Reading Girls' School & Michelle Dawson

The students began with a creative drawing day and then went out to make observation studies at the train station, the shopping centre and a building site. They collected quick sketches of people working and drawings of the location in their sketchbooks and on large rolls of lining paper.

Michelle showed students how to adapt their drawings using the computer programme Paint Shop Pro by adding colour to create a unique piece of digital artwork.

Students then worked on collaborative digital artworks to create a final image based on one of the workplaces.

Michelle Dawson is an artist and illustrator living in Worthing. After studying Graphic Design, Michelle taught Art in a secondary school for six years. In 2007 she gave up teaching to focus on developing her own work. Michelle sketches from life initially and it is important to her that her first impressions are visible in the final piece of work. Her pencil sketches come alive as she scans them into a computer and adds colour and texture using Adobe Photoshop.