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Character and Portrait Technique Currently looking at a new technique of making portrait images. I have dabbled with this process before and want to refine it. So you will be seeing much more of this style in the future. Using the procreate app and a

Digital Character Illustration As ever, I love to produce multiple version of some of the images that I create, and sometimes characters just spring up form nowhere. This character fell out of my head and onto the iPad screen in Procreate while I was semi

I was recently contacted by a lovely chap called Jason Ginnelly, who asked me to design the book cover for his up and coming publication of poems and prose. I really enjoyed designing this book cover and made sure that Jason was completely involved with

Here are some fabulous images made by the year 6 children at The Hill Primary Academy in Rotherham. Using photographs of themselves, the children made some super line illustrations using pencils and pens. Looking at certain aspects of the portrait process, year 6 focused on

A couple of months ago, my wonderful Snowdog, ‘Two Tone Textile Tilly’ was sold at auction and fetched an impressive £2,300 This money will contribute to that fabulous work that The Kirkwood do in the local community. ‘Tilly’ was purchased by an anonymous online bidder

One of the most important skills in art, is drawing. You can create wildernesses, vast landscape, detailed cities, fabulous creatures and just about anything your imagination can muster. Allowing yourself to be free to ‘JUST DRAW’, no matter where it takes you, is a freeing

Making digital graphics from simple digital photographs with Year 4 at Birkby Junior School. This workshop was all about making striking digital graphics from a really basic set of digital photographs. Using iPads, the children were encouraged to take a series of photographs of every-day,

These fab images are a sample of the digital portraits recently created by the Year 6 children at Birkby Junior School. They worked with iPads and the program Procreate. Using their own portrait photos as reference, the children were taken through a series of processes

A recent simple line illustration of my wife. Dozing on a ‘Friday Night’ after a long week. My wife and I were just chilling out watching a bit of Friday night TV. I looked around and she was absolutely sparked out. So I took a

MYRIAD FRONTIERS Concept art and idea based on future gaming. © EMELBI 2022 – All Rights Reserved Portrait illustrations based on the concept that we will soon live in a world where gamers will be able to connect to internet streamed game systems using cybernetics

The illustrations that the year 11 students created at Pleckgate High School in Blackburn, are outstanding. I worked with them for a day looking at portrait illustration techniques using the iPad and the Procreate App. I often work with young people delivering creative workshops in

I got a lovely surprise in my inbox recently. A group of year 5 and year 6 pupils from Horsington Church School in Somerset, had been following my Drawable ‘Making Layered Portraits’ resource on the AccessArt website. They sent me a handful of the images

Procreate Portrait Workshops I recently had the pleasure of running a weeks worth of workshops with all the children in St Mary and St John Catholic Primary School in Wigan. Working with Reception children, right through to Year 6, we used an app called ‘Procreate‘

This was such a fun project with years 4 and 5 at Birkby Junior School. All the children were introduced to the process of making striking digital graphics from really basic digital photography. STAGE ONE – THE PHOTOGRAPHY Using iPads, the children were encouraged to

In this recent workshop, the year 5 and 6 children at Ash Croft Primary Academy made some strong graphics from hands on illustrative beginnings. Starting with their own portrait photographs as reference material, they made some detailed portrait illustrations of themselves using biro pens on

This is a recent illustration created in Procreate on the ipad and finished in Photoshop on the iMac. I love working between these two platforms. It’s a real organic process much of the time and a slightly different way of working than I am used

This dude, who I have affectionately called Geoff McGeoff, was created on the iPad Pro using Procreate. I was messing around with just one brush. The ‘Syrup’ brush, under the ‘Inking’ menu of brushes. I love hard line illustrations. It’s probably because I have always

This image was made as part of a new series of two minute time lapse illustrations that I am embarking on for my YouTube Channel. I’ve called this one Red Ed. As part of this journey, I want to explore a variety of different mediums

I have decided to undertake a 365 sketchbook. An illustration/sketch a day for a whole year. No rules, multiple mediums and any subject. I will draw whatever comes into my head on each particular day. Just for the sheer love of drawing and for the

I was recently invited to collaborate on ‘The Laughing Boy Project’ by the artist and photographer Hersley Casero. Hersley-Ven Casero is a multidisciplinary visual artist based in Dumaguete City, Philippines. He and his partner Toulla contacted me through Instagram just before Christmas and asked if

Here is an art project recently undertaken by the Year 3 children at Silkstone Primary School in Barnsley. They created some interesting illustrations based on ‘Equality’ using the outline of their own arms. The children made their images using words/text to form some strong detail

These self-portraits were made by the year 4 children at Silkstone Primary School in Barnsley. This project was a creative experience that brought about some inspiring results. Based on their own portrait images, the children explored the line and structure of their own faces, through

This scrumptious bunch of impish lovelies are part of an ongoing illustrative project. I am interested in the uniformity of the illustrations. I follow a particular set of rules in the creation of each of the characters so that they relate to each other in

My wife asked me to do a quick continuous line illustration for a presentation she’s doing over Zoom. It had to be a self portrait and done quickly, almost without thinking. (Fig 1) She then asked me to take that initial drawing and embellish it

During this lockdown period I have been getting around to one or two things that I have been meaning to do for ages. There seems to be a lot of stuff that one puts on the back burner until there is time to address whatever

A quick exploration of negative space and assumed negative space within this symmetrical image of a dude on a BMX. I love how art and design can take you on a journey beyond the obvious just by using colour and form. I’ve always been fascinated

I’ve been having a bit of fun with editing today and I had an idea to make the shortest Photoshop, time lapse, illustration tutorial ever! This is an image of mine called Street Angel. I took 30 snap shot images in Photoshop at various stages

Yesterday, I was mostly being Van Gogh. I created this version of Vincent Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ for my wife’s art classroom doors, ready for the new school year to start. It was a lot of fun to do. In doing so I felt that

  Here are some of the images that the pupils at Codsall Middle School in Wolverhampton produced during a recent portrait illustration workshop. The images are derived from their own portrait photographs. They learned to look for dominant parts of their features to pull out

A gif animation of the EMELBI Boi Carton. I love animated gifs. They’re great things to play with in terms of a quick bit of animated creativity. They make brilliant little adverts too.

