BLOG

The Beautiful Mundane Project – Making Graphics from Simple Digital Photography Working with the year 4 pupils at Birkby Junior School we looked at taking photographs of really mundane subject matter in order to make some striking graphics. Using the Snapseed app on the iPad,

Creating Self Portraits in Procreate with Bridgewater Primary School This lovely school booked me in to deliver my Digital Portrait Workshops and I got to work with years 2, 3, 4 ,5 and 6. I will never tire of these portrait workshops. Young people always

Feathers McBeaky – Ill Equipped For The City I really like this character. Feathers McBeaky is a brightly feathered bird (genus unknown) who has spent far too long in the big, dirty city. Looking slightly dishevelled, a little oily and wearing a tatty scarf, he’s

Easter Bunny – Post Easter Weekend Bunny Business I wanted to do an illustration of the Easter Bunny. I imagined that he might have been dressed in a smart suit getting on with the job of hiding all the eggs. A smart Easter Bunny out

What is Line Prompt Sketching? There are a few different types of sketching that I do when I’m creating imagery. Full on sketch book sketches with detail, shading and colour using various mediums. Pen and/or pencil sketches with hatching, cross hatching and shading detail. There

I’ve said it before and I will say it again, I love to explore the multiple possibilities of a single image. This image, entitled ‘The Spirited Drifter’ is a great example of what I mean by this. Over all I am presenting 107 images here.

Journey Line – The lesson Learned A Compulsion to Create This character is called St. Stives. Named because I drew the sketch in St Ives, Cornwall. I like using certain attachments, loose or otherwise, regarding the naming of my work. Not always, but more often

Coffee, Quiche, Cake and Conversation I love to fill sketchbooks. I always have a couple on the go, but my go to paper of choice is a sheet of A4 printer paper. I’m not sure why I favour this. I think it’s because it’s a

I have had some wonderful feedback from a school in Plymouth, who have been creating their own fantastic illustrative portraits following my Drawable ‘Making Layered Portraits’ resource on the AccessArt website. The images below are some examples of the terrific work that the Year 6

The Upshot Perspective Yücel Eucule This image is one of a series of illustrations that I am creating called ‘The Upshot Perspective’ based on humanoid or cyborg units, or renegade humans living in future city settings in a far off world. All of the images

One of the things I love about creativity and art, are the journeys you go on. Simple sketches can turn into intriguing and fun circumnavigations of colour, texture, tone, shade and line. This simple pencil sketch turned into an interesting head study regarding those elements.

Key findings and statistics from the Snowdog Support Life, Kirklees Art Trail showing how fantastic the event was for the local community. The Snowdogs encouraged almost 40,000 visitors to explore Kirklees. This impacted directly on our local towns and villages with extra spending estimated at

All Stars Performing Arts Presents – Cinderella Production Design I love working with this performing arts group. The productions are always fantastic and the young people involved with the group put their hearts and souls into every performance. The adults that get involved are fabulous

Character Illustration He might be a snake, but he is the best snake in town. Seth is his name and he’s all sorts of urban cool. Bang into his Hip Hop. B’ Boy exsssssssssssssstraordinaire. Slithers here, slithers there and does a mean moon walk. He

The Upshot Perspective Top Bun City Prince This image is one of a series of illustrations that I am creating called ‘The Upshot Perspective’ based on humanoid or cyborg units, or renegade humans living in future city settings in a far off world. All of

The Upshot Perspective Humanoid Cyborg System CCC_333 This image is one of a series of illustrations that I am creating called ‘The Upshot Perspective’ based on humanoid or cyborg units, or renegade humans living in future city settings in a far off world. All of

The Upshot Perspective City Cyborg Renegade This image is one of a series of illustrations that I am creating called ‘The Upshot Perspective’ based on humanoid or cyborg units, or renegade humans living in future city settings in a far off world. All of the

The Upshot Perspective Post Apocalyptic Utopia This image is one of a series of illustrations that I am creating called ‘The Upshot Perspective’ based on humanoid or cyborg units, or renegade humans living in future city settings in a far off world. All of the

The Upshot Perspective With Any Luck This image is one of a series of illustrations that I am creating called ‘The Upshot Perspective’ based on humanoid or cyborg units, or renegade humans living in future city settings in a far off world. All of the

When I was a kid I used to frequent a place that was locally known as ‘Browns Subway’ near Clifton in Nottingham. So called, as the underpass was located quite close to a bakery called ‘Browns Bakery’ on Abbeyfield Road. These subways were a hub

A recent illustration of a character that I sketched on a spare piece of envelope while on a conference call. I photographed the sketch and took it into Procreate on the iPad and embellished it with colour and texture. Using a limited colour palette of

For a number of years now I have been including the number 333 in the images that I create. Sometimes subtly, other times quite blatantly. Some images will include the number as digits, other times it will be a series of dots or marks. Three

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