A Chance

Yesterday I was proud to be part of the judging team for the UK Childrens Fine Art Competition. For those that have never heard of this prestigious competition it allows individuals, scout groups, schools, art clubs, in fact anybody to take part and compete against the rest of the world in the Childrens International Fine Art Competition through this UK entry. Unbelievable? I know, I didn't know about it until two years ago and I was immediately amazed by its sheer worldwide scale. Nearly 30,000 pieces of art are entered from over 70 countries and with each passing year it gets bigger and bigger.

A theme is set by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) for the competition and announced at the beginning of June, participants then have until Christmas to finalise their entries for the UK leg which is judged in January. It's really that simple, read the brief and draw, paint or create a piece of art. All pieces are judged in the UK with prizes awarded accordingly complete with prize giving ceremony but then all the art, irrespective of the winners, are despatched to Lidice in the Czech Republic for worldwide judging. Its like the Eurovision for art, imagine your child winning for the UK, an amazing opportunity.

 Anyway, yesterdays six hour judging involved eight artists, a very tall building that led to the Skyroom and a fantastic view over the snowy country.

 As with all these events it was going to be tough, the artwork is laid out according to counties and we begin by picking our six favourites, these are then pooled and whittled down to the right amount of awards according to category. There was some fantastic work on show as this years theme was your countries traditions, translated by the children of the United Kingdom into morris dancing, folk tales, family tradition and even plenty of seaside scenes with real sand and shells, the imagination was boundless.

 The UK leg does judge International entries too, this is a selection from the Hong Kong schools and you can really see the cultural differences as we were treated this time not to morris men but dragon boats and traditional dress.

 To give you an idea of some of the standards achieved over the years the picture above shows a fourteen year old on the left and a sixteen year old on the right, incredible stuff from last years entries.

 But I particularly like this one, aged only five its innocent naivety was for me and instant hit. Don't think your child has to be a budding Picasso either, the competition is about 'from the heart', something you can read about on the official UK Childrens Fine Art Competition website here :- http://www.ukchildrensartcompetition.org/

 So all the artwork will now be packaged up and sent abroad, all participants receive a fantastic certificate, winners receive prizes and as part of the International competition you get a chance at this...

The Children's Fine Art equivalent of winning an Olympic gold medal, fancy a go?