And did you then walk away, unable to persuade yourself whether it was a worthy purchase, and spend the ensuing years wishing you had just bought it on the spot?

You wouldn't be alone, even among Canberra's most astute art collectors.

And it turns out, your first instinct was most likely telling you the right thing.

Loving something should be the first consideration when it comes to buying art, says Vasiliki Nihas, the current chairwoman of the board of M16 Artspace in Griffith.

But many of us lack the confidence to listen to our inner art voice, which is why Ms Nihas is launching a four-week course at M16 Artspace devoted entirely to building an art collection.

The course, which starts next week, will run over four sessions, and cover artistic genres, local and emerging art scenes, ethics and the rationale behind collecting art in general.

"I think lots of people have difficulty finding entry points into contemporary art, and I just wanted to make that easier and more accessible and give confidence in purchasing something, buying something that they've fallen in love with and that they're interested in, and that that's an OK reason to buy," she said.

"The other thing is, art is such a personal expression of identity, it's so much about who you are, what you buy actually says something about you."

She was inspired to begin the course by listening to a young relative hesitating over how to begin his own collection.

"He was one of those young people who'd just got his own place, who was looking around and really loves art but wasn't sure whether he really liked it and was his taste any good," she said.

It made her think back on her own first art purchase, a pair of prints by a then-unknown Australian artist, that she has loved ever since.

The former senior public service executive and her husband, Nick Bogiatzis, have been prolific art collectors for 30 years.

She wants more people in Canberra to have the same experience of buying a piece of art they love, without worrying about wasting money or making "an investment", and questioning their own aesthetic.

"I think what it's about is people becoming informed and getting interested and getting enthusiastic, because you're not always ready to buy immediately," she said.

"You can walk in and see something and go, 'Wow that's fabulous, let me just think about it', and 24 hours [later] it's gone, and that teaches you lesson No.1 Your intuition has to play a large part – not just your brain but your intuition, so they coalesce."

She said she had originally planned a course that targeted 25-35-year-olds – people who had already made the first important investments in their working life and were now tentatively testing the art market, with no idea where to begin.

But she has since discovered that people of all ages are interested, including the impressive range of speakers from across Canberra's arts sector she has engaged to speak at the course sessions.

Speakers include two senior curators from the National Gallery of Australia, independent gallery directors and several prominent local collectors, including landscape architects Karina Harris and Neil Hobbs, and Hotel Hotel founder Jonathan Efkarpidis.

The Confident Collecting Series begins at M16 Artspace on Monday, May 30, at 6.30pm. For pricing, bookings and more information, visit m16artspace.com.au.