Learn how to get paid for illustrating children’s books!

  Our hugely popular online course, Illustrating Children’s Books, starts May 20th

Category:#matsprep
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Get your FREE assignment: Writing tips from an agent and author

Lilla here. In just a few weeks, on Monday, October 24th, I’ll be teaching my children’s picture book writing course, My Kid Book Pitch. I absolutely love teaching this course because I love helping creative people like you to thrive, and I love helping you to reach into your magical imagination and pull out all the stories I know you have whirling around in there. I know what you’re thinking: “But Lilla, I’m not a writer!”. I think you are, but you just don’t know it yet. That’s why I do writing retreats with my artists and artist/authors. I believe in artists’ minds and their ability to make books. (They do so well that they get book deals and I’m going to share with you what I teach them!) If you’re an artist, you may think that you can’t write a story like a ‘real’ author. You might think you


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Last part of your FREE assignment: Build a texture library

Lilla here. I can’t wait for you to join me in class! Creating Collections for Home Décor LIVE starts THIS Monday, August 29th, and I sure hope that you’re as excited as I am! Over the past few weeks, this five part #MATSprep warm up has been creating awareness so that when you sit down to make your collection in Creating Collections for Home Décor, you’re a more savvy, unique designer. Amp up: if you haven’t signed up already, get crackin’, because it all begins on Monday! Sign up here. Plus, don’t forget to join me and my fabulous Creating Collections for Home Décor co-teacher, Margo Tantau, for a FREE live Zoom event TOMORROW, FRIDAY, August 26th, at 12 noon ET/5 pm BST! We’ll be talking about the #MATSprep, answering your questions about the course and anything else you want to ask us from our decades in the industry, and


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#MATSprep Part 4: FREE assignment: Release your inner kook

Lilla here. I’m excited to share Part 4 of this #MATSprep warm up exercise I’ve created for you ahead of my course, Creating Collections for Home Décor, which starts NEXT MONDAY, August 29th. You can catch up on the previous parts here if you missed them, or just dive straight in. If you haven’t signed up for Creating Collections for Home Décor yet, there’s still time! You’ll spend an incredible five weeks with me and my fantastic co-teacher, creative director and trend queen Margo Tantau, learning everything you need to know to create and license products for the lucrative home décor market. You’ll create some stunning art and learn how to present your designs as collections, making them more appealing to clients. The course is packed with information from our decades in the industry – don’t miss it! Sign up now. In Part 3, we started to learn a little


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Discover more about your style in this FREE assignment: #MATSprep Part 3

Lilla here. Over the past week, I’ve been sharing a playful warm up assignment I created for you ahead of my online course, Creating Collections for Home Décor. In this unique class, my brilliant co-teacher, creative director Margo Tantau, and I show you how you can get a slice of the hugely lucrative home décor design pie (globally, the home décor market is estimated to reach a whopping $838.6 billion by 2027!). Every week for five weeks, you’ll explore one of the most popular substrates for home décor: metal, fabric, glass, ceramics and wood/MDF. You’ll get five Mini exercises and five professional-level Main assignments – one for each substrate – and by the end of the course, you’ll have a stunning, on-trend collection of home décor products, ready to send to clients and presented in a way that will bring a tear to an art director’s eye. Plus you’ll also


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FREE assignment inside: #MATSprep Part 2

Lilla here. Today I’m sharing Part 2 of a five part #MATSprep assignment I’ve created for you to help you get warmed up for my Creating Collections for Home Décor class. If you missed Part 1 then catch up here. Creating Collections for Home Décor is a unique online course that will not only show you how you can use your art to design a gorgeous home décor line, but will also show you how to present it as a collection, in a way that clients, creative directors and manufacturers understand – so not only are they more likely to buy your art, but they are also more likely to buy more of it. Art created by Zoë Ingram for Creating Collections for Home Décor (left) and some of the products that got made for Creative Co-op (right). Why does this assignment have five parts? It’s part of the way


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Don’t miss this fantastic FREE assignment!

