Part 2 with Vanessa: The Business of Licensing and Making Art That Sells

In this follow-up episode, Delores sits down once again with illustrator and licensing mentor Vanessa Stoilova from Art Business with Ness — and this time, they're going deep into the real-world mechanics of working with art licensing agents, pitching your own work, and what it actually takes to make consistent income as a surface designer.

Vanessa shares her personal journey from cold pitching to landing a dream contract with Pink Light Studio, and explains how agencies work behind the scenes — including how they pitch to companies like Hobby Lobby, and what artists should know before seeking representation.

You’ll learn:

• What art agents actually do (and don’t do!)
• Why licensing your art is not passive income (but can still be joyful and profitable)
• How many designs you really need before pitching
• What to put in your portfolio if you’re just starting out
• How Vanessa's students are landing deals (with or without an agent)
• A peek into Vanessa’s own design and pitching systems — including her Airtable database tips!

Whether you’re dreaming of licensing your art or already dabbling in surface design, this episode is full of down-to-earth encouragement and behind-the-scenes insight you won’t want to miss.

🎓 Want to dive deeper? Vanessa’s Art Business Bootcamp opens Sept 1, and her free masterclass on starting a freelance illustration career is happening Sept 2.

🎉 Plus: Vanessa is joining Delores live inside the VIP Creators Pack during the Five Cards in Five Days Challenge on Sept 25 — don’t miss her licensing Q&A!

🖼️ Vanessa's freebie: "6 Essentials for Your Surface Design Portfolio"

 🎥 YouTube: Art Business with Ness

 🖥️ Explore Vanessa’s courses &

Transcript

Delores Naskrent: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Creative Juggle Joy podcast everybody.

I'm Canadian artist and educator, Delores, and today I'm joined again by my friend Vanessa from Art Business with Ness. 

Vanessa Stoilova: Hi 

Delores Naskrent: Vanessa is represented by Pink Light Studios. That's something you should look up 'cause there's some really great artists there.

She's created licensed art for retailers like Hobby Lobby and she also runs her Art Business Bootcamp, where she teaches illustrators how to land clients and license their art. If you're part of my five cards and five days challenge this fall, you'll also get to hear from her live.

She's gonna be a special guest for the VIP session on day four, September 25th at 2:00 PM But today we are pulling back the curtain right here to talk about how art licensing really works, what it is, what agents do, and how you can start moving in [00:01:00] that direction. Yes. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's start.

Really simple Ness. For anyone that's brand new to this idea, what is art licensing in a nutshell? 

Vanessa Stoilova: Yes. So when you see a product in the store, when you see a greeting card at the drug store, for example, these companies that create these cards, they have all of their manufacturing going on. They have all their, marketing going on, and they need art. They need your art. So they, contact artists or sometimes artists contact them and it's a collaboration. Art licensing basically means that you are renting your artwork to them and the copyrights, the rights to distribute your art commercially and make money from it.

And of course in exchange for that, they're going to compensate you. 

Right? 

And that's what it is in a nutshell. We, can sell our art outright. We often call that a buyout, [00:02:00] and then it just belongs to them, and they can do whatever they want. But art licensing. You retain the rights to your work, but they can use it and they send you money.

Delores Naskrent: That's so cool. I like the sending the money part. That's a great part. 

Vanessa Stoilova: It's really cool. 

Delores Naskrent: Yeah. So you work for an agency, so what is it like working for Pink Light Studios? I looked at the. Artists there. I know a couple of them. As a matter of fact, Taylor Shannon is somebody that I've been in groups with.

What a lovely girl. Can you share what, you know, how does it work? Like what, what is the relationship? How does it look and what kind of output do they expect? Like is it a lot? Is it. Doable. 

Vanessa Stoilova: Mm-hmm. So working for them is the best thing. I, I say, working for them. Technically, it's a collaboration. It's a very symbiotic relationship.

They need a lot of art, and we need them because they sell our art so that we can focus on drawing and not marketing. So before I was with them, I [00:03:00] would do all of the pitching myself. And since I'm also a teacher, you know, I don't have. Unlimited time. Yeah. So now, yeah, it really frees up a lot. I, I just create the art, I sell it, send it to my agency, and then they market it.

