Welcome to The Illustrator's Art Club 🎨

What's the password? Just joking, get in here!

Jan 11, 2025

✏️ Hello all you art-makers, art-enjoyers, book fanatics, and lovely people ✏️

Welcome to The Illustrator’s Art Club! Yes, that’s right. You are now in the most exclusive, highly anticipated club of the century. Move over, Illuminati, The Illustrator’s Art Club is in town.

I’m Marissa Valdez, a Texas-born children’s book illustrator, based in Birmingham, UK with my husband and two cats. I’m a New York Times bestselling illustrator, a published author/illustrator combo, a bestselling Domestika teacher, and a creative business owner. I have years of art-making experience that I can’t wait to share with you through this community.

The Illustrator’s Art Club is where I’ll be sharing for free:

🎨 My messy but fun artistic process. Did someone say “experiment with new materials?” 👩‍🎨

🎨 How I make books! It can be a mysterious process and I want to pull back the creative curtains to share with you.

🎨 My thoughts about children’s books, the publishing industry, art, and other illustration topics in general.

🎨 Comedy! What do you call an illustrator with two left hands? Not right. HA! 🤣

🎨 Actionable goals and advice to help you become a better illustrator.

🎨 How you can plan and run a successful art business 💰

🎨 Pictures of my cats, most likely 🐈

Why Illustrators need an Art Club.

Have you ever been a part of an art club? When I was a teen, I started the first (and maybe only) art club in my high school’s history. It was a place for my friends and me to hang out, draw, talk art, and have fun. I loved it. There was no space for the artists at my school, so I made my own.

And as an adult, I still want to be in that art club. I want to hang out and talk art and eat snacks with creative people who love what they do. Because having that community and not working in a vacuum made me a better artist. So now, those people are you. And that place is here!

Welcome to the club.

Going to art school, getting an art degree, and even paying for online courses can be expensive. So, I’m creating something a little less student-loan-y and more affordable. Welcome to the VIP Section.

With access to The Illustrator’s Art Club’s paid Substack, you get:

✏️ Access to The Illustrator’s Art Club (TIAC) VIP community discord.

✏️ Weekly live sketching sessions where I’ll go over children’s book ins-and-outs and drawing basics like anatomy and composition 🕺

✏️ Exclusive access to process videos.

✏️ Chats with children’s book professionals 📢

✏️ Live Q&As about children’s books and art stuff!

✏️ Early access to book news, mentoring discounts, and art products 💛

Thanks for joining! I’ll see you again next week. Make sure to bring the snacks. 💛

Hugs, Marissa

Interested in supporting The Illustrator’s Art Club in other ways?

✏️Preorder my author/illustrator debut, Hedgehogs Don’t Wear Underwear ✏️You can buy my books ✏️Sign up for Creating an Online Children’s Book Portfolio Domestika course ✏️ or share this post for free!