Make Art that Sells Bootcamp Review

I finally finished all my Make Art That Sells Bootcamp assignments. A few weeks into the Bootcamp we had an unexpected opportunity to buy a house and move, along with lots of traveling and teaching in April and May. So not every assignment was submitted to the gallery, but I feel pretty accomplished having new pieces for my portfolio and loved the 5 months of inspiration from my favorite artsy fairy godmother, Lilla Rogers. 

I was watching Lilla's Periscope this afternoon, as I do every Tuesday while I'm working away in the studio, and won an entry into the Global Talent Search! Of course, I am already signed up so I will happily take the refund and put it toward my future art class fund, which I'm hoping is the Children's Book Class. I really did need the encouragement to enter though, now there is no way I will not submit an entry while I may very well have talked myself out of it if I hadn't just won a spot! Oh self-doubt - why do you always want to arm wrestle?

Any way, back to my Bootcamp review. I can't recommend it enough for 5 months of portfolio building and market insights. I'm going to go backward through the assignments. The first one here was for July and was an assigned flower based on our locale and to create a journal cover.

June's assignment was a children's book character study and Vicuna's were our subject matter. This inspired some pretty stinking cute beads!

You just never know what will be inspired by MATS bootcamp!

May's assignment, is actually the last piece I finished. I decided I couldn't leave one undone and really dug deep to finish this project. Wall art inspired by tarot card imagery was our assignment with our subject matter based on our birthday. So Leo and Strength were easy enough to wrap my mind around. I love the idea of quite strength and depicted my maiden in a plus-size body because strength comes in all shapes and sizes.

April was so much fun! Christmas ornaments with a lumberjack theme. I'm not much of a lumberjack kinda girl so I went with woodland and plaid inspirations - things a lumberjack would see! Ha, sometimes you have to let the assignment inspire you in ways that are outside the box. I did these in June, after my move and life was settling back to normal! But I could paint Christmas themes any day of the year. Next, I need to clean these up in Photoshop and get them laid out properly.

And our first assignment, way back in March was a coloring book cover inspired by 1920's flappers. Of course I had to tie it into beads! I'd love to make this project a reality. I should really add this to my my to-do list and send in a submission to my publisher. 

Along with the assignments, there is an awesome Facebook group for participants that is always filled with the most encouraging and helpful artists. And seeing how differently everyone approaches each project is an education in itself!

So that's the last 5 months and my bootcamp round up. Stop by Make Art That Sells to get the scoop on their current classes.