And they do a lot. They send newsletters, they take requests from their clients. So they may have American greetings, come to them. I think we just had one this week. American greeting is like, okay, we're starting several Christmas project. We're going to need, you know, religious icons. We're going to need snow globes, we're going to need this, this, and that.

And so they give us the list and we can create stuff for that. But they also can go into the gallery of everything that we've sent them in the past, and they, they take whatever fits the bill of what the client is looking for. They send it to them. They also attend trade shows where they go and market our work.

And that's the part that I really, really am thankful for because I, I'm also a Canadian [00:04:00] artist going to the United States for a trade show that would cost me a pretty penny. 

Mm-hmm. 

These are famously expensive to attend, and so they go there on my behalf and they sell my work there and I'm eternally grateful.

So yeah, it's a, it's a really fun collaboration. I've been with other agents in the past and it really clicking with Pink Light, it's a team of all women, all the artists are women, all the staff is women, and we all just get really excited about the cute pink art and all the fun trends, and it's just very, very fun.

Delores Naskrent: I, I noticed that there's definitely a, a real look to the kind of work that they have. I mean, there's a range. There's a range, but there's definitely, it's like you could recognize that it's from their studio. So that's pretty cool considering mm-hmm. That there's so many artists. 'cause there's gotta be.

20 or more artists, or 30 artists? How many do you know? 

Vanessa Stoilova: Yeah, there's about 40 of us. Oh wow. That's amazing. Yes. And this happens in every agency. Every agency [00:05:00] tends to have a look. And that's a bias just because the agents have their own personal taste. So the agents sign artists that they like. It tends to have kind of a throw line for us.

We're really good at the feminine trends. All the pink, I mean, the studio is called Pink Light Studio. We do that very well. Cute pets all day, every day. Cute cakes, fun frills and bows and stuff like that. But every once in a while we get a call for like sports, and then no one takes it. It's not our specialty.

Delores Naskrent: That's hilarious. 

Well, something you've been really open about is that an agent isn't a magic solution. I personally have worked with two agents. I had better success with one of them because I think he was more aligned with the type of work I was doing at the time. And this is so different, like I said, than what I'm doing now.

'cause I'm doing a lot of surface pattern design work and lots of illustration work. And at the time I was doing [00:06:00] really large. Abstract all, art wall pieces. So we're talking the kind of things that you would see in, in a hotel if you went in, you know, and they used to have like, every room would have sort of, a certain look with the art.

That's the kind of stuff that I used to do. Agencies often wanna see that you've also landed deals. So when, can you explain that the whole thing? Like, I, you, you and I talked about this briefly the other day when you saw my, Card Isle statistics and, the, sales that I've had. The fact that I have sort of I have social proof 

Vanessa Stoilova: have. Yes, you have street cred. 

Delores Naskrent: Street cred. What, can you explain that a little bit to our viewers or listeners? Because I know that some people are just starting out and some people have multiple years of experience behind them, and I would love for you to just explain. You know, your, sort of view on it.

Mm-hmm.

What's the difference between [00:07:00] having an agent or having somebody pitch their own work? What would you advise? 

Vanessa Stoilova: Well, I would advise to do both. At first, people are like, oh, should I contact agencies? Should I contact publishers or companies? Try both. Contact everyone and see who bites

Delores Naskrent: right

Vanessa Stoilova: at first.

A lot of us, we wanna work with agents. Because they sound wonderful. They do all of the dirty work that we don't wanna do. And it sounds absolutely amazing, especially because pitching can be kind of scary when we're just starting out. You know? We're like, who am I to contact a, a big company and offer them my art?

It can be super scary. We're afraid of being rejected or even just ignored, can really hurt. Mm-hmm. And so the idea of an agency doing that for us, that sounds like the perfect solution, but. When something sounds too good to be true like that, there's always a catch. And the catch is every artist in the world would love to have an agency.

There's only so many spots. It [00:08:00] is very competitive to get in. And because of that, it's a little bit counterintuitive, but it's easier to get deals by yourself than getting into an agency because there, there are not that many spots. And you can imagine once you have a spot in agency, you wanna stay there, right?

So there are not that many spots opening up. It's also more and more competitive. Even since I got into it, because a cat is kind of out of the bag. Agencies used to be. Not something that we really knew about a whole lot. Imagine just like a couple decades ago, agencies, the average artist just didn't know that was a thing.