Woo hoo – the wait is over! Having run for several years as a hugely popular self-paced course, Creating Collections for Home Décor is now BACK as a LIVE course by popular demand! What does that mean? LIVE weekly reviews with your brilliant teachers, top art agent Lilla Rogers and trend queen creative director Margo Tantau Weekly deadlines to keep you accountable, motivated and on track Brand NEW market-savvy trend boards to inspire you A fantastic group of creatives from all over the world to share your journey with … and more! Every week for five weeks, you’ll explore one of the five main substrates for home décor design: metal, fabric, glass, ceramics and wood/MDF. By the end of the course, you will have a complete collection of home décor products, ready to send to companies like West Elm, Anthropologie and Target. Plus, crucially, this unique course teaches you to


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FREE art assignment Part 2: Get your sneak peek of actual course content!

Lilla here. Today I’m sharing Part 2 of the #MATSprep assignment I wrote for you to get you ready for my Assignment Bootcamp: Portfolio course, which starts in just a few days, on Monday, August 1st. Don’t forget that these two prep assignments are part of the actual Mini assignment you’ll get in the first week of Assignment Bootcamp: Portfolio. How cool is that?! Today you’re going to play with some color blobs. Anyone who’s taken any of my courses will already know that I’m obsessed with color: as an art agent it’s make or break for me. Your palette can change the whole mood of a piece, and great colors will always help amp up your income from your art. That’s why we’ll be focusing exploring color in the first month of this year’s Bootcamp! Plus today I’m also going to share some time management tips, because I know


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Get Part 1 of your FREE art assignment! Plus SPOILERS 👀

Our most popular course, Assignment Bootcamp: Portfolio, starts in under two weeks! Want to know what Bootcamp’s really like? Over the next two newsletters, we’ll be sharing the first few steps from the first mini assignment for Bootcamp for August – so if you love it, be sure to sign up! Every year we get students emailing us to ask if we can run Bootcamp all year round. Why? Because it’s enjoyable, energizing, and gets you jobs – check out last week’s blog and newsletter for a few recent examples. What even is Assignment Bootcamp: Portfolio anyway? Here’s the skinny: You’ll get something from art agent Lilla every Monday for three months – maybe a playful and instructive downloadable worksheet, a quirky Mini assignment, a video tutorial or an interview with an industry expert or one of the artists Lilla represents. On the first Monday of each month, the Mini


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Your final #MATSprep assignment: Put it all together!

Lilla here. Oh, man, you are a whole bunch of brilliant artists! You delight me with your imagination, sensitivity, talent. I’ve loved seeing all the art you’ve created over the past couple of weeks for this MATSprep. I love to teach my intensive live courses, like Illustrating Children’s Books, for exactly that reason: it’s amazing to see how the work blossoms over the five jam-packed weeks. The passion and achievement of our students are awe-inspiring. I hope that you’ve enjoyed taking part in this free #MATSprep as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it and seeing all your beautiful art. It gives you a taste of my teaching style, to see if it’s a good fit, and it’s also a great way to warm up and get ready for Illustrating Children’s Books, which starts NEXT MONDAY, May 23rd. Don’t forget, this course won’t run again until 2023 – don’t miss out:


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3 giant tricks to take your art to the next level from art agent Lilla!

Lilla here. Today we’re going to create magic together! I’m going to teach you three great tricks to create depth (distance) in your artwork, and explain why you might want to do so. It’ll help give your artwork a fresh vibrant edge and be another tool in your ever-growing toolkit. Last week, I published a series of FREE assignments to help you get ready for my LIVE online course, Illustrating Children’s Books, which starts a week today, on Monday, May 23rd! There are still a few places available, so if you’d like to spend five weeks with me and my co-teacher, renowned children’s book art director and author, Zoë Tucker, learning everything there is to know about childen’s picture book illustration, then book your spot now! Over the last week, we’ve created a new character and explored fantastic new worlds – if you missed out then head over to the