A teaspoon drawn during MATS Bootcamp won me a weekly illustrated column on The Guardian website that ran for seven months and got me shortlisted in a Hallmark competition!

Since doing MATS last year I’ve been shortlisted in competitions run by Hallmark and Tigerprint for greetings card and gift wrap designs, and been selected to appear in Pattern People’s eBook showcasing up and coming pattern designers. Last month, one of my patterns appeared on the Print & Pattern website, which was a big thrill. None of that would have happened without Bootcamp.

Once again it’s been like lighting a fire under me. Thank you, MATS. Long may it continue!

How a spoon got me a Guardian commission:

I occasionally write for the Guardian and one of my editors had seen some of the work I’d produced for MATS. When she was commissioning a series of illustrated ‘How to Mend’ columns she remembered a line drawing of a teaspoon in one of my designs and asked if I could produce some sample illustrations in the same style. Illustrating a weekly column for a global online audience is no small task, especially when you get the copy just days before the piece goes live. But it was an absolute joy to see my drawings on the homepage of The Guardian website and to see how much traffic and comment the columns generated. You can see the columns here

See more of Emma’s work here: emmamcgowan.co.uk

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Irene Chan

Since taking MATS I have:

• Licensed art with Oopsy Daisy
• Commissioned artwork for a birthday card for a manufacturer, coming out in summer 2015
• In the talks on commissions and licensing with children’s board books and fabric licensing

I have not painted with a brush since I graduated from school, and have always done designs and illustrations digitally. One of the biggest things that MATS pushed me to do was to try with paint and watercolor, and I went from literally hating it in the beginning to completely embracing it now. That is the style that most art directors responded to as well.

My style also changed so drastically after the class. Lilla made us think about drawing a lot of icons. My illustrations used to only have one thing to look at, but now I tend to add a lot more things for the viewers to look at and it adds in a layer of depth and sophistication to my work.

I also loved the minis Lilla gave out, and the confirmation that it is OK to draw things in bits and pieces, and compose it later together. I loved the Q&A session with Lilla, It is the once in a lifetime opportunity to actually ask questions and gets answers directly from someone so successful in the business.

See more of Irene’s work here: http://www.eneri.net

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Antoana Oreski

“I’ve improved a lot in lettering and patterns and I know that I wouldn’t have won all the competitions and got such awesome licenced jobs if it wasn’t for Lilla’s teaching and her course! So THANK YOU Lilla from the bottom of my heart! You’ve helped me to be me! “

Since taking the class last year, I have:

• Won the Hallmark’s ‘Cool 4Kidz’ Competition (with a pattern designed in class)
• Won the Tigerprint’s ‘Kids Character’ Competition
• Got licenced with Oopsy Daisy (submitting my portfolio of work from MATS and GTS)
• Was a runner up in Tigerprint’s ‘Christmas Pattern’ Competition and got amazing comments on my work from the judges which mean the world to me since I’m kind of a newbie to pattern world.
• I also won 11th place in Ricola Package Design out of 450 submissions and some cash prize and Ricola promoted my piece on their official FB page and Pinterest site.