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FREE Art Challenge: Check out the art from our latest assignment

Have you heard about our FREE Quarterly Art Challenge yet? Once a quarter – on March 1st, June 1st, September 1st and December 1st – you get a FREE illustration assignment direct to your inbox. You then have one week to complete it – because nothing cuts through procrastination like a deadline. Art agent Lilla looks at all the art submitted before the deadline, and then picks one (or two) pieces of art which wins prizes like free Make Art That Sells courses, free products, and more. Our most recent free Art Challenge was in March, and, as ever, we loved seeing the beautiful art that you created! Today we’re sharing the two winners (because Lilla couldn’t pick just one!), who each won a free place on Illustrating Children’s Books, plus the Honorable Mentions. March’s challenge was to recreate a fabulous vintage souvenir plate from Lilla’s collection, personalized for your


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How to figure out what to draw

Lilla here. You know that feeling when you want to draw something, but you don’t know what to draw? Here’s what worked for me recently. So here’s the scene. I’m curled up with a steamy espresso, journal, and fountain pen filled with red glitter ink—my morning routine. So far so good. I’m craving making some art, but I don’t know what to draw. You would think I would know what I want to draw after decades and decades of teaching art, making art, agenting, illustrating, and owning pretty much every art supply. But no. I have no ideas. Nada. So first I list the art things that I like doing these days. Let me think … Lettering, Procreate, flowers with Latin names, vintage things, people, drawing packages with lettering on my iPad in Procreate, like this from my 30-Day Style Play challenge from last year. But I still have no


MY MATS SUCCESS Make Art That Sells What REALLY happens in a MATS team meeting

What REALLY happens in a MATS team meeting

The Make Art That Sells team are typically spread across three or four countries and at least three time zones, but we meet once a month by Zoom to catch up and plot and plan for the months ahead. As you can imagine, it’s some pretty high-powered stuff. Shoulder pads up to our ears. We review our profit and loss margins for the last financial quarter and explore our deliverables for the upcoming quarter. We push the envelope and think outside the box. We harvest ideas. We disrupt. We have multiple balls in the air. Ha. Just kidding. Actual photo of MATS team planning. Eighty per cent of the team is British, so by law we have to kick off with some comments on the weather. This causes us problems, because, while we all share a common language, we speak very different units. “It’s like 30 degrees here,” Lilla might


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A Thermos Crisis and a Love Story

Lilla here. I want to share with you a little story I had fun writing and illustrating recently. At a recent team meeting, the team asked if I’d like to include some of my own illustrated writing pieces this month, and I absolutely loved the idea! Plus I thought you could be inspired to write and illustrate your own pieces for yourself, for your own enjoyment or social media. Look out for another piece of writing from me in our blog and newsletter on March 26th! The plastic inner straw of my cherished thermos doesn’t stay attached anymore, rendering it useless. You may feel that this doesn’t constitute a crisis, given the state of the world these days, but nevertheless I am forced to face the fact that I must choose another thermos from my collection. While they are all pretty, none have the qualities of my broken beloved thermos,


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Replay of Live with Lilla: Portfolio Club begins today!

If you missed the wonderful Live with Lilla, below is a replay. If you’ve ever dreamed of building a strong, market-ready illustration portfolio – or you already have some art in your portfolio but want to get noticed by clients so you can get more jobs and make more money – then now is the moment to jump in. You’ll get eight whole months of assignments from me, to take you all the way through to August – how cool is that? Watch the replay below  


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Get your FREE #art career bingo board!

Lilla here. As an agent, one thing that I get asked all the time is: what should I show in my portfolio in order to get illustration jobs? Artists say to me: “Lilla, I have a load of art on my website, but what do I actually NEED?” Gorgeous products in a variety of markets illustrated by some of the artists I represented. There are so many markets out there that need your art! Let me show you how you can get jobs like this. My whole thing is about diversification. In other words, the secret to a successful art career is just like a financial stock portfolio: you don’t know what’s going to give you a ton of work or what art markets going to go up or down, so you need to diversify your investments. That’s why I often talk about having many eggs in many baskets –


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Look! Introducing Lilla’s Art Cart: Art supplies curated especially for you

Lilla here. I can’t wait to tell you about our newest wild adventure! I’m so excited to share my latest adventure with you – it perfectly combines two of my greatest passions: my love of teaching and my love of art supplies. If you’ve ever been to or seen my studio, you probably know that I have practically every art supply in the whole world! Art supplies are my love language From more than five decades in the art biz, I’ve got drawers of gouache and watercolor tubes organized by color; deeply pigmented oil paints and oil mediums; funky, sparkly and chunky acrylic mediums; silky 6B charcoal pencils; soft and absorbent printmaking paper; crispy linoleum blocks; and soft, richly colored handmade pastels sorted in wooden drawers! There’s a good chance I already have every art supply in the world, but I think I probably still need more, right? So just


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Replay of Live with Lilla #4: End of sale celebration with Meera Lee Patel

Did you miss the fabulous Live with Lilla #4: End of sale celebration with Meera Lee Patel? Watch the replay below! Our huge annual sale has been extended through this weekend, with 30% off every single one of our career-changing courses, and up to 50% off our amazing value bundles! The Make Art That Sells Cyber Sale is our biggest sale of the year, so don’t miss out: if you’re thinking of taking any Make Art That Sells courses in 2026, you won’t get them cheaper than this – so sign up now!   What’s included in the sale? Get your FREE guide! Want help deciding which courses to take? Click here to get your free copy of our gorgeous Sale Guide, packed with worksheets, quizzes, art and more. Watch the replay below  


How to make an art portfolio - Portfolio Club 2026 course by Lilla Rogers

48 hours to go: Join Portfolio Club before the price jumps!

Hurry hurry HURRY – only TWO DAYS before our biggest sale of the year ends for good, and that means it’s also your last chance to save big on Lilla’s brand new course for 2026, Portfolio Club! Imagine what it would feel like to get an email directly in your inbox each month with a brand-new assignment for a commission to create a gorgeous piece of portfolio art for a super hot art market … That’s exactly what you’ll get every month for eight months in Portfolio Club! You’ll explore a huge range of art markets, and experience exactly what it’s like to get a commission from an art director. Sign up now! Art by Make Art That Sells student Jean Ruth. Lilla has written eight fantastic Mini assignments and eight Big Assignments for you for an incredible range of art markets that are written exactly as you’d get them


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SALE NOW ON: Up to 50% OFF all courses to help you make art that sells

Our huge annual sale is on NOW, with up to 50% off our career-changing courses – but HURRY, it ends in just THREE DAYS! Make 2026 the year you blossom and thrive as an artist. Let Lilla work her magic on your career! If you’re not sure which courses are perfect for you, be sure to download our brilliant FREE Playbook + Planner, which contains tons of playful and insightful worksheets and quizzes to help you review your successes in 2025 and make a plan for your amazing creative career in 2025. Don’t miss it! Click here to download your FREE copy of our gorgeous Playbook + Planner, jam-packed with powerful worksheets, quizzes, mini assignments and more. Check out our huge sale now and book yourself onto a career-changing course that will bring you inspiration, community and joy in 2026. Click here to explore everything that’s included in the sale.