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Category:Course: Illustrating Children’s Books
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Learn how you can build a lucrative career in the dreamy world of children’s book illustration with Make Art That Sells’ Children’s Book Illustration Course and Illustrating Children’s Books Plus courses!

Designed for newbies and pro illustrators alike, this career-changing course covers everything you need to know to give your children’s book illustration career a huge boost. In just five weeks, you’ll create a ready-to-send pitch presentation that contains everything an art director or publisher needs to see to give you work. Taught by industry professionals, you’ll gain real-world insights into the thriving children’s book market, whilst honing your skills through weekly assignments, live reviews, downloadable worksheets, video lessons, interviews with publishers and illustrators and more. Get all the tools, insight, and advice you need to succeed with Illustrating Children’s Books.

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FREE: How to create a setting for a picture book

Illustrating Children’s Books 2025 starts in just over a week, on Monday, July 7th! To help you get ready for class and warm up your creative muscles, we’re sharing a series of five FREE assignments from course co-teacher and renowned art agent, Lilla Rogers: read on for Part 2! How to create a setting for a picture book What’s Illustrating Children’s Books? It’s an incredible five-week LIVE online course that will teach you everything you need to know to launch or boost your children’s picture book illustration career. This will be the twelfth time that your teachers, art agent and Make Art That Sells founder, Lilla Rogers, and acclaimed children’s book art director and author, Zoë Tucker, have run this course – and each time, it just gets better and better! Art by Make Art That Sells student Pamela Goodman for Illustrating Children’s Books. You’ll create a pitch presentation containing

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FREE picture book illustration assignment – Part 1

FREE picture book illustration assignment – Part 1 Our student-favorite LIVE online course, Illustrating Children’s Books, starts in just over a week, on Monday, July 7th and there’s still time to sign up! Why is this course, which is now running for the twelfth time, so popular? Why do our students take it again and again? Because it’s incredibly rigorous but also playful and fun – and it really works. Tons of our students have gone on to get picture book illustration deals, land agents, and more after taking this course (you can read some of their stories here). Plus it’s led by industry experts. Your teachers, former top art agent Lilla Rogers and renowned children’s book art director and author Zoë Tucker, will teach you everything you need to know about the wonderful world of children’s book illustration, in an accessible, step by step way that will break everything

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HOW many picture book deals?!

Building a lucrative career in the dreamy world of children’s book illustration is totally possible – and we’ve got the receipts to prove it (see below!). It isn’t just about skill or style – for example, you also need to show an art director or publisher that you have what it takes to create a character that will appeal to children, and that you can recreate in different poses and with different expressions while still being identifiably the same character. That’s where our student favorite Illustrating Children’s Books course comes in! Now in its tenth year (and twelfth iteration), you’ll spend five intense weeks creating an eye-catching ready-to-send pitch presentation that contains everything you need to show an art director or publisher so they give you that gig! Meet your teachers! Former top art agent, Lilla (left), and children’s book art director and picture book author, Zoë (right), have tons

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Create your dream book cover

Create your dream book cover Everyone knows that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover … but from that pile of unused journals (we see you – and yes, we know, they were just too pretty to pass up) to browsing your local bookstore, that’s exactly what we all do. Plus it’s one of the key things that an art director or publisher will look at when they look at your picture book illustration portfolio. Some of the many thousands of books agented by Lilla Rogers Studio. Check out those amazing covers – and see how the lettering can really add to the overall impact. A book cover needs to work hard to get you to pick the book up out of thousands of others on offer. It needs to look good even if viewed as a thumbnail online. It needs to tease a little bit of the story,

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HUGE NEWS for Illustrating Children’s Books students!

