MATS My Year of Art (LIVE*)

This blog post is not sponsored by MATS and reflects my personal and humble opinion, only.

Last year, I realised that I needed to push my art to the next level. That is why I decided to take the online class MATS My Year of Art (LIVE).

The first time I took a MATS class was back in 2017. I booked MATS Bootcamp, a four-month-long online creative course. Each month starts with a mini assignment as a warm-up for the big one. Also, you get to work to a deadline. Well, the deadline serves as a reference point. It is a window of opportunity where you can upload what you created to the gallery. You do not have to share but are welcome to do so.

I remembered how these four months of Bootcamp gave structure to my creative process. To see all the assignment results displayed in the gallery is very inspiring. Not in the sense of copying others, but seeing how varied the results of a single assignment can be. The level of skills and professionalism of some (seasoned) MATS students is high. It drives me to work harder on my style and work. The MATS community is always one of kindness and support and great advice.

When Covid-19 happened in 2020, my plan to visit the Bologna Children’s Book Fair did not pan out. Initially, I was disappointed. Retrospective, I feel it was a blessing in disguise. With all the extra time on my hands, I took the opportunity to book a MATS MBA, MATS IBC and MATS MKBP class! I was so busy! I learned so much and feel that—this year—I will be going way better prepared to the Bologna Children’s Book Fair than I had been had I gone in 2020.

So now I am working harder than ever on creating a stronger portfolio of new works. Being enrolled in this MATS My Year of Art helps me focus on my creative goals and inspires me to develop my skills further.

If you are an artist and been wondering whether to book a class with MATS, I can highly recommend it. MATS offers many different online courses like Editorial, Illustrating Children’s Books, My Kid Book Pitch (writing for kids), Bootcamp, to name but a few. Each class comes with plenty of up-to-date market-trends, insights and career advice.

*includes LIVE Zoom sessions.

Example of what I made for the MATS ICB 2020