for dyeing * The essential principles of indigo dyeing * What vat dyeing is and how it works * What can be dyed in an indigo vat * A brief look at overdyeing * A selection of simple tie-dyeing techniques on fabric You will need: We recommend our Natural indigo starter kit which contains all the ingredients you’ll need as well as our accompanying full instruction booklet Alternatively, please our free downloadable guide sets out what materials and equipment you will need. Most of the equipment is easily obtainable from the local supermarket or DIY shop (Wilko and B&M are our favourites in the UK!) but please make sure anything you use isn’t used for food afterwards. Get your workshop materials & goodies with a discount coupon: Newsletter subscribers receive exclusive workshop offers so to bag your offer and be the first in the queue for bookings, do sign up on our home page. Support good causes! A proportion of our online workshop fees raise funds for local organisations like Don't Walk Past group so we hope you'll share on your social media and invite friends to sign up if they would like to take part. How does the session work? Our online sessions are flexible and you can watch from anywhere! You simply need access to a pc/mac, laptop, tablet or smartphone with a camera and audio to join. The session is also recorded for ticket holders to view for 2 months after the event..You can choose to watch the session live and dye-a-long with Debbie. Alternatively, watch live with your feet up and a cuppa and have a go later. The recording will be available for 2 months after the event for you to watch at your leisure. About the classes Debbie loves to teach and has been a dyer for over 30 years so you’ll be able to pick her brains for tips, tricks and hacks!Debbie’s online sessions are fun and enjoyable. The pace is relaxed and there is time to dye along if you wish or watch and have a go later. You’ll be able to ask questions live during the session and the chat box means you can also interact live with Debbie and the other students. About Debbie Debbie has been a hand-dyer for over 30 years. She has worked with yarn companies, hand-dyeing yarns for commercial collections. She also ran successful yarn and fibre dye clubs for a number of years.Debbie teaches dyeing and printing with both synthetic and natural dyes, including indigo and woad vat dyeing. She works with yarn, fabric and fibres. Debbie is the author of 5 internationally published books, Hand-Dyed Yarn Craft Projects, Complete Knitting Skills, 250 Knitting Stitches, Knitting.Learn it.Love it and How to Knit.When she’s not dyeing, designing, knitting or crocheting, you’ll find her in the garden, tending her dyeplants, enjoying a nice craft beer or hugging a big mug of builders’ tea. And if you’re out and about, she can often be found in the mosh pit at a gig or enjoying some folk music! Is there anything we can help with? If you need any information about this course, please don’t hesitate to get in touch by email or phone.

Our excellent one to one singing courses are suitable for all adults, from absolute beginners without any prior musical knowledge to advanced amateur pianists. They can be joined at any time during the year and are provided by highly qualified and experienced singing instructors.

Our intensive singing courses are greatly enjoyed by adults who are eager to boost their vocal abilities within a short period. You can either attend to work on a specific aspect of your voice or your overall vocal technique. Expect tremendous progress in a few days of focused studies.