Yeah. And they used to take a lot of artists that had potential and teach them how to do it. Now they have one spot every six months and they have like 3000 portfolios. They have the luxury of picking. The best artists. Not only that, you know, even if you, from those three thousands, you take out everyone that is not quite as good, you still have like 500.

Top [00:09:00] rated artists, right? So what is the deciding factor? You still have to choose, right? So people who have any kind of experience, people who have sold in the past, that's, that's a safe bet, right? They know that you've had deals before. You're probably going to continue to have deals in, in the future.

That's a much safer bet. I have been pitching to Pink Light Studio for several years. And at first I didn't sound like such a good prospect for them. I was like, Hey, I'm coming out of nowhere. Here's my art. But the last time, after a few years, I was like, you know, I've worked with Hobby Lobby, I've worked with RSVP, I've worked with Scholastic.

I've sold, I've had all these deals and. Then they were like, okay, okay, let's talk. 

Right. 

Some of, yeah. I mean especially I think, especially Hobby Lobby, because that's one of their big clients, so they know, oh, you sell with one of our clients, that's gonna work. 

Delores Naskrent: Right. Okay. Well that's interesting. [00:10:00] So when, let's talk a little bit about your bootcamp here, because you know now.

As you are talking about this, I'm thinking the way my students would think too is that, in your bootcamp, do you help people then build their portfolios and help them to pitch themselves? Like do you have an example of someone who's handed, like, been able to get a contract with without an agent, and how has that boosted their confidence?

Like has is I'm, I'm really wanting to give my students and anybody listening here, hope. 

Vanessa Stoilova: There's absolutely hope, and I've had lots of students who have gotten deals by themselves. Also, students who have gotten an agent within a year that the program is 12 months, and I have several people who have managed to sign within that period of time, which I'm like, dang, you're knocking out of the park.

It took me longer than that. So you're doing really well. But at first, yes, I teach. People how to put [00:11:00] together a very professional looking portfolio. Something that will show companies and agents that you have experience. Even if you don't think you have experience, you can still spin it. Present yourself in a way.

Yes. And it's always the artist that say, I have absolutely no experience. And you chat with them a little bit, come to find out they've been drawing for 30 years. That's experience. You know, you can spin that 

right. 

So I help you present yourself in a way that says, I know what I'm doing. Then I teach you how to pitch to companies, how to talk with them, how to follow up all of the, all of this stuff in order to get contracts.

So a couple examples. , I think one of the fastest ones that got a contract. This year was Heather. Just a few weeks after she started sending emails. She got a big deal with Stupell, that's a wall art company, and she's a watercolor artist and she licensed, I [00:12:00] think 12 or 14 designs. Wow. So they decimated our portfolio.

They was like, we're gonna take all of these. But the funny thing is, around that same time, I also got a deal with the same companies Stupell through my agent, but because it was through my agency, I had to give them 50% commission. But Heather. She got to keep it all, she got a better deal than I did.

Delores Naskrent: Fantastic. I mean, not fantastic that you're lost, but you know, I, I get it. I mean, you have to look at it, I guess the bigger picture then you may have lost 50%, but you've got other things on the go, so maybe, maybe it works out. I don't know. 

Vanessa Stoilova: It's definitely, there are advantages to doing it just yourself.

You get to keep all the money, but there are also advantages to working with an agency because it gives you back some of your time so you can focus on maybe the parts of the job that you prefer doing, like the drawing part. So it all equals out at the end. And another example I want to give you is, [00:13:00] Johan, one of my students, she started the bootcamp literally from zero.

She didn't. Did not know how to make patterns. She didn't know she wanted to be a surface designer. She just had watercolor artworks and I helped her pick her market. She learned how to make patterns. She built her portfolio from absolutely nothing, and then she started pitching. And for some students it happens right away.

Other students, it takes a little bit longer. It's really, there's a matter of timing, you know, of what the company is looking for. Sometimes in the beginning it can take. A few, trial and error before you find companies that are really well suited to your style also. Right? For her, it didn't happen right away.