Illustrating Children’s Books 2025 starts in just over a month, on Monday, July 7th, and we have some fantastic news: Tamisha Anthony will be joining Lilla and Zoë for one of the reviews! Illustrator, educator, Make Art That Sells student and now author Tamisha with some of the books she’s illustrated. Who’s Tamisha Anthony, we hear you ask? She’s a busy working professional illustrator, with five gorgeous picture books under her belt since 2022 (her clients include Penguin Random House, Little Brown, Macmillan Publishers, and Chronicle Books), and another SEVEN on the way – including her very own author-illustrator debut! She’s a gifted and passionate educator, who’s taught at institutions including the New York Historical Society and the Harlem School of the Arts, as well as leading two incredible Make Art That Sells courses of her own: Redrawing Black History and Find Your Art Style with Style. She’s a Make

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See the beautiful books our students have illustrated

Picture books are one of the most magical and rewarding art markets out there, and we couldn’t be more excited to see so many of our graduates landing incredible picture book illustration deals! Here’s your teacher! As an art agent for 30 years, Lilla has viewed thousands of artists’ portfolios and agented many hundreds of picture books, so she knows just what you need to show in your portfolio. Today, we’re celebrating some of the amazing picture book success stories our talented students have shared with us – they’re truly inspiring! (Love these? You can explore even more of our alumni’s fantastic achievements right here.) And don’t forget—our huge Spring Sale is happening right now! That means 25% off every single course – and if your dream is to get paid for illustrating picture books, don’t miss our game-changing Get Me a Picture Book Deal bundle, packed with even bigger

How to write, illustrate and pitch your book

How to write or illustrate your book Here at Make Art That Sells we have three courses jam-packed with information and tips on how to illustrate and pitch your book to get work in some of the hottest markets: My Kid Book Pitch – writing and/or illustrating your own children’s picture book Illustrating Children’s Books – how to get into the world of illustrating beautiful picture books My Arty Book Pitch – write and illustrate your own ‘arty’ non-fiction book We give you the tools, insights and hints showing you how to write or illustrate your book, and then we share our insider knowledge within each course on the best way to pitch your work. This information is gold, and we’re sharing some of it here for free! By  student Jen Jamieson for My Kid Book Pitch How to Find Publishers Once you’ve written your brilliant children’s book story in

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LAST CHANCE + 4 more student success stories!

Hurry hurry HURRY – LAST CHANCE! Registration for Illustrating Children’s Books 2024 closes TODAY! This class won’t run again until 2025, so if you want in – sign up now! There’s something magical about a picture book, isn’t there? Opening the pages, the feel, the smell – and of course the beautiful art. How must it feel to get to illustrate a book of your very own: to spend weeks or months digging deep into the text and bringing it to life for generations of children to enjoy – and getting paid to do it? How do you get a picture book gig? By showing art directors and publishers exactly what they want to see in your portfolio and pitch. And that’s what top art agent Lilla Rogers and brilliant children’s book art director and author Zoë Tucker are going to do in just five weeks in Illustrating Children’s Books.

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Replay of Live with Lilla and Zoë: First day of class live zoom!

Hi everyone! If you missed the fabulous Live Zoom with Lilla and Zoë, you can find a replay below! There is still time to join us in class and learn everything you need to know to boost your picture book illustration career. Grab your spot here. This class won’t run again until 2025! You’ll get: Zoom Lives from class! (all added to the classroom as replays in case you miss any) Your choice of one of three BRAND NEW carefully-chosen texts for you to illustrate. This will give you a structure for the course, and allow you to dive in instantly. Twenty in-depth videos with Lilla and Zoë on every aspect of the creating and pitching of your children’s book, growing your creative business, and Lilla’s art technique demonstrations Interviews with top art directors and successful illustrators. We ask them everything you want to know. Lilla’s inimitable style of teaching

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Win a FREE place in Illustrating Children’s Books TODAY!

Our raved-about online course, Illustrating Children’s Books, starts TODAY! Every year, this course creates a whole new flurry of book deals for our wonderful students – we’ll be sharing some brand NEW stories on Thursday, but until then you can read about just some of them here! Over five incredible weeks, your brilliant teachers, top art agent Lilla Rogers and renowned children’s book art director and author Zoë Tucker, will lead you step by step to create a fabulous pitch presentation that contains everything an art director or publisher wants to see. And on the way, they’ll teach you everything you need to know about the wonderful world of children’s book illustration in a way that’s both fun and fascinating: you won’t want it to end. You’ll get daily drawing prompts, weekly LIVE reviews with Lilla and Zoe, tons of beautifully designed downloadable worksheets, and tons more. Book your spot