It absolutely is. Everybody has the ability to create and make art. Exercise your right to be creative. Exercise your right to make art.

I recently designed the ANNIE posters, flyers and social media promotional material for the forthcoming summer show by the All Stars Performing Arts school based in West Yorkshire. The show will take place at the Bradford Play House where tickets can be purchased via the Box Office.

This has been a wonderful project where the children have explored a wide range of mediums including photography, pen line portrait illustration, textured mark making with a variety of tools, paint blending experimentation on canvas, digital illustration and layering techniques and then bringing all these things

Some quick sketches from a recent sketchbook. Number six was drawn by my 4 year old daughter. I added the kiss speech bubble. We work collaboratively some times. Children’s unbound creativity is a wonder to behold most of the time.

Here are some of the images that have been created by the children at Gomersal Primary School in recent creative workshops. These will be added to the canvases that they have been working on for the last few weeks. Can’t wait to see the finished

A quick sketch of the Vocal Beatbox and Musical Noise genius Beardyman. He posted a video this morning on his Facebook page running a little competition for fans like myself to get involved with. I freeze framed the video and made this image from the freeze frame.

It’s not united, but this is the state of America.

This was a super day long project working with a group of talented creative children on a personal story telling project. The artwork produced was towards part of a community art exhibition with many other schools being involved. The children rolled out a large piece

I did a little illustration of my daughter having a hot chocolate before bedtime. We like a good bedtime story in our house. My wife and I collect children’s books, so there is always a good story to hand.

Here are a recent collection of images. They are a mixture of hand drawn and digital art play.

This was a really fun and creative art club. From large A2 printed portrait photographs the children traced their own images paying particular attention to the shapes that exist within the human face. This made for some really lovely and unusual drawings. The second stage

His name is Scoper. He has just been hit by cupid’s arrow and is about to fall in love. Maybe he will fall over first. It’s hard to know.

Nimble Line Bimbles Taking the pen for a walk.

Using Dazzle 03 pupils created funky character designs to use in the production of a Digital Urban Mural. Further graphic experimentation had them exploring various tools within the Dazzle 03 software package where they used multiple layers and learned to transfer images from one document

Sketchbook image and some iPhone app trickery.

Found this the other day. It’s a triptych of characters painted on board that I did back in 2007. I’m not actually sure what happened to them or where they ended up, but I have always loved these characters.

Face illustration on A2 cartridge paper. Berol Pen, Quink Ink, Posca Pen & Biro. Berol Broad Pen, Quink Ink, Posca Pen and Biro Pen face illustration on A2 cartridge paper.

Illustration Concept for a poster.

Been mucking around with a couple more GIF experiments. They are always fun to put together. These ones are probably too image heavy, but I quite like them all the same. They may take a while to load due to this.

Pen drawing, digitally edited and coloured.

This was a fun project with Shelly First School where the children got to make King and Queen portraits out of their own faces as part of a whole schools creative arts week. The theme for the art produced during the weeks creative activities was

  Illustrative play – Texture versions

(Book Cover Illustration) Yes, I am responsible for the cover design, but the real genius is on the inside. ‘Endless Running Games’ is a collection of poems by Gareth Durasow. Gareth isn’t at all reluctant about eloquently sketching out the grit and feculence of the human

Working with KS2 art club I did a quick photo shoot with the children during their first session to get some source material for their illustrations. Once that was done we loaded all the images into the computer and started the creative process. Using Dazzle

The truth is, one thing leads to another.

New Illustration Cartoon line boy, a super hero boy, equipped with a cape he’s a gold tooth boy. He’s an out there boy, a real hero boy, a fine and dandy do it well and for the people boy!

A fun workshop working with Key Stage 2 children exploring drawing skills and character development. The children got to try many new drawing skills and techniques before starting on their final images. They were also able to experimented with vibrant coloured inks trying out different

Using Dazzle 3, the children at Rowley Lane JIN School explored portrait illustration using multiple digital layers. When they had finished their main images derived from their own photo’s, they made tome funky textured canvases in which to place their illustrated selves. The workshop was

Yep. That is the shape of my head. From a certain angle of course.

SPECTRUM The trick is to be one!

Pencil drawing and a little iPhone trickery via a couple of apps. A nod toward the Wachowski Brothers trilogy of films.

Development of some ideas. My 2 year old daughter decided to add a few of her own lines with red crayon. I think it adds a certain jenesequa. I love it when she joins in with the creativity.

In 2013, Salendine Nook High School won the Guardian Newspaper’s ‘School We’d Like’ competition and was awarded £5000 in prize money to revamp the Blue Tunnel, which is a key linking walkway between different buildings in the school. See the initial post from The Guardian…

iPhoneography and added digital graphic elements.

This was a lovely project at Rowley Lane. The children got to create lots of different illustrations using portrait photography as their starting point. Using textures, graphics and creative tablet apps to further manipulate the images, the year 2 – 6 children had some really

Working as Artist in Residence with young people at Bradford Academy recently in the production of funky graphics across four large circular boards. The design challenge was based on the Academy Value Contract (AVC) that students agree to adhere to. It is always great fun

I want one of these little cars. They look like they might be quite a lot of fun to drive.