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Category:Creativity
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One weird tip to get a picture book illustration deal

In yesterday’s newsletter, we shared some amazing recent student success stories from our career-changing Illustrating Children’s Books course – if you missed it then catch up here. Here’s another way you can land a book deal when you take Illustrating Children’s Books: get your art seen by course leader and brilliant children’s book art director Zoë Tucker! Just some of the many books directed by Zoë in her 25 years in the children’s publishing industry. Her client list includes top publishers such as Alison Green Books, Dorling Kindersley, Quarto, Wide Eye Editions, Scholastic and Magic Cat. Both Zoë and co-leader Lilla, who was an art agent for 30 years, look at every single piece of art that’s submitted to the weekly galleries ahead of the deadline and pick some to review in the LIVE weekly reviews – that means that you could get your art reviewed by a former art

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SALE! Our picture book illustration course gets you jobs!

Our picture book illustration course, Illustrating Children’s Books, is one of our most long-running and best-loved courses, and with good reason: thousands of alumni have gone on to land book deals and representation because of the work they did and the things they learned in class. This five week long LIVE course is taught by illustrator and former top art agent Lilla Rogers, with 30 years’ experience of assessing artists’ portfolios and assigning picture book illustration jobs, and brilliant children’s book art director and picture book author Zoë Tucker. Zoë has worked on hundreds of children’s books, including the author-illustrator dream team Julia Donaldson and Axel Schaeffer, and she’s always looking out for new artists to commission – check out some of the Make Art That Sells students she’s worked with after spotting them in class in tomorrow’s newsletter! Just some of the many dozens of books Zoë Tucker has

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Replay of Live with Lilla #1: How to Have an Incredible Illustration Career!

Did you miss the fabulous Live with Lilla #1: How to Have an Incredible Illustration Career? Watch the replay below! Our huge annual sale is ON, 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         Love The MATS Team xx

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SOLD OUT! Join the waiting list now

Wow! Both the first and second rounds of Lilla’s small-group mentorship intensive, Inner Circle, completely sold out – get on the waiting list now to be first to hear when it opens again! Inner Circle is the opportunity of a lifetime to mine Lilla’s wisdom and experience gleaned from 40 years in the creative industry, as an art agent, an illustrator, an author, a columnist, an educator, a speaker and more. With places strictly limited to just 12 participants to allow for plenty of support and guidance, Inner Circle quickly sold out both times we ran it in 2025. Here’s all the participants from the very first round of Inner Circle in one of their weekly Zooms with Lilla. You’ll be able to ask questions, share work in progress for feedback and more in a small, supportive group setting. The exact syllabus is geared towards the specific needs of the

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See Lilla’s top picks from #LillasStylePlay2025!

Whew! We’ve just finished our first ever FREE 30-day Instagram art challenge, #LillasStylePlay2025, and what a blast it was! Many hundreds of artists shared many hundreds of images based on 30 prompts supplied by art agent Lilla, and we were absolutely blown away by your wit, talent and creativity. If you missed all the fun, you can see the list of prompts on our Instagram page here, then head over to Lilla’s Instagram page, where she shared a short clip explaining why she’d picked each prompt each day. We also gave away 15 FREE Make Art That Sells courses to 15 lucky participants! We just wanted to finish out the challenge by sharing some of Lilla’s favorite art, along with some of the lovely comments we read. We do need to emphasize that this barely scrapes the surface of all the incredible art you produced. Bravo to everyone who took

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See gorgeous art from our #LillasStylePlay Instagram challenge

We’ve absolutely loved seeing the incredible art that so many of you have been creating for our FREE 30-day Internet challenge, #LillasStylePlay2025. The challenge is on NOW and runs through to the end of September – so if you haven’t already gotten involved, there’s still a few days left! Art for #LillasStylePlay2025 by Karin Lauria @blackcoffeenow (left), Jo Podmore @joey_pod (center), and Evalyn “Evie” German @whateviestudio (right). Lilla has come up with 30 fabulous, quirky prompts to delight and inspire you, to help you discover or evolve your artistic style, and to fill your portfolio with amazing art. See the prompts (and follow us on Instagram) here and find out more here. Lilla’s 30 kooky prompts (left) and her take on prompt #1 (right). Join in today from #25 onwards and you could win a FREE Make Art That Sells course! Plus every week, we pick three participants at random

Explore 10 of the best art markets and save 15%!

What are the best markets to sell your art in? Do you want to explore ten of the best art markets for creatives like you? Do you want fabulous assignments written by a top art agent who spent 30 years seeing the work that her artists were getting and knows exactly what clients are looking for? Do you want to fill your portfolio with art designed to catch a client’s eye and get you paying jobs? Explore ten of the hottest markets for your art, including children’s book illustration and bolt fabric. Art for class by Make Art That Sells students Anna Berger (left) and Jan Gerardi (right). It’s a fact: art directors, creative directors, publishers and clients NEED your art. Tons of art markets, like children’s books, greeting cards, and puzzles, are booming right now. Discover art markets you might not have thought of, that need your art! Art

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LAST CHANCE! Assignment Bootcamp: Lettering 2025 closes TODAY!

Hurry hurry HURRY – registration for Lilla’s student-favorite lettering course, Assignment Bootcamp: Lettering, closes TODAY! Our students and followers begged for years for Lilla to teach lettering, and last year’s course was so popular we had to do it all over again with all new content – but today is your last chance to sign up! Lettering gets you jobs! Cool products agented by Lilla Rogers Studio. Clockwise from top left: journal by Helen Dardik, craft kit by Tara Lilly, book by Mike Lowery, greeting card by Hsinping Pan, book by Charlotte Bruijn, book by Sarah Walsh, and hand-shaped book by Flora Waycott. Scroll down to find out what you get in this unique course, read a student success story and find out how you can get a FREE font from one of our students – or just sign up now! You’ll make fabulous portfolio pieces like these, designed to

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Get your second FREE lettering assignment – from a creative director!

Lilla here. Last week I shared a little sneak peek of some of the content you’ll get in my unique lettering course, Assignment Bootcamp: Lettering, which starts Monday, September 8th: I hope you enjoyed it! Today I’m going to give you another FREE assignment to play with and learn from. Read on! In Assignment Bootcamp: Lettering, you’ll get one of these assignments – which I’m calling Micro Mini assignments – every day from Monday to Friday of the first week of each month. I gave you one last week and I’m giving you another one today to give you a real taste of what the course will be like. Just like in the course, you can do a little bit each day when you get the Micro Mini assignment, or you can save it all for the weekend. Plus this one is going to be extra fun. I came up