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

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

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day2magiccard Make Art That Sells How to come up with a children's picture book idea: Part 2

How to come up with a children’s picture book idea: Part 2

Get Part 2 of your FREE children’s story idea generator Lilla here. Let’s warm up for my newest course, My Kid Book Pitch which starts Monday, October 12th. Did you find yesterday’s Fun With Puzzles Magic Card activated your imagination? If you missed it, click here. Here’s part 2 of your children’s story idea generator Today, we’ve got Button Man. Take a moment for yourself, away from devices and humans and noise, and let your mind wander. See what pops into your head. First, let’s take a good look at Button Man. I’ve had this guy for many years. Don’t know when I got him, but I always loved that his body was made of buttons. (Poor guy lost an arm along the way). Note the vintage lace around his head, the lipstick heart-shaped mouth, the buttons sewed onto his gingham hat. Is it a boy or girl? Does it


Screenshot 2020 10 02 at 12.05.02 Make Art That Sells How to come up with a children's picture book idea: Part 1

How to come up with a children’s picture book idea: Part 1

learn how to come up with a children’s picture book idea Every week in the My Kids Book Pitch class, you’ll get powerful new downloads that build into an amazing 100+ page workbook! Lilla here! Welcome to Day One of your #MATSprep: MAGIC CARDS! I’m going to show you how to come up with a children’s picture book idea in a way that’s accessible and enjoyable for everyone. What’s a #MATSprep? What’s even MATS? MATS is my course site, Make Art That Sells. For many of my courses, I like to get my students prepared for class, to give a taste of the what’s to come, and to get everyone motivated. This Prep is to get you warmed up for My Kid Book Pitch, my newest course for Make Art That Sells, which begins Monday, October 12th. I honestly couldn’t be more excited about this course. Having done the course


day5 mats prepv2 Make Art That Sells Day 5: Your final FREE assignment PLUS FREE insider interview with a children’s book art director!

Day 5: Your final FREE assignment PLUS FREE insider interview with a children’s book art director!

Lilla here. Oh, man, you are a whole bunch of brilliant artists! You delight me with your imagination, sensitivity, talent. You may have seen in last week’s newsletter that we’ve decided to create a free public gallery to showcase all the incredible art that you’ve created over the past few weeks – find it here, and please do use it. I love to see what you’ve done. Of course, you can share your art on social media too – remember to use the tag #MATSprep and tag @makeartthatsells so I can see. I trick you into doing your best work! You’re going to be amazed at what you can achieve in my classes. (By the way, have you heard that I’m looking to represent new artists I’ve spotted in Make Art That Sells classes? All 20 of the artists I’ve offered representation to since Make Art That Sells started in


EUNJI JUNG ENVIRONMENT 2 Make Art That Sells Day 4: FREE mini art class: Three giant tricks that will take your art to the next level!

Day 4: FREE mini art class: Three giant tricks that will take your art to the next level!

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. Want more tools in your kit? Book one of my classes today. For the past few weeks, I’ve been handing out FREE assignments to help you get ready for my LIVE online course, Illustrating Children’s Books, which starts THIS MONDAY, July 27th! 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 past few weeks, we’ve created a new character and explored fantastic


Tinypeopleinplants Make Art That Sells Day 3: Art agent Lilla Rogers teaches you a cool trick to find the magic in your environment

Day 3: Art agent Lilla Rogers teaches you a cool trick to find the magic in your environment

Lilla here. I’m going to make you flip out today, literally. For the past few weeks, I’ve been sharing some FREE assignments that I created for you to get ready for my online course, Illustrating Children’s Books. I hope you’ll join us: class starts in less than two weeks, so book your spot now! Today I’m eager to help you make some magic that will give your picture book illustrations more visual impact. Think about your audience. Children are so in touch with their imaginations: they even live in fantasy land a great deal of the time! They are going to love the imaginative worlds that you create: whether it’s dreamy, moody, whimsical or witty, digging deep into a manuscript and creating all those little details is one of the most rewarding parts of children’s book illustration. Do you want a career in kids’ picture books? Register for Illustrating Children’s


gardenview Make Art That Sells Get your Day 2 of your FREE children’s book illustration assignment from art agent Lilla!

Get your Day 2 of your FREE children’s book illustration assignment from art agent Lilla!

