A BUDDING young artist from Llandudno has been crowned the winner of an art competition capturing the experiences of children and young people during lockdown.

The Art Heroes online competition was launched by a committee of innovative supporters of Save the Children in aid of the charity’s global Covid-19 appeal during a time when charities had to cancel several fundraising events.

The competition adjudicated by Anglesey-based artist Andrew Southall, awarded the winners of each category with £100 in prize money.

One of the winners, eight-year-old Lily Mills, who is a pupil at Ysgol Gynradd Glanwydden near Llandudno chose to paint a three dimensional picture of the contents of under her kitchen sink (pictured below).

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“When I heard that I’d won I was very excited and felt very proud, “ she explains. “I chose to paint the cleaning products from underneath the kitchen sink as I thought they looked interesting but also because they helped to keep our home clean and safe from the coronavirus during lockdown.

“Doing arts and crafts in lockdown was a challenge as I didn’t have many art supplies, but luckily, my school had taught me how to mix primary colours to make the colours I didn’t have.”

Six months since the national lockdown was announced, Lily, like many other children has mixed emotions when she looks back at her experiences.

She said: “The thing that made me sad about lockdown was not seeing my friends from school, but I was lucky to be able to speak to them on video calls and I could share art and craft ideas with them. The thing that made me happy in lockdown was spending more time with my mum and dad, and my two cats Daisy and Bebe!”

The artworks will also contribute to a nationwide piece of social history project at the National Museum Cardiff as a record of Welsh children’s response to the Covid-19 crisis for generations to come.

The aim of the competition was to raise awareness and money for Save the Children’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic crisis. Here in Wales the charity has been responding by providing low income families with emergency response grants for essential household items such as beds, tables and educational toys to ease financial pressure during this difficult time. The charity has also developed resource packs full of information, and fun activities to help parents continue with their child’s early learning.