Katy’s funky portrait of Bard wows judges
A PUPIL from Bradford Grammar Junior School has won a national art competition with her portrait of William Shakespeare.
Nine-year-old Katy Hinchliffe, from Skipton, won the age eight-11 individual entry category in the Children’s Shakespeare Portrait Competition.
The talented youngster’s work will be exhibited at The Lowry in Salford alongside other winners of the competition and she also won a family weekend away to Shakespeare’s birthplace in Stratford.
“I used chalk pastels and I just let my imagination run,” said Katy. “I wanted to do a funky portrait because I wanted it to stand out, so I gave him blue hair. I was really excited when I heard I’d won.”
Sally Morley, the Bradford Grammar Junior