Week 1: Paper

The theme was vintage Christmas ornaments and candy. I love drawing and making Christmas themed pieces, so I had a lot of fun with this.

Week 2: Baby Apparel

The theme was camping and campers. I let my imagination wander and when I sat down to work on the mini assignment, I thought of mouses and camping. What would it look like for mice to camp? What would they travel in and sleep in? A tin can or a sardine can? A hammock to take a nap? What would a campfire look like? A votive candle?

I was intimidated to draw characters again, but I found the assignment easy because it was such a fun topic and the ideas came easily. I would love to do more of these sorts of animal illustrations.

When and after I made finished my design, whenever my 2-year-old was near my computer, he'd say, "I want to see the mouse". Maybe I'll make him a special t-shirt or design a mouse softie for him.

Week 3: Scrapbooking

For our mini assignment, we drew typewriters and cameras and for the final assignment, we created a sheet of scrapbooking elements. Since I had to work quickly this week, I inked the drawings, scanned them in, and processed them in illustrator. Then, I made the artwork into layers and exported to photoshop to add texture.

Week 4: Editorial

We were to create a map of where we live. This was the week I was slapped with a nasty cold, but I got the assignment done. I drew everything with black ink and processed everything in illustrator.

Week 5: Party Paper

The mini involved working with Ukrainian and Bavarian folk art. I drew some patterns and a girl with a large headdress of flowers. This last week was fun, though I missed the mark on the final assignment as the girl should have been more of a generic nature for party goods. I think the girl would be pretty on another product, though.

I had a much easier time with this girl character, maybe because I kept her simple. I would love to work on the peacock idea and also change the colors I used. I'm going to go back and add texture and change things up and use the art for something else. Perhaps a fabric pattern.

If you're an artist, illustrator, designer, painter, etc. and looking to learn some awesome tips on various markets, plus be among wonderful peers in an active and welcoming facebook group, plus work on super-motivating projects, I can't recommend Lilla's Make Art that Sells course. The best class I've ever taken. Hands down.

I hadn't done much art in perhaps about 5 years since having my little boys. I really needed a jumpstart to get going, get motivated, to just just down and DO something. Lilla's class was exactly what I needed, and the inspiration I felt from the classes is still there, simmering and ready to go.

Taking Lilla Roger's Make Art That Sells was like a major kick in the ass. I was so motivated and inspired the whole time. Amazing.

We had a new assignment each week, along with fantastic material for each of the five markets Lilla covered. Before we got the big assignments, we were given mini assignments that got us warmed up to the subject material we would be working with later in the week. Even though the class was very intense, everything was broken down to digestible bits.

Week 1 was for bolt fabric. We made a retro kitchen inspired pattern with pyrex and mushrooms.

I tried something different for myself and used a brush marker to do some of my sketches.

For week 2, and the home decor market, we made plates, and used pods, seeds and succulents to inspire our designs.

Week 3: Children's Books.

We delved into characters and for our mini, we drew snail characters. For the big assignment, and children's book, the main character was a snail for the fairy tale The Snail and the Rose Tree. I haven't had much experience drawing characters and faces, but that's why I took the class - to challenge myself.

Week 4: Wall art

Week 5: Gift Market. We created a zipper pouch.