Write your picture book!

  Lilla’s innovative picture book writing course, My Kid Book Pitch, is back as a LIVE course in 2026! Find out more and sign up here.

Category:Featured
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guesswhat

Big news from Lilla

The Lilla Rogers Studio Ladies at a recent meeting in my backyard Patty Kantlehner, Julia Parker, Me, Susan McCabe, and Kim Fleming Lilla here. I have some big news to share. Make Art That Sells is my passion: I adore teaching and I love concocting courses to help you thrive in your creative career. Equally, thirty years of running my own agency has been an amazing adventure. What greater feeling is there for an agent than to email a brilliantly talented artist with a dream job or to mentor them on a project close to their heart to then have it accepted by their hoped-for client? Some of the thousands of products my art agency has licensed illustration for. We’ve agented commissions for some of the best artists in the world on, for example, a watertower in Albuquerque, painterly pillows and mugs for Anthropologie, huge murals for a Seattle hospital

Younicorn cover + spread

See the character that became a game that became a book!

Find out how you can create winning characters for games, books and more – and see the character that became a game that became a book! It’s less than a month until the start of Bootcamp Special: Character Play, the popular course, now in its third year, that’s all about creating appealing characters for books, games, toys and more. Learning how to create characters can be fantastic for your creative career. Why? Because they’re the centre point of products like picture books, toys and games (including plush toys, play sets, card and board games and more), and because you can licence them in so many art markets – markets like clothing, cushions, bedlinens, tea towels and oven gloves, phone cases, bags, wall art, and dozens more. In this unique course, you’ll join brilliant children’s book art director and author, Zoë Tucker, and creative director, art agent and smash-hit game creator,

How to silence self-doubt

How to silence self-doubt Have you met Lilla Rogers? She’s worked as an art agent, an illustrator, a speaker, a columnist, the creator of a national jewelry craft line, an educator, an author and more, and she has tons of wisdom to share. Art agent Lilla’s courses often explore the psychological side of carving out a career as an illustrator. After decades in the industry as an art agent, a mentor, a full-time illustrator and an educator, she has tons of wisdom to share, and works hard to nurture creative people. With that in mind, we’ve been asking Lilla to answer some of the Big Questions about life as an illustrator. You can check out her previous answers here: How can I keep creating with joy in difficult times? How can I deal with envy in my work as an illustrator? Is making art that sells selling out? Today we

making great art

Is making art that sells selling out?

I want to be commercially successful – but do you have to sell out to make money from your art? Over the past few months, we’ve been asking art agent Lilla some of the Big Questions about life as an illustrator. Questions like: How can I keep creating with joy in difficult times? How can I deal with envy in my work as an illustrator? Some of Lilla’s career highlights so far, including her first book, I Just Like to Make Things, her regular column for Uppercase magazine, her jewelry craft line on the front cover of Stringing magazine, and more. With decades of experience in the creative industry – as an art agent, an illustrator, a speaker, a columnist, creator of a national jewelry craft line, an educator, an author and more – Lilla has tons of wisdom to share. She shares it through her Make Art That Sells

your childrens book career starts here

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.

live replay screen May 20

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

Illustrating children's book online art courses

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

Your MATS Prep

Get the final part of your FREE children’s book illustration assignment from top art agent Lilla Rogers!

Lilla here! I recently shared the first two parts of a FREE three-part warm-up exercise that I’ve created for you ahead of my raved-about online course, Illustrating Children’s Books, which starts NEXT MONDAY, May 20th. If you missed them, you can catch up on Part 1 and 2 here. How did you enjoy Part 2? I bet you had some fun accessorizing. Are you seeing that the more time and thought you spend on your character, the more interesting it is? An engaging character is so important to a successful children’s book, and that’s why my co-teacher, brilliant children’s book art director and author Zoë Tucker, and I spend so much time focusing on characters in class, and why we share boatloads of hints and tips from our decades in the industry. Want in? Book your place here. Today, we’re going to move on to the third and final part

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FREE download: How to create childrens book characters

How to create childrens book characters: FREE download! Get your FREE download on how to create characters for kids’ books from brilliant children’s book art director, Zoë Tucker! Zoë teaches our raved-about online course, Illustrating Children’s Books, alongside top art agent Lilla. As well as being a renowned children’s book art director, Zoë also writes all the texts for Illustrating Children’s books and has published seven acclaimed picture books since 2019 (read about some of them here). Three of her picture books were originally written for Illustrating Children’s Books, and one of them was illustrated by a Make Art That Sells student. In other words, you’ll be illustrating professional level texts on the course. Three of Zoë’s picture books, which she originally wrote for Illustrating Children’s Books. Ada Lovelace and the Number Crunching Machine (left) was illustrated by MATS student Rachel Katstaller. Greta and the Giants (middle) was read by

11 Vengeance

Top tips from a top art agent: How to deal with envy

How do you deal with envy in your creative career? Art agent Lilla has decades of experience and shedloads of wisdom to share. She works hard to nurture creative people, both her students and her artists alike, and her courses often explore the psychological side of carving out a career as an illustrator. In her Illustrating Children’s Books course, for example, as well as a ton of incredible content about children’s book illustration, she also shares handouts on topics such as being yourself, dealing with competition, creating routines and more. Lilla has worked as an art agent, an illustrator, a speaker, a columnist, the creator of a national jewelry craft line, an educator, an author and more, and she has tons of wisdom to share. At the end of last month, we shared how we’d been asking Lilla some of the Big Questions about life as an illustrator. In March,