You know, she wasn't there two months, three months. She was sending emails and she started getting nc. She was like this, I'm sending emails. It's not working. I need to, can I start Etsy or I'm gonna go try that. I'm gonna try POD. She was just itching to go do something else. She was like, this isn't working.

I need to change my tune. And I told her, your art is wonderful. You have [00:14:00] the technique, you have the strategy, just. Keep at it and it's going to happen for you. And, a few weeks later, she got her first deal, her first licensing deal, and it's going to be a recurring thing. The company, they really love her work and they license the first batch.

And they said, you know, every month, every time you have something new, you can send us your stuff and we're gonna pick stuff out. That's great. And then the month, the month after that, she got an agency. 

Delores Naskrent: What? That's great news. Oh, I love hearing that. 

Vanessa Stoilova: She had been pitching two agencies from the beginning, but just being able to then be like, Hey, I had this deal that I made.

Suddenly it made her a lot more, attractive to agencies. Yeah. Her, work was wonderful and it was just a little missing piece. 

Delores Naskrent: Yeah. Validation. 

Vanessa Stoilova: Exactly.

Delores Naskrent: Validation for the company to, to be able to say, okay. Like we had a feeling about her, but now we know for sure. So that's, that's so [00:15:00] great.

Yes. You touched on something there too, and it was, you know, like about the companies coming back to you and asking, . Each month to have some work. And I'm a little confused about that, and students do always ask me about that. When I was working for Russ, there were specific, you know, usually five or six calls of the year that I would have to produce stuff.

So, you know, there'd be like the everyday line and then there would be sort of specific for him, specific for her. But I guess every agency must be different. So, what can you tell them about the output? How much art do you really need to, to make if you wanna license? Like, is it so much?

Is it, you know, like scary or is the workload quite manageable? 

Vanessa Stoilova: So if you're pitching by yourself, you have complete control. You can make however much you want. If you make one card a month and then pitch it to your list of company every month. [00:16:00] That's, that's a great way to do it. I usually made like a whole collection every month, and I'd pitch it.

I had a nice little routine going on. I'd make a, my collections were about six or eight designs, so I'd make one collection, pitch it, one collection, pitch it, one collection, pitch it month after month. So this was my routine and it worked really well for me. In, an agency. Of course, the more work you produce, the more sales they can make, especially for those categories that they sell it as fast as we make it so you can never make too many birthday cakes.

They'll sell them and then they want more. They have a minimum of 12 a month. It's not really enforced. You know, if you go on vacation and you miss your, that's fine. You can make a little more the next month if you're sick, you know, it's, it's not super strict, but. On average, if at the end of the year you're gonna have made about 12 a month and you can make more, of course, I know that 12 sounds like a lot.

You do get faster with practice. You really get into a rhythm, especially because they take all the pitching [00:17:00] and marketing off of your plate. That gives you more time, and it's not also 12 complex illustrations or designs. Every time, because in collections you'll also have blenders, things that go with things that match, you know, stripes, polka dots, plaids, right.

Things like that. You know, I can make four of these a day. Yeah. And then I'll have a bigger like card illustration that'll take me three days to make it all kind of averages out. I think last month we had the big, hobby lobby. Submission call. That's twice a year. Every company does it differently.

You talked about this a little bit earlier. Some companies, they have four or six or some companies, they're just like, send us everything every month. Others have a system. Hobby Lobby, they do twice a year and they buy. 40,000 things at once is crazy.

Delores Naskrent: What?

Vanessa Stoilova: It's, it's a big event for all the agencies that work with Hobby Lobby.

It's like, it's a big thing. Sure. So last [00:18:00] month I created 36 new designs just for them. 

Wow. 

In one month. So I did. Work a bit more hours than I usually do. I usually hit my 12 target pretty easily and spend the rest of my time on teaching Last month. I really just put it all into this. I, I just got my results yesterday.

I sold 23 out of the 36,

Delores Naskrent: yay. High five.

Vanessa Stoilova: So it was all worth, yeah, I mean that's, I made like. Seven or $8,000 after my commission in, in one month. So that if someone, if someone is curious, that's the kind of money you can make. 

Delores Naskrent: That's so, so, oh wow. That's just gives us so much hope, like really, you, so you're, let me just break this down a little bit.

