July 2024 - Lilla Rogers

With a new novelty board book releasing soon, we are thrilled to highlight illustrator Kim Fleming’s unique board book illustrations.

Kim Fleming

Kim writes:

I have always had a love for creating artwork for life’s youngest bookworms.

I’ve mostly illustrated picture books, but recently I was thrilled to have the opportunity to illustrate my first novelty board book with Townhouse Books, which will be releasing soon.

I’m totally hooked on board books!

My board book, Goodnight Woodland Babies, will release later this year with Townhouse books.

It’s a sweet, lift-the-flap book about putting woodland animals to bed.

It’s also got a cool cutout and gold foil on the cover!

I loved working on this book because I was given full permission go to town with my hand-carved stamps in the background. I loved using the stamps and palette to create a dreamy bedtime mood. Plus, I got to create super cute animal characters :-)

The image below is what inspired the publisher to commission me for this project. You can see some of the similarities!

Here are some other portfolio images I created with board books in mind.

The three images below were created for “Storyteller Summer Camp”, an instagram challenge I co-hosted with illustrator friends.

Below: Images for International Women’s day

I know it’s a bit early for Christmas, but I had a lot of fun creating this advent calendar of festive animals.

Thanks Kim!

See more of Kim’s charming illustration work here.

Lilla writes: Join me in Portugal!

Announcing my

Color Quest Art Retreat

Click here to read all the details!

Why have a collection of gorgeous, varied color palettes in your tool kit ? Having a range of color palettes opens you to a vast variety of illustration commissions.

Above: Products agented by Lilla Rogers Studio. Top center book illustrated by Lilla for Chronicle Books. See how the color plays a huge roll in the beauty of the book?

Kate Mason has been a longtime student of my Make Art That Sells courses. Hear how MATS has helped her get great jobs and uncover a love of map-making!

Kate Mason

Kate Mason is an Australian- based illustrator and has been one of my artists for almost 10 years, since she won Global Talent Search in 2015.

She lives and works from her home studio in Adelaide, South Australia, with her husband Jeff, 5 teenagers 14-19 and 2 chihuahuas Chimichanga & Pippi.

Kate writes:

“I originally designed the map below in one of Lilla’s MATS courses, of my home city Adelaide. Because of this original map, I’ve been given many other opportunities to create maps for clients.

After seeing my illustrated maps online, Patritti Winery commissioned me to design a map for them showcasing their three vineyards and winemaking facilities that are located around inner Adelaide, South Australia.

The map became a label for their Urban Wine Collection. It was beautifully printed with embossing, debossing and spot UV. This wine collection is now exported worldwide. It really was a dream project and I loved being able to bring the vision to life for my client.

I also was commissioned to design a map of South Australia for SA Life magazine for their 20th birthday issue.

My client gave me free reign for this map project and so I made it a chronological history of all the travelling I’ve done around my home state. I thoroughly enjoyed this project and now sell this map myself.

It has been hugely popular.

Buy it here!

Another client of mine is the City of Adelaide who I’ve created several maps for. I’m now working on more map projects at the moment for another tourism client.

One thing I love about maps is doing research on places of significance and learning about them. I also love including little quirky things that are meaningful to my client and help bring the storytelling of the map to life.

The above image is not a map per se, but it reads like one. This was created for Lilla’s Menagerie and licensed for gorgeous kids’ playmats!

Below are some more maps I’ve had fun creating.

Creating a map for Fulham Primary School took me back in time. I wanted to re-create & capture everything I remembered about my childhood school and the surrounding suburb. Life was so different back then in the 1970’s and I knew this area so well.

‘The Linwood’, Scotland 1960’s – this is a map I created for my mum’s family who emigrated from Glasgow to Australia in the 1960’s/ 1970’s. They lived in a small village called Linwood and this was created from memories of how the village looked back in the 1960’s. This was presented in a ‘Family Reunion book’ I published with my sister in February 2020 where over 100 family members attended, all descended from this little village.

To create my artwork I still start with pencil sketches, then take them to Procreate to flesh out.

I tend to work on one icon at a time and then bring them all into Photoshop to make the final composition. I also have a full library of painted textures which I use in every piece of work.

My favorite materials are pencils, notebooks and my iPad mini.”