Meet your teacher – the fabulous, inspiring educator and illustrator, Tamisha Anthony!
Meet Tamisha! She has a passion for vintage clothes, and every week in her new course, Find Your Art Style with Style, she’ll pose for live figure drawing in some beautiful period dress and fabulous accessories.
Tamisha teaches our brand NEW live course for 2024, Find Your Art Style with Style, which starts Monday, August 5th. In this one-of-a-kind course, you’ll explore four vintage design eras and discover your unique art style while creating some fresh art for your portfolio. You’ll get to play around with different styles, media and more to discover what lights you up, and in the process you’ll improve and evolve your own art style.
Lilla says: “In this course, you’ll fall in love with Tamisha’s collection of charming vintage clothing and colorful, quirky flea market knickknacks. Her curated visuals which will inspire you to explore a variety of styles. Each week, you’ll focus on line and shape, a time period, a color palette, and an art medium to build your style a step at a time. I’m wowed by the visuals she’s chosen: they’re so inspiring, so cool – I know you’re going to love this course!”
You may already know Tamisha from our incredible FREE Black art history course, Redrawing Black History, but for those who haven’t had the pleasure of meeting her yet – or just want to know a little more about her – we caught up with her to find out what makes her tick.
A little more about Tamisha
Tamisha is a former Make Art That Sells student and a thriving illustrator: she’s got nine children’s book deals under her belt so far, with three coming out in 2024, and another four in 2025.
She’s also a passionate and inspiring educator who has taught at places like the New York Historical Society, and the Harlem School of the Arts. She also writes and illustrates a column for Uppercase magazine called Spilling the Tea with T.
Tamisha with three of the books she’s illustrated: Most Perfect You, Seoul Food, and Sparrow Loves Birds.
Originally from Texas, she received her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Visual Arts from Rice University and moved to New York City for her Master’s Degree in Computer Art from School of Visual Arts. She is currently a member of Black Creators in KidLit, Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and the Children’s Book Illustrators Group.
When she isn’t illustrating, you can find her enthusiastically and joyfully swing dancing with her husband! Or you can find her snuggled up with her pets reading a book and drinking tea. She adores vintage clothes, gardening, and singing sweet jazz standards.
Tamisha will bring her love of vintage and her expertise as a children’s book illustrator, columnist, and educator to this unique course – it’s going to be amazing!
Q. Hi Tamisha! Tell us a little about yourself! Where did you grow up?
Hello! I grew up in a small town in Texas. My family and I lived outside the town on my family’s land, so there were lots of trees and fields: I lived across the road from a field of cows. At one point I think my family had six dogs at the same time! I grew up loving animals, staring at trees, and connecting with nature.
Q. It sounds idyllic! Did you always know you wanted to be an illustrator?
For as long as I can remember, I have loved drawing and creating stories. I would try to write stories about my stuffed animals and pets before I could even truly spell.
As a child, I think I wanted to be a teacher. I loved pretending to be a teacher and having school with my Barbies, plush dolls and even sometimes my puppies if they weren’t too wiggly. When I was in college, I considered being an educator or a child psychologist, but I always had a strong connection to visual arts. My mom was an art teacher, so I was always surrounded by art and design.
A spread by Tamisha for There’s No Place Like Hope.
Towards the end of college, I knew I wanted to pursue the arts and definitely wanted to move to New York. For some reason it didn’t seem possible to become an illustrator: I didn’t see the path growing up in a small town. But venturing out to New York and seeing the multitude of careers people could have, I decided to reach for the stars. I’m glad I did.
Q. Us too! Which Make Art That Sells courses have you taken and what did you get out of them? Which was most useful to you?
Lilla’s Art Recipes: Drawing Faces and Illustrating Children’s Books are my favorites! If I hadn’t taken Drawing faces, I think my kids would still look wonky and awkward. It really gave me a clear way to analyze faces, where to places features and how to play around with my characters to make them look unique.
Some of Tamisha’s work for Make Art That Sells classes: her front cover for Illustrating Children’s Books (left) and faces for Lilla’s Art Recipes: Drawing Faces (right).
Q. What inspired you to start illustrating children’s books?
Honestly, I always loved the idea but didn’t know how to get into the publishing world. What inspired me was hearing other people encourage me to figure out how to do that. I joined the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. I began taking continuing education courses at the School of Visual Arts in children’s illustration and greeting cards. I took courses online, including with Make Art That Sells, and followed the illustrators I admired on social media platforms. I filled my life with all things children’s books so I could find a way to become a children’s book illustrator myself.
Q. What do you think helped you to develop your own art style?
To be honest, drawing all the time. During the pandemic that was pretty much all I did. I was determined to get better at art and find an agent and I had a lot of free time on my hands. I worried about finding my style but didn’t know how to “develop” it. But it seems that I just kept drawing out my ideas and dreams because I was excited to see them come to life. That was most important. And then my style developed from constantly creating.
That’s why I wanted to create this course: to help other artists find their style by giving them inspiration and focus, along with tons of gorgeous visuals!
Q. What are you most looking forward to in your new course, Find Your Art Style with Style?
I’m so excited to see the students’ works and to interact with the beautiful community!! I know the work and the community will be inspiring and uplifting.
Q. What will students get out of Find Your Art Style with Style? What do you think will be most valuable to them from the course?
I think one of the hardest parts of starting your own personal, artistic project is … what do I draw?! I mean, sometimes you have ideas and visions and inspiration!!! … but then you sit in front a blank piece of paper and every idea scurries from your brain.
In Find Your Art Style with Style, you’ll create eye-catching portfolio art designed to get you paying jobs in markets like these. Image shows products illustrated by Kendra Binney and agented by Lilla Rogers Studio.
This class gives you direction of what to draw, but beyond that it helps you to take that object and really explore artistic techniques to make it your own. It helps you feel more comfortable with playing in art. And the more you play and explore in your art, the more clearly you will see your voice shine through your work. The blank page won’t feel so unnerving after this class.
Q. What do you think is your biggest success?
To be able to say I am living one of my biggest dreams – to be an artist! But also, I think being able to see magic in the mundane is a success. With so much fear and ugliness in the world, it is difficult to keep magic alive and I manage to find little pockets of delight most of the time.
Tamisha’s column for Uppercase magazine (left) and her hand-crafted carousel costume for Mardi Gras (right).
Q. Definitely! Finally, do you have any words of wisdom for new illustrators?
Always find a way to play! I love my job. I love working as a children’s illustrator. But it is still a job! It is difficult sometimes. It challenges you. You have wins and losses. Make sure you find a way to play and just create for yourself. It is important that you carve out time to create for fun even when you are busy. It will help your heart in the long run.
Thanks Tamisha!
If you want to get to know Tamisha a little better and find out more about Find Your Art Style with Style, don’t miss the FREE live Zoom event with Tamisha and Lilla on the first day of class, Monday, August 5th, at 12 noon ET/5 pm BST! Make a note on your calendar now and set an alarm so you don’t forget!
- Monday, August 5th: Discover your unique style and make fantastic art for your portfolio with our NEW live course, Find Your Art Style with Style.
- Monday, August 5th: Join Tamisha and Lilla for a FREE live Zoom event at 12 noon ET/5 pm BST! They’ll be showing off some amazing visuals and more – don’t miss it! You’ll find the link to join the Zoom on the front page of our website at www.makeartthatsells.com and in our Instagram Stories on the day. Set a reminder now!
- Next newsletter: Get Part 1 of your FREE #MATSprep warm up exercise for Find Your Art Style with Style!
Lots of love
The MATS team xxx