So when you're giving a collection, I think I've seen a few of your Sell sheets and you'll have like sort of a, a placement print or a single illustration. And then beside that, you usually put two or three different coordinating patterns. [00:19:00] Is that the way you normally do it? Okay. And you usually do watercolor, right?

Vanessa Stoilova: Actually these days I do more of a like flat style on procreate. I use this, I discovered these like chalk, like brushes that I really like, and I've started using those a lot more. Sometimes I do the kind of a digital watercolor look, but lately I've been really into these chalk kind of brushes.

But, you know, those are little differences. I, I know people always hear that you have to have a consistent style, and yes, that's a thing, but whether I use watercolor brushes or chalk brush. My drawing still looks, it's still still me drawing it. It still looks like I did it. And that's what's important.

You know, it's the vibe. You can still have a bit of range in your style. But I'm getting off topic there. 

We are. Sorry about that. 

Delores Naskrent: That's okay. It's perfect because. You know, what you're talking about too really feeds into this next question because you're developing work and so for people who are just starting out [00:20:00] who have not actually landed a deal or haven't started pitching, they're working on their portfolio.

So if we think about it in these terms, in the way that Vanessa's describing them, we're. Basically doing the same thing, but we're creating it for our portfolio at this point. If we are ready to start pitching or curious or just want to explore that a little bit. So once you do have a body of work, this is one of the things I remember my agents saying he was always.

Happy to have me refer students and artists that I knew as long as they had a substantial body of work. So that was one of the things he always said. Mm-hmm. But what's, once you've got that portfolio, Vanessa, what is the next step? How do you start, identify the companies that you want to pitch to?

Explain that a little bit for us. 

Vanessa Stoilova: Yeah. So very quickly I'll answer the question that you asked before that I didn't answer when I went on a tangent. I usually start with the greeting card ideas. So [00:21:00] I'll make, let's say I make three greeting cards. And then I'll make a coordinating pattern to go with each one.

And, but, and they end up selling for all sorts of things. Not always just greeting cards. I sell a lot of, gift bags, journals, wall art puzzles, things like that. Illustrations can work for many different things. And then the patterns can go on wrapping paper, fabrics, wallpaper. So when you have a mix of illustrations and simple coordinating patterns, it makes for a very flexible collection that can be used for.

Many different things. Then moving on to your question about portfolio, how about portfolios? When you start pitching by yourself, you don't need a big number. You need, I, I always say 12 is a great number to start with, just as samples to show what you can do. Mm-hmm. And if you don't have exactly what they need, you can create something for them custom.

So it's not really a problem, as you know, as long as you have 12, just to show them what your style is, what your skill level is, and all of that. [00:22:00] However. You do need eventually to build up like a big catalog, a body of work, especially if you want to sign with an agency. Because if you, you pitch to an agency, you have 10 designs, they're like, I'm gonna sell this in a month and then I'm gonna have nothing else.

You know? Right. So. Yeah, I think I heard somewhere that they want you to have at least like 50 or 60 starting with, and the more you have, I mean, the better for them. In my case, it was actually a, a pretty unique case because. Pink Light Studio was my dream agency. But before that, I was with another agency and it, I was doing sales great there, but it was kind of not a good fit in terms of like personality and working methods.

Sometimes agents aren't a good fit, you know? So I left that agency and I was accepted in Pink Light Studio. All of my art. We're still remaining with that other agency for another six months, and so Pink Light Studio told me, [00:23:00] actually, we don't want any of that art. We don't know who she's shown it to.

It's not exclusive anymore, so we'll sign you with basically nothing. No back catalog. Start, start drawing. Go for it. Yeah. I started with with Zero, which usually. Agencies want you to have at least 50 or 60 things to start with so they can have stuff to show people, you know? Right. So those first few months I was like, let's do this.

Delores Naskrent: That's different. That's a different story than I've heard from a lot of people. 

Vanessa Stoilova: Mm-hmm. So then just starting out, if you have a few pieces of, of artwork, I said 12 is good to get started, then you start pitching, that's your first step, you take some samples.

Collections is best because even if it's just collections of three. So if you have like four mini collections of three to start pitching with, that's perfect. And you can, find some companies that you wanna. Work with, and you emailed them with these samples and [00:24:00] it, there's really no like, really, strict.

