Where would you love your career to be a year from now? I love teaching, always have, and being an agent is a form of one-on-one teaching. In addition to my courses on my site, Make Art That Sells, I’m thrilled to offer my newest thing: Inner Circle, which is an exclusive small-group mentoring intensive. For 30 years I nurtured and mentored the artists whom I represented, drawing out their strengths and helping them to build thriving creative careers, and now I want to do the same for you.

Inner Circle is an incredible rare opportunity to spend six weeks with me exploring, evolving and creating your artistic career. Unlike a course with a set curriculum, this is a mentorship intensive. With a maximum of 12 participants, you’ll be part of a small exclusive group and you’ll also get to meet with me privately in a 1:1 to discuss your career. Join me for this incredible experience! Hurry, Inner Circle starts April 14 and there are only 6 spots left as of this writing.

In addition to my beloved teaching platform, MATS, I’ve been wanting a platform to share my insights from many decades in the art business as agent and former illustrator, author, columnist, and co-founder of my teaching platform. Something that was freeform and allowed me to talk. One day, illustrator and student Katie Stack, a well-established presence on Substack, came over for lunch, and it hit me: Let’s do a Substack thing together.  So we’ve began a brand new Substack with live videos called Lilla’s Art Chats with Katie Stack. My 30 years of agenting illustrators combined with Katie Stack’s illustration experience combine for a lively chat. She asks me the questions that you might have wanted to ask me. Subscribe to my Substack here. It’s a nice complement to my courses. I hope you’ll join me!

Want something beautiful to focus on? Want to make your art lucrative? Jump on over to Make Art That Sells, my teaching site. Make 2025 your year to thrive as an artist. I’ve taught over 30,000 students from over 100 countries and I love helping creative people thrive!

My three decades as an art agent for some of the most celebrated book publishers, advertising agencies, top designers, and  products for manufacturers of gift and home has given me a wealth of information on how to thrive as an illustrator, and my passion is to teach this to you.

As an agent, I’ve mentored top names in the business like Lisa Congdon, Helen Dardik, Suzy Ultman, Carolyn Gavin, Mike Lowery and Sarah Walsh. I know who succeeds and why, and I’m happy to share that with you in my courses.

Before I founded my agency, I was lucky to enjoy a thriving illustration career in New York for clients like Anna Wintour, the Grammys, Penguin Random House, Chronicle Books, and clients in Tokyo and Paris. All this enables me to craft illustration courses for you with the understanding of an artist. I get it! I get what is motivating, I love to trick you into doing your best work! Learn more here.

Let’s have some fun and amp up your art in a magical setting! Want to make art in real life? I love color, I love paint and I love travel. Do you? Sign up for my newsletter to get first dibs on signing up for the next retreat, lettering in 2026.

My last retreats were some of the most incredible events I’ve ever enjoyed–teaching lettering to a small group of wonderful people on our private French villa for a week and then teaching color and watercolor in Portugal at our own quinta. We had wonderful experiences nestled in our European villas with all our needs taken care of so we could make art.

On all my retreats, while sipping coffee or wine, I’m happy to share advice, support and specific guidance, from my 30 years as an agent, for getting illustration work in books, gift and stationery, children’s books, games, puzzles, authoring and illustrating non-fiction books and more. And I love to do Career Tarot which was a big hit last time. My retreats are for all levels, and I delight in guiding each person from where they are, spotting what makes their work special. Plus, we’ll enjoy yummy meals catered to every food preference, field trips to medieval and arty towns, bop on in an art store, vintage and antique shops, and so much more!