This month, in the run up to Illustrating Children’s Books 2020, which starts on Monday, July 27th, we’re sharing a series of FREE assignments from course co-teacher and renowned art agent, Lilla Rogers, to help you warm up your creative muscles and get ready for class. What’s Illustrating Children’s Books? It’s an incredible five week LIVE online course that will teach you everything you need to know to launch or boost your children’s picture book illustration career. It’s hard to believe that this will be the seventh time that your teachers, art agent and Make Art That Sells founder, Lilla Rogers, and acclaimed children’s book art director and author, Zoë Tucker, have run this course – and each time, it just gets better and better! Every year, our students net dozens of wonderful book deals – read about some of them here – and we can’t wait to see what


janie secker character 1 Make Art That Sells Five weeks of FREE assignments for children’s book illustration

Five weeks of FREE assignments for children’s book illustration

Our raved-about, life-changing LIVE online course, Illustrating Children’s Books, starts on Monday, 27th July (places are still available: book yours here)! It’s an incredibly rigorous course that’s also hugely playful and fun, which is why our students take it again and again. Your teachers, top art agent Lilla Rogers and renowned children’s book art director Zoë Tucker, will teach you everything you need to know about the wonderful world of children’s book illustration, in an accessible, step by step way that will break everything down and help you bring your A-game to every assignment: as Lilla always says, she tricks you into doing your very best work! You’ll get daily drawing prompts, weekly LIVE Facebook reviews with your teachers, and weekly assignments that will build into a show-stopping professional pitch presentation that contains everything an art director or editor needs to see to give you a kids’ picture book gig.


flowerdrawing LillaNLfeb27 Make Art That Sells Get your FREE Assignment Bootcamp #MATSprep and art supply shopping list

Get your FREE Assignment Bootcamp #MATSprep and art supply shopping list

Assignment Bootcamp 2020 starts in less than a week, on Monday, March 2nd, and today as a warm up we’re giving you a little taster from class plus an art supply shopping list as your FREE #MATSprep! Yes, you read that right – part of your prep this time round is choosing some new art supplies! Lilla’s art from Assignment Bootcamp #MATSprep. What will the prep be? Find out more and download your copy below! What’s Assignment Bootcamp? It’s four glorious months of art-making in the company of an encouraging crowd of creatives from all over the world. You’ll get something from art agent Lilla every single Monday for four months – maybe a playful downloadable worksheet, a quirky mini assignment, a video or an interview with an industry expert – and by putting them all together you’ll make four kick-ass portfolio pieces (one per month) for four of the


MATS prep Optimism Make Art That Sells Get your FREE Editorial LIVE #MATSprep

Get your FREE Editorial LIVE #MATSprep

There’s still time to sign up for Editorial LIVE: Illustrating for Magazines and More: The Artivism Edit starting MONDAY, but HURRY – previously this course has completely sold out so don’t miss it! Lilla’s own art for the cover of the New York Times Magazine and more. Let Lilla show you how you can get cool gigs like these! Book now! What’s editorial illustration? Broadly, it means anything having to do with text (words). For example, it could be something like a magazine article, a newspaper article, a blog, a news site like the Guardian or the New York Times, or a book cover or book interior. Before she was a top art agent, Lilla spent decades working as an illustrator in NYC for publications including the New York Times Magazine, Vogue Magazine, the Grammy Awards, the program for Philip Glass’s new opera at Brooklyn Academy of Music and heaps


IMG 4 Make Art That Sells How to build a show-stopping portfolio

How to build a show-stopping portfolio

Here’s the big reveal for Day 4 of our fab FREE cyber sale #MATSprep: meet #illustratorBarbie! Isn’t being an illustrator just the best job ever? Getting to hang out in your pajamas all day making art and getting paid for it? Share your finished piece with us on Instagram and let us know what you love most about being an illustrator in the caption! What did Lilla love about being an illustrator? Find out, including why it’s the opposite of soul-crushing in the audio clip below. Our Giant Cyber Sale is now on, which means that, until next Monday, December 2nd ONLY, all your old favorites plus our exciting NEW classes for 2020 are heavily discounted! Registration for all of our outstanding courses for 2020, including Lilla’s brand new courses, My Kid Book Pitch and Lilla’s Mystery Box, will be open next year at full price, but you can grab