Method or, or methodology to go through. I think that scares a lot of people, that there's no like official submission process and three step interview or anything. You, you have to create your own opportunity. You find the company, you find their email address. Sometimes you have to do a little bit of digging.

I've called the company sometimes I was like, Hey, I can't find where I. Should submit my portfolio and then the Secretary tell me where I can send it. And then you just email them with your stuff and hope for the best. And that's the first step. 

Delores Naskrent: Cool. And then do you then keep sort of, list or, like how do you, just stay organized, I guess would be my next question about that.

I've been setting up my, document on Airtable, and I know you use Airtable too, so I'd like to hear a little bit more about it. I am, like I said, just getting it all set up because I want, my [00:25:00] daughter's gonna help me with pitching, so I would love to hear what exactly you do. What do you set up in your Airtable document?

Vanessa Stoilova: Yes. I love Airtable so much. I'm a big Airtable nerd. It's easy to use. It's like a spreadsheet, but you have so much control over everything. You can move columns around, you can change things. And it's free.

Delores Naskrent: It's free. I know.

Vanessa Stoilova: I love it so much. So I have my company database in there. And so what I like to do whenever I'm out and about and I see products with cute illustrations on them, then you know, oh, there's a drawing on this.

They had to hire an artist to do that. So they do work with artists. Okay. So I take a photo of the tag. Whenever I'm out, my husband is like, can we go? I'm just photographing all the products. And then I get home and I put in all of those companies. In my Airtable, I sometimes don't do the research right away.

It depends if I have time or not, but I just put all the companies [00:26:00] in my Airtable. Then maybe a little bit later when I have time, I'll Google the company, try to see if I can find, the contact information. Sometimes they have submission information. You know, they might, they might say, we're looking for Christmas around that time of year, or, that's great information.

I write it in my database. And then, so it's, it kind of fills itself. Over time. I, I have hundreds and hundreds of companies in there. I find this more approachable than sitting down and doing this for two weeks straight. That would just drive me crazy. So I just add to it a little bit over time.

Delores Naskrent: Yeah. Great. And, and then as you pitch, you just keep track of when you've pitched or who you've pitched to and then responses or whatever that you get back. 

Vanessa Stoilova: I have a separate air table for that. So I can, I, it's a Kanban view, so I can put companies in, you know, the ones that I still haven't reached out to, the ones that I have reached out to, the ones that are due for follow up, the ones that, [00:27:00] on my warmup sequence that I like to call. I mean, that's more of a email marketing term. It's a bit different with pitch with pitching. But, the ones that I, maybe I've worked with in the past, but I still need to email them every once in a while to remind them I exist, 

Delores Naskrent: right? 

Vanessa Stoilova: So all separated in categories like that. And with Surface Design it's really easy because we create new work all the time. So even companies that we've contacted in the past. Every time you have a new collection, you hit them up again. Show them your new work. Maybe they'll buy it. 

Delores Naskrent: Right, right. Yeah. It's important I think, to find companies that you think you can vibe with for sure.

I love how approach approachable, you've made this Ness. Like just talking it over with you makes everything so much clearer in my mind, and I hope that. It's the same for the listeners.

Vanessa Stoilova: I hope so too.

Delores Naskrent: You take something that normally feels so overwhelming and you show artists that it's really possible.

I love that. And if you ever wanna go deeper, all of you [00:28:00] listeners out there, Vanessa's Art Business Bootcamp opens again September the first, and she's also hosting a free masterclass on September 2nd about starting a freelance illustration career. Yes. And of course if you want a smaller first step, the five cards and five days challenge is happening September 22nd.

That's our first day. It's a fun and creative way to design new cards. And now that I'm saying design new cards, I'm thinking design new cards and little mini collections. And if you, if you grab the VIP creators pack, you'll also get Vanessa's live session on art licensing and all the goodies that I'm putting together.

To help you. Mm-hmm. Make those first sets of cards and make those initial artworks a lot more easily. Ness, thank you again. It's always such a joy to talk with you. 

Vanessa Stoilova: Thank you for having me and for hosting this challenge. I can't wait. I'll be in there creating cards with all of [00:29:00] you and we're gonna have a blast.

Delores Naskrent: Well keep creating, keep juggling, and most importantly, keep finding joy in the process.