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.

Posted on October 12, 2018.

Jester Hipster or Madam Bodoni: What’s your children’s book illustration personality?

Do you dream of getting work in the magical world of children’s book illustration? Our highly acclaimed online course, Illustrating Children’s Books, starts Monday! Plus to celebrate we’ve got a delicious serving of freebies for you to enjoy: read on! Work created in our last ICB course by student Heather Manning. This piece shows to the art director that Heather can illustrate a powerful environment. One of the reasons that the course works so well is that we break everything down into easy manageable steps so that you can avoid procrastination, engage your creative mind and, most of all, enjoy the process! In just five weeks, you’ll create a brilliant children’s book pitch which will help you land the work you want. The very first step towards creating a kickass pitch is to understand your own illustration style and which text to choose to let your art shine. Is your

Posted on October 11, 2018.

Alumni success ‘spotlight’ interview with Caitlin Murray

We are so proud of our Make Art That Sells Alumni, and we are pleased to feature a series of spotlight interviews showcasing their successes and artwork. We’ve asked them to share how the MATS courses have helped them learn and grow. You can see more Alumni Success stories here. Today, we have an interview with Caitlin Murray, who has taken Assignment Bootcamp four years in a row, Creating Collections for Home Decor and Illustrating Children’s Books. Tell us a little about how you got started in art and design It was a long and winding road! I originally studied teaching Drama and English, then went on to study Gold & Silversmithing and Millinery, before eventually studying illustration full time in Melbourne in 2001-2002. After that, I freelanced as an illustrator for a year before getting a job as an in-house designer for a fashion company who designed kids’ clothes for

Posted on October 9, 2018.

Zoë Tucker’s Insider Review of the Bologna Book Fair

Zoë Tucker is our beloved co-teacher of the Make Art That Sells Illustrating Children’s Books course and a highly regarded children’s book art director. Earlier this year she attended the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, so we jumped at the chance to catch up with her and get her insights about the show. We also asked our MATS students who attended the fair to share images and their experience, so you can read their thoughts here. Zoe writes: Hi everyone! I haven’t been to the Bologna book fair in years and decided this year it was high time I reacquainted myself with it. It didn’t disappoint! Aside from the fact that Bologna is a beautiful medieval city and a great mini-break, the international Bologna Children’s Book Fair is a one stop wonder of inspiration and excitement – especially if you love children’s books like I do! You can download this report from Zoë

Posted on October 8, 2018.

MATS Students at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair

The Bologna Children’s Book Fair is held in the Spring every year in Bologna, Italy. The Fair is the event in the publishing year’s calendar, built around children’s content today. Zoë Tucker, our beloved co-teacher of the Illustrating Children’s Books course and a highly regarded children’s book art director, attended in 2018. Zoe wrote a report about the fair here and we also asked some of our MATS students who went along to send us some thoughts. So in today’s post, MATS students share a few images and thoughts on attending the fair in person! Caroline Bonne-Muller This is me in front of the fantastic artwork created by Chloe Almeras and a photo of a 1.5 hour line for a portfolio review at Nosy Crow. I was at the fair with my 16 year old daughter, who has ambitions to go to the art academy, so I thought it was nice to

Posted on September 27, 2018.

Have you always dreamt of illustrating your own children’s book? Find out how!

Have you always dreamt of illustrating your own children’s book? Find out how from industry insiders, top art agent Lilla Rogers and top art children’s book art director Zoë Tucker! Many of our students who have taken the course multiple times have gone on to get agents and book deals precisely from the work they did in class! Read our success stories here! Check out our gorgeous classroom where you’ll live for 5 weeks. You’ll get: Facebook Live broadcasts from class where you can interact with Lilla and Zoë! Your choice of one of three carefully-chosen original texts for you to illustrate. This will give you structure for the course, and allow you to dive in instantly. Fifteen in-depth videos with Lilla and Zoe 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

Posted on September 20, 2018.

