Our raved-about online course – and our last LIVE course for 2023 – Illustrating Children’s Books, starts TODAY!
Over five incredible weeks, your brilliant teachers, top art agent Lilla Rogers and renowned children’s book art director and picture book 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 enjoy brand NEW interviews with industry experts including award-winning illustrators, a publisher and an art director – all completely revamped for 2023. Plus you’ll get weekly LIVE reviews with Lilla and Zoë, tons of beautifully designed downloadable worksheets, daily drawing prompts, and lots more. Book your spot here.
Now running for the tenth time, Illustrating Children’s Books results in book deals and representation for dozens of our students every year. You can read some of them here, plus today we’re sharing some brand new stories from our wonderful community.
Erika Lynne Jones
Erika got in touch to let us know that she has not one but two picture books coming out this year – plus she’s landed a publishing deal for her first author-illustrator story, Zara in the Middle, which is due to be published in summer 2025 by HarperCollins!
Illustration for Make Art That Sells student Erika’s first picture book, The Loud Librarian. Find out how you can land jobs like this in Illustrating Children’s Books.
Erika’s first picture book was The Loud Librarian, published by Simon Kids. Her second book, Black Girls: A Celebration of You, published by has just been released and is available now.
Illustration for Erika’s second picture book, Black Girls: A Celebration of You. Erika has taken Illustrating Children’s Books twice. Sign up now!
Erika told us: “Illustrating Children’s Books, which I took twice, was the most instrumental in the journey and definitely impacted my ability to become agented and achieve all three of the book deals. The My Year of Art School Experience was instrumental as well.”
Another illustration for Black Girls: A Celebration of You by Erika.
Erika added: “It’s so obvious to me that so many of the principles Lilla shares such as ‘People buy your joy’ work if you apply them. And putting pieces in your portfolio that represent the types of assignments you want to attract really works! I wanted to express my appreciation to Lilla and the team for all of the wisdom and inspiration and for providing the atmosphere of accountability to put those hours in and grow as an artist.”
See more of Erika’s art on her website and Instagram.
Michelle Carlos
Front covers for two of Michelle’s picture books, Lullaby for the King (left) and Morning on the Farm (centre), plus art from Morning on the Farm (right).
Michelle has had three picture books published in the last year, with another one due out in November and another, about diversity, due out in spring 2024.
Art by Michelle for Lullaby for the King. Art agent Lilla encouraged her to create her stunning whimsical landscapes when reviewing her art live during an Illustrating Children’s Books class.
Michelle told us how she was chosen to illustrate Lullaby for the King, by award-winning author Nikki Grimes, due to the style she’d developed in Make Art That Sells classes. She told us: “They specifically chose me to illustrate the book because of my style, my fascination with multicolored animals, and the way I draw my animals, which I owe in part to one assignment in Assignment Bootcamp. They also loved my whimsical landscapes, which Lilla encouraged me to develop during one of the live reviews in Illustrating Children’s Books. If I remember correctly, she said, ‘Make more of this.’ So I did, and now clients seek me out because of this style.”
Art by Michelle for Make Art That Sells classes. Art agent Lilla loved her dreamy landscapes, as seen here in a book cover for Illustrating Children’s Books (left), and encouraged her to draw more. And Michelle was picked to illustrate Lullaby for the King because of the way she draw animals, as seen here in an illustration for Assignment Bootcamp (right).
Michelle added: “Thanks to Make Art That Sells, I have improved on my skills as an illustrator, developed an efficient workflow for picture book making, and have grown more confident in pursuing this career.”
See more of Michelle’s art on her website (which includes some amazing blogs on her process) and Instagram.
Poppy Kay
Poppy landed representation with an agent, who told her that she particularly loved the art that Poppy created for Illustrating Children’s Books.
Poppy’s announcement that she was now represented (left) and her art mash up which caught the agent’s eye (right).
Poppy told us: “To be honest, I’ve applied to lots of agencies over the last five years and had many rejections (or just heard nothing back). Then Becca emailed me! She saw my work on Twitter when I did a mash up layout of my characters (inspired by the absolute powerhouse and fellow Make Art That Sells student Adam Ming). We had a zoom chat which was so easy – I felt like I’d known her for years – and I was all signed up by the end of the week.”
Poppy’s full page spread for Illustrating Children’s Books. The art agent mentioned that she particularly loved the art that Poppy had created for the course.
Poppy added: “Guess which pieces she loved the most? Pretty much all work I did when I did Illustrating Children’s Books last year! Thank you again Zoë and Lilla!!”
Poppy’s book cover design for Illustrating Children’s Books.
See more of Poppy’s art on her website and Instagram.
Hurry! Class starts today – don’t miss a minute! Just think – in five weeks, you could be sending off your finished pitch presentation, and after that, who knows where it’ll take you? Book your spot here.
- October 12th: Registration for Illustrating Children’s Books closes Thursday, October 12th. This course won’t run again until 2024! Sign up now.
- Next newsletter: Get your FREE text chooser for Illustrating Children’s Books.
Lots of love
The Make Art That Sells team xxx
P.S. If you missed the fabulous live on Friday, watch the replay below.
