Digital Illustration Workshops

The Importance of Joining In

9th July 2024 By EMELBI

I created this quick portrait illustration working with Year 6 students at Birkby Junior School in Huddersfield. They had already been taken through the process of how to make their own versions in a workshop I delivered earlier in the week. There were 12 students that had an extra bonus session with me at the end of main workshops. I took them through the process again but this time looking at making further embellishments, adding extra detail and shading etc. They were all very keen to see me go through the whole process on my own from start to finish. So this image came out of the hour we spent together.

I often show my work and present plenty of examples in slide shows when running workshops. I am meticulous when taking students through the method or the working process regarding how to achieve certain outcomes. Often there is no time for me to work along side my students and create something with them. That’s because much of my time is focused on answering questions, trouble shooting and going over things that were perhaps misunderstood during the tutorial. This is something that is very much needed when young people are working with technology that they are not used to. Creative workshops are fabulous things to get lost in, but when people are unfamiliar with the tech, it does need that extra support structure, so my time is divided during these creative sessions.

So on this occasion it was nice to have the time to work with a set of students and show them what I did in real time so to speak. It certainly helped them diversify their process and lead to more in depth outcomes.

Blog post of their work coming soon.

Pleckgate High School – Digital Portrait Illustration Workshop with EMELBI 2023

17th June 2023 By EMELBI

Brilliant work from the Year 10 students at Pleckgate High School.

Both the year 10 classes I worked with produced some lovely imagery. Working mainly in Procreate to build the initial illustrations, they further developed their work using various other apps, adding filters, colour treatments and textural fills.

It’s always nice to work across various apps, each one bringing a slightly alternative feel to the creative process. Once you have a solid image to work with you can make multiple versions of the imagery and have various outcomes.

If you know my personal work, you will know that this is something that I explore quite a bit.

Check out these lovely images from the Year 10’s at Pleckgate High School.

Student Sketchbook Examples – Based on My Work

Birkby Junior School – Y6 Digital Portrait Workshop with EMELBI – 2023

22nd May 2023 By EMELBI

I have worked with this school for a number of years now and the children always come up with the goods. There are some super, creative and talented pupils among the children at Birkby Junior School.

The digital portrait workshop that year 6 took part in this year brought some really striking results. Based on their own portrait photos, the children explored a set of techniques using the program Procreate on the iPad. The resulting imagery is bold and striking.

I am always fascinated in the results regarding individual style. Especially after the students are taken through the same set of processes regarding technique. Regardless of age, I find that people creating any type of artwork will always apply their own unique set of ideas or experiences to the process. This is what makes each individual piece of art diverse and unique and have its own energy.

Check out these wonderful images that Y6 created below.

Birkby Junior School – Beautiful Mundane Project – Y4 Digital Graphics and Photography Workshop with EMELBI – 2023

19th May 2023 By EMELBI

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, the pupils manipulated their own photographic images, taking them through a series of treatments in order to enhance the imagery and create a set of striking graphics from simple beginnings.

Here are a sample of the fabulous images that they created during the workshops.

Bridgewater Primary School – Digital Portrait Workshops 2023

15th May 2023 By EMELBI

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 come up with the most fabulous and diverse imagery. The children at Bridgewater Primary School in Manchester were no exception. Some really expressive work came out of these sessions. I especially love some of the colour use and the exploration and treatment of form.

Here are a selection of images from across the year groups. Brilliant work from all of them.

Year 2

Year 3

Year 4

Year 5

Year 6

Birkby Junior School – Y4 Digital Graphics and Photography Workshop with EMELBI

24th January 2023 By EMELBI

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, mundane objects. Objects that would usually seem humdrum and perhaps largely taken for granted, like sinks, radiators, window cills, light switches, air vents, skirting boards etc.

Using the apps Pixlr and Snapseed on the iPad, the children manipulated the images, taking them through a series of treatments in order to enhance the imagery and create a set of striking graphics from those mundane beginnings.

Here are a sample of the fabulous images that they created during the workshops.

Birkby Junior School – Y6 Digital Portrait Illustration with EMELBI

24th January 2023 By EMELBI

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 and techniques in order to make these beautiful illustrations.

It was fabulous to work with them all and the images that they created are striking. I am always stunned at the diversity of image and the variety of different outcomes that young people come up with. Even though the creative process is the same, each individual artist brings all of their own ideas, experiences and flare to arrive at each unique outcome. This is the beauty of the creative process.

Pleckgate High School – Digital Portrait Illustration Project

28th August 2022 By EMELBI

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 order to inspire and share the skill set that I have acquired and developed over the years. The beauty in sharing is watching young people pick up those skills and do something completely different with them, often with brilliant and stunning outcomes. In turn, I end up learning a thing or two from them in the process.

This is the beauty of creative learning. Through the shared experience of creative exploration, so much is learned on a myriad of levels. I really enjoyed working with this school and the artwork that they produced in such a short space of time, was nothing short of brilliant. Check out some of their work below.

St Mary and St John Catholic Primary School

11th November 2021 By EMELBI

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‘ on the Apple iPad. Many of the children had never seen or worked with Procreate before so there was a steep learning curve regarding some of the technical aspects of using the app. I am pleased to say that they all took to it like ducks to water and the strength of creativity speaks for itself.

The project was tailored to look at self portrait illustration, to think about the structure of the face and what it is that makes us look like us. Working form their own photographs that they took themselves, the children explored their face structure, examining strong lines and also the negative spaces in the construction of their imagery. Working over multiple layers they eventually finished off by delving into the world of colour where we discussed colour palettes and what sort of hues worked well together. The emphasis was always based around the notion that ‘less is more’. This was a deliberate exercise throughout the workshops, simplifying the process of the illustration in order that the students ended up with the strongest lines. There are key, dominant marks that are the critical elements that make up the character of the face. They inform the viewer about certain expressions and the overall personality of the portrait that they are viewing. The children went through the process of learning to identify these elements and incorporating them into their illustrations.

The students and staff at this school were a delight to work with. I was with them for a whole week and was able to work with every student in every class. The work that they produced is exemplary. Fun, bold, really exciting and full of energy.

Years 5 and 6 also got to work with me in the production of some hand drawn portrait illustrations. They photographed their finished line images on the iPad and worked into them digitally using and app called PIXLR.

Procreate is an app that runs on the Apple iPad. It is an exceptional bit of kit used by many illustrators working in the creative industry. It is intuitive, powerful and exciting to use.

Check out some of the work below from each of the year groups and also some photos of the children working.

RECEPTION

YEAR 1

YEAR 2

YEAR 3

YEAR 4

YEAR 5

YEAR 6

The Beautiful Mundane Project – Birkby Junior School

19th May 2021 By EMELBI

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 take a series of photographs of every-day, mundane objects that would usually seem humdrum or of a dull subject matter. Things like light switches, radiators, air vents, skirting boards etc.

STAGE TWO – THE IMAGE TREATMENT

Using various apps on the iPad, the children then took the images through a series of treatments in order to enhance the imagery to make it a little less dull, introducing textures, colour overlays and light leaks to name but a few.

STAGE THREE – THE TEXT LAYOUT and GRAPHIC DESIGN

The children were then asked to produce a poster for a mock local event using one of the images that they had made as the background. They were given the choice of either:

1. A Music Festival

2. A Technology Convention (Tech Con)

3. A Horticultural Show (Flower Show)

4. An Art Exhibition

Using the same apps that they had used in the creation of their graphics; but this time using a different set of tools within those apps, the children created some wonderful work based on these mock events.

The graphics that they produced and the subsequent posters are full of colour and energy. They have vibrancy, great structure and beautiful detail. The whole workshop was to show that you can create beautiful graphics from bland imagery with a bit of imagination and technical know-how. The workshops were a great success and the children really enjoyed that whole process.

Best comment: “I didn’t know that you could create amazing things from nothing!”

IMAGE MANIPULATION DAY

GRAPHIC DESIGN DAY

Ash Croft Primary Academy – Digital Lift Off Day

18th May 2021 By EMELBI

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 heavy cartridge paper. Exploring a series of techniques, these images were then worked into with thicker pens honing the major detail. Special attention was paid to the areas that make characters and features stand out.

Once this stage was finished the pupils then photographed their images using an iPad and worked into them digitally using various creative apps, exploring and experimenting with textures, colour overlays, light bleeds and numerous other layers. The outcomes were a series of strong digital graphics based on their initial drawings.

The school and staff were fantastic and a pleasure to work with.

Gomersal Primary School – Creative Workshop 2016 #2

16th December 2016 By EMELBI Leave a Comment

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 together for the final pieces. The finished artworks are absolutely fabulous and so wonderfully individual. It was a pleasure to work with such a great bunch of talented young artists.

Gomersal Primary School – Creative Workshop 2016

12th December 2016 By EMELBI Leave a Comment

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 items.

I really love their use of blended digital textures incorporating their hand drawn portraits. Brilliant creativity.

Birkby Junior School – Personal Story Telling Project

22nd September 2016 By EMELBI Leave a Comment

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 of paper across the school hall floor and each of them worked on multiple areas of the paper creating illustrative self portraits of themselves and embellishing the portraits with images that related to them and their lives.

emelbi_art_education_illustration_workshops_birkby_junior_school_workshop_artwork_01

Afterwards the children extensively photographed the images that they had made using ipads. That done, they further worked on their imagery digitally manipulating the images using specific apps in the ipad until they had a made a large amount of usable media. The resulting posters were the results of their hard work. A super project with a fab bunch of children.

Here are some photographs from the workshop

Gomersal Primary School – Experimental Portrait Workshop

10th December 2015 By EMELBI Leave a Comment

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 was to make another tracing, but this time from the initial line drawing so that there was some extra degradation of form though this process.

Using a limited palette of colours, the children then inked the second drawing by almost block filling the shapes that they had discovered within the lines of their drawings.

I love how these beautiful images started to appear on the paper. We later scanned the images and went on to do some digital image manipulation with them. Great fun.

Line and Ink Work

DIGITAL MANIPULATION

WORKSHOP PHOTOS

Shelly First School – Digital Urban Mural – Digital Illustration Workshops.

5th November 2015 By EMELBI Leave a Comment

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 to another. The pupils then combined many graphic elements to form the finished artwork exploring colour, texture, image placement, small graphic additions and much more. I love how busy these images are and how they have come together as a group of images.

Shelly First School – IF I WERE KING OR QUEEN – Digital Illustration Workshops.

3rd July 2015 By EMELBI Leave a Comment

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 all based around and celebrating the fact that Queen Elizabeth II will become our longest-reigning British monarch on 9 September 2015. A massive amount of artwork was produced during the workshops and a lot of fun was had along the way. Here are a few from the pile. I think they all look positively regal.

Gomersal Primary School – Digital Portrait and Digital Urban Graphics Workshop

10th May 2015 By EMELBI Leave a Comment

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 3 the children were shown how to use the different layers to derive illustrated images from the photographs. They were then encouraged to experimented with colour to create their finished portraits.

Once these initial images had been finished I wanted the children to do something different with their portrait images. We looked at further developing the children’s ability to manipulate their original images in Dazzle 3. Using different layering techniques and a bank of texture images, the children added experimental textures and
graphics to form their final piece of work, inspired by the urban graphics that are akin to my style of work. Here are some of the final images…
Wonderful work I’m sure you will agree!

Digital Urban Graphics

A mixture of photographic and illustrated materials.

Rowley Lane JIN School : Digital Urban Illustration Workshop

15th March 2015 By EMELBI Leave a Comment

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 a lot of fun and their finished artwork is just super. I love the expressions and colour work.

Salendine Nook High School – ‘I CAN’ Street Graphics Project.

7th August 2014 By EMELBI Leave a Comment

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… The Guardian – Salendine Nook: graffiti art project transforms old walkway.

I was approached by the school in the summer of 2013 and was asked to facilitate a creative project consisting of a series of workshops based around the title ‘I CAN’. These workshops began in autumn term 2013 and ran through to March 2014.

The initial workshops explored the history and culture of street art and graffiti and looked at the myriad of artists whose work adorns the street of the world’s urban spaces. Particular focus was placed upon methods, techniques, colour use, image placement and characteristics concerning each individual artist’s approach and style.
We looked at everything from the huge typographic scrawls and intricate lettering styles of graffiti and the continued development and evolution of graffiti culture, to Wheat Paste posting, the Knit The City phenomenon, Banksy, The London Police, Shepard Fairey and many more.

The creative workshops were designed to produce a range of strong graphics, which were either hand drawn, painted, developed from photographic elements, made using collage techniques and indeed a mixture of all these modes. Strong emphasis was placed on different drawing techniques designed to loosen up the creative process and produce an unexpected quirkiness in the resulting graphics.

Students also explored the use of the light box to trace images in order to develop quick and strong graphic styles and to experiment with composition. There was also an emphasis on the significance of mark making, constructing textures using paint splats, printing with inked bubble wrap and other interesting found materials.

Sponged ink marks and small hand drawn elements like arrows, swirls, cross-hatching and all sorts of shapes and patterns were created in the exploratory process.

Out of the mass of graphics that were produced in the workshops, the students started to get a real and definite idea about which images they wanted to use in their final artworks.

The imagery was then scanned at high resolution and prepared for layering and colouring using Photoshop CS6. This allowed the creative process to be further investigated resulting in the impacting and beautiful graphics that were produced in the student’s final pieces.

The project was a wonderful journey of creativity from beginning to end and a lot of fun was had along the way.

I think the resulting artworks speak for themselves.

Check out the Guardian article here… The Guardian – How street art can boost learning and community engagement in schools.

This was a super project commissioned by the Guardian and funded by Zurich Municipal.

Rowley Lane JIN School : Drawing – Digital Illustration – Image Manipulation – App Creativity

20th June 2014 By EMELBI Leave a Comment

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 brilliant ideas and moved between the creative platforms as if it were second nature.
The staff were really friendly and helpful too. I have always enjoyed working with this school.

Check out some of their artwork below.

Bradford Academy – Hometeam (AVC) Graphics Project

13th June 2014 By EMELBI Leave a Comment

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 working at this school. Both staff and Students are equally enthusiastic for the creative process. All artwork has been digitally reproduced and is now displayed in the school.

Academy Value Contract

What will it look like, sound like and feel like if all learners from BA work/play safe physically?

We will have the maturity to self evaluate our actions. We will not discriminate against other members of the Academy and we will be responsible for our actions emotionally and physically.

What will it look like, sound like and feel like if all learners from BA work/play fair?

We will be fair, respectful and make sure everyone is valued in the school community. We will ensure everyone is motivated and be part of a team. We will also be given opportunities and be equally supported.

What will it look like, sound like and feel like if all learners from BA work/play safe emotionally?

We will not judge others for their individuality and we will respect everyone’s opinions and thoughts by treating everyone how we would like to be treated.

What will it look like, sound like and feel like if all learners from BA work/play hard?

We will, to the best of our ability, give 100% effort with pride and enthusiasm. This will help us to find our personal balance between working, playing and relaxing in order to reach our full potential.

The Finished Graphics

‘I Can’ Project – Salendine Nook High School, Huddersfield.

5th March 2014 By EMELBI Leave a Comment

Emerging artwork and graphics from the ‘I Can’ blue tunnel project at Salendine Nook High School, Huddersfield. There are some fabulous images being created, both in the form of digital graphics and hand drawn illustrations. I’m working with a great set of students who are producing some outstanding artwork in this urban street art regeneration project. More to come soon…

GCSE and AS Level Art Graphics

10th October 2013 By EMELBI Leave a Comment

Here is an article written by Hazel Saxelby, a teacher whom I have work closely with over the past few years at Batley Girls’ High School and Visual Arts College.

‘Graphic Artist Mike Barrett (www.emelbi.com) returned again in 2013 to support our students with their coursework and exam projects. Mike is one of our ‘family of artists’ who has worked closely with staff and students to extend their design skills and develop their use of CAD, specifically using Adobe Photoshop. As a result of him returning year on year to the school, Mike’s extensive expertise is being embedded, in his absence, into our day to day teaching and we are finding that these skills can be passed on to students even more effectively.

Last year, he worked with both key stage 4 & 5 Art Graphics students. The GCSE students benefitted from Mike’s creativity and support as they tackled the controlled assessment exam. Each of the students approached the unit in their own way and developed exciting, personal ideas with professional results. Some students innovatively used new media and technology, such as smartphones and Instagram to capture and begin developing their own imagery.’

Pupil Referral Unit – Digital Illustration Workshops

28th August 2013 By EMELBI Leave a Comment

I have recently been working with the Pupil Referral Unit at Bradley, Huddersfield, delivering a series of digital illustration workshops using photographic manipulation and computer aided illustrative techniques. The children created some brilliant images. Here are some of the portrait illustrations from the workshops. Some lovely work and some great expressions!

Skateboard Deck Graphics Workshop

4th June 2013 By EMELBI Leave a Comment

As part of North Huddersfield Community Arts Week I ran a series of mini workshops today working with young people from Ashbrow School and Birkby Junior School.

The workshop was based on creating digital graphics that would work well on skateboard decks. Mostly working in pairs, the pupils only had about 20 minutes to create these wonderful images.

They listened well, worked extremely diligently and had a lot of fun in the process. I was super impressed with the images that they produced. Awesome stuff!

Birkby Junior School Images

Carolanne and Ushna

Kian and Nabil

Ali and Reggie

Zahra and Raheel

Iqra and Allysia

Esha

Atika and Sadia

Faiza and Bilal

Ismaeal

Muskan and Calvin

Ibraheem and Asad

Birkby Decks

Ashbrow School Images

Amber

Grace and Burhan

Zain and Jake

Jujhar and Troy

Kieren

Ellie-rose and Tayba

Pharrell and Armin

Ashbrow Deck

Gomersal Primary School – Portrait Illustration Workshop

25th July 2012 By EMELBI Leave a Comment

A group of Gomersal Primary School pupils from years 3, 4 and 5 have just completed a workshop creating digital self portrait illustrations with some very striking results.
Based on photographic images of themselves, the pupils skilfully created these digital illustrations using a series of layers and other digital tools.

An alternative colour pallet was also explored for some of the digital colouring, which made for some very interesting imagery indeed. Further layering techniques were also looked at with the introduction of textures and various other incidents and elements adding further depth to their images. Here are the brilliant illustrations that they created.

Digital Illustration Portraits