What will YOUR children’s  book  look like? Free taster lesson!

Your teachers, Zoë and Lilla Meet top art agent Lilla Rogers and brilliant children’s book art director Zoë Tucker, who will guide you every step of the way to creating your own children’s book pitch! They love to teach, have tons of knowledge, and break down the assignments step-by-step to assist you in making your very best work. You’ll make art in a supportive environment that will encourage you to thrive. What do I get in the course? This is a live course that runs every day for five weeks beginning October 15th to November 18th, 2018. By the end of class, you’ll create a brilliant children’s book pitch to help you land your dream children’s book gig. You’ll get over 20 videos, weekly assignments, live weekly video reviews, interviews with publishers and illustrators, and more. It’s co-taught by top art agent Lilla Rogers and highly-respected children’s book art director Zoë Tucker. What kind of work comes out of this

Posted on February 20, 2018.

Alumni success ‘spotlight’ interview with Stephanie Olivieri

We are so proud of our Make Art That Sells Alumni, and we are pleased to feature a series of spotlight interviews showcasing their successes and artwork. We’ve asked them to share how the MATS courses have helped them learn and grow. You can see more Alumni Success stories here Today, we have an interview with Stephanie Olivieri who has taken Bootcamp twice, MATS A and MATS Illustrating Children’s Books. Tell us a little about how you got started in art and design I actually was auditioning for a singing voice in a Disney Feature film and was doodling on the call sheet and the director suggested I go into animation. I started there and then when traditional animation crashed in the early 2000s I started working as an illustrator. Lilla always says “People buy your joy.” What brings you joy?’ Making fun, happy, emotional drawing, usually geared towards kids whether it be

Posted on February 19, 2018.

Hurry! Class starts today! Lilla’s Facebook Live and get your free text chooser for class!

I thought it would be really fun to pull a handout from the Illustrating Children’s Books course (which starts today!) and give it to you now so you could get started early. Download your free copy here. I made this unique handout for you specifically to help you choose which text to illustrate for the course. It focuses on examining your personality type, art style, and preferred art media. Let me give you some background about how I teach. One of the things that distinguishes my e-courses is that I’ve taught or mentored artists for four decades. I pride myself on knowing how to teach artists. It’s about deeply inspiring the artist so they dive right in. It about giving plenty of structure so they know where to go next. It’s about breaking things down into tiny bites so that the student feels a greater sense of calm. I understand

Posted on February 17, 2018.

Illustrating Children’s Books Student Showcase part 6 {Oct 2017 class}

We are so proud of our wonderful Make Art That Sells alumni and are pleased to showcase a series of gorgeous student work that was produced in the previous session of the Illustrating Children’s Books class. View more student showcase posts here. Camille Medina I created this cover for the fifth and last week of the course. It shows the main character of the story as well as the shadows of three other major characters without unveiling what they look like. I just love this image! It combines a lot of the things I like (minimalism, rough-ish lines, pencil texture, hand lettering, block colours) and I feel that it is very ‘me’. I also had a lot of fun creating the artwork that week so whenever I look at this image it brings back good memories and a feeling of excitement and positive energy. How did the ‘Illustrating Children’s Book’ class help you grow?

Posted on February 15, 2018.

#MatsPrep for Illustrating Children’s Books class: My Home Planet

Let’s get you ready for my course, Illustrating Children’s Books! I’ve chosen my very favorite MATS Prep for you. What’s a MATS Prep? They are free exercises to get prepared for class, or just to have some creative fun. What’s the number one thing that art directors look for in a portfolio when selecting an illustrator for a children’s book? They look to see that an illustrator can draw a great character! What is a ‘great’ character? It can be a person, an animal, or even a thing like a robot or even a pencil! The character has personality. So how do you show that? We will teach you how in class, but for now, here’s a tip: give it interesting accessories. What is it holding, carrying, wearing? Do the accessories help to tell the story? I’m going to show you some work for for Illustrating Children’s Books. See how