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2-Week Portfolio Preparation Courses (15-17yrs)
Portfolio Preparation for Illustration

Portfolio Preparation for Illustration

This 2-week intensive summer course is perfect for students aged 15-17 who are looking for an unparalleled insight into the realm of illustration.

To book your place today, simply click 'book now' to be taken to AUB's secure online store where you can complete your booking.

Course overview

Check out the course dates and fees for this 2-week full-time course below, including our popular residential package.

Monday 31 July 2023 – Friday 11 August 2023

Course fee only: £1,499
Course fee including residential and half-board catering package: £2,199

Please note, you can secure your place on the course today with just a £695 deposit.

When you book this course today you have the opportunity to experience life as a university student by opting for the residential package, which aims to give our summer students a taste of life as a full-time #AUBMAKER.

Residential package includes:

Half-board catering (breakfast and lunch)
Single study bedroom with private en-suite bathroom in AUB Halls of Residence, situated on AUB's campus
Halls of Residence Wi-Fi
24-hour on-site security staff and live-in AUB residential staff (help is available 24/7)
Optional taxi transfer from the airport
Social activities and excursions

Take a look at AUB’s Halls of Residence, just click on the Campus Halls option.

If you wish to include accommodation and/or a taxi transfer from the airport in your summer course booking, simply select the residential option when you book your place.

About this course

If you're a budding illustrator and wish to improve your creative drawing skills and build a portfolio, this course will give you the chance to immersive yourself in a range of different mediums, to produce exciting and original work, and to develop your drawing and illustration techniques.

During this course, you'll explore the excitement of a rapidly evolving discipline, one that blurs boundaries between various kinds of visual creativity. You'll challenge and interrogate the way that we think about imagery and style.

You'll engage in a range of experimental research methods to strengthen your illustration practice. The course will focus on intuitive image making, ways of exploring subject matter through illustration and developing content.

You'll be given a series of tasks that have been developed specifically to push your thinking and making and to trigger your creativity, from which you will produce a number of outcomes. Your projects will include elements of drawing, experimental image making, movement, and exploration of unconventional narrative forms.

Through a series of lectures, demonstrations, workshops, and practical projects you'll explore the fundamental principles of illustration and participate in a broad range of exciting workshops where you'll be encouraged to experiment and develop a critical understanding of your work.

You'll cover the fundamentals of illustration such as the use of tone and light, colour, line, the edge, shape, form, mark making and negative space.

You'll have the opportunity to experiment with a range of materials including charcoal, inks, sticks, oil pastel and chalk pastels, acrylics to name a few. You'll develop your critical awareness of visual communication and explore a variety of illustration methods and techniques to enhance your understanding of the design process and effectively communicate your ideas.

Course highlights include:

You'll learn to experiment, test, and develop your work through the diverse world of illustrative practices; working with traditional and digital modes
Develop drawing techniques
Explore the way that images can be used to communicate ideas
Explore and use different (digital and traditional) media to interpret and solve creative problems.
Use of research and reflection techniques to support creative decision making
Work with likeminded people in a studio environment
Layout and portfolio showcase
Portfolio reviews

Develop confidence in your abilities
Develop a varied portfolio of creative work to demonstrate your skills and creative identity
Provide extended practical sessions to experiment with artistic and creative processes in a professional Higher Education setting
Develop your drawing, observational and illustration skills to enhance your aesthetic awareness and inform your research activities
Provide opportunities to experience a wide variety of study methods
Develop your understanding of research methods and idea development
Provide opportunities for self-evaluation and critique to enhance your confidence and reflective skills when considering your own and other students work
Develop your understanding of the field and the potential creative opportunities for illustrators

All course materials and equipment are included in the course fee.

You’ll be taught in our state-of-the-art industry-standard art and design studios and digital suites, with access to AUB’s library and online resources.

Work produced during the course will be collated into a portfolio and/or digital journal for you to add to your portfolio or for future development.

Your course tutors will offer guidance and support you with your creative applications, as well as feedback on your work and offer advice for your future creative studies.

If you complete the course 100% course attendance you'll be issued with an official AUB summer course certificate detailing course contents and study hours.

During your course we'll arrange for you to attend a talk with our friendly team here at AUB where you’ll have all your burning questions about how to progress to study full-time at AUB answered.

Whilst studying your summer course you are guaranteed to receive a pre-application interview and portfolio review for the course(s) of your choice.

Course(s) that you may be interested in include:

Book your place today

Book now

Summer courses in action

Check out our Portfolio Preparation for the Arts (Art and Design) students in action as well as some of the final pieces created for their portfolios.