Painting

Gabriel Barak IV – Character Illustration

3rd February 2023 By EMELBI

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 limited set of brushes, this type of image is a process of layering texture from simple beginnings. Much like you would if you were making an oil painting or an acrylic painting on canvas. There was no reference material for this character. Gabriel Barak IV came out of my head. But this is a process I am going to use more and more often from now on when looking at digital portraiture in general. An exciting new journey.

Again, as ever, I have explored multiple colour grades and texture finishes to this images, ever fascinated by multiple outcomes of a single image.

Snowdogs Support Life – Kirklees – Snowdog Auction 2022

25th January 2023 By EMELBI

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 during the auction event so, unfortunately, I have no idea where her new home will be. All 30 of the large dogs were sold over the course of the auction event, and a grand total of £78,950 was raised.

This has been such a hugely positive project. Wild in Art, the organisation behind these wonderful art trails have been a pleasure to deal with and between them and The Kirkwood, the whole experience has been brilliantly creative, extremely well organised and a pleasure to be involved with from start to finish. People have reached out to me from all avenues and offered their wonderful compliments and positive feedback regarding my Snowdog and the trail as a whole. I was pleased that I submitted my design, glad that I got through the sponsor process and was chosen as one of the artists to receive one of these iconic sculptures. One of the best blank canvases I’ve had the pleasure of painting. I had the most enormous amount of fun during the painting process and I got to paint my dog at Gomersal Primary School which was my temporary studio during the creative process. Thousands of people travelled from miles around to take part in the Snowdog trail. For a while, there was a fantastic buzz in and around Kirklees as everybody talked about the Snowdogs.

I would like to offer a massive thank you to my sponsors Kirklees Council (Dewsbury Creative Town) for their support. They were the ones who spotted my design and made the initial investment to kickstart the whole creative endeavour.

You can read more about my Snowdog and watch the video of how she was created here.

The Day I was Vincent van Gogh

29th August 2019 By EMELBI

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 I got a taste of the energy and vibrancy that Van Gogh painted with. The mimicking of the technique and style was a lot of fun and it was interesting trying to interpret such a masterpiece. Certainly a lot of energy and verve within each brush stroke. Quite a limited palette too. That said, there is a lot of warm colours that aren’t immediately apparent when you gaze upon the actual painting. Anyway, I hope that I did it some justice. The funny thing is, I can also see my own style in there too. Hard to avoid to a certain extent. It’s amazing how much you can learn through the exploration of someone else’s technique. All good fun.

Nous Trois

21st August 2015 By EMELBI Leave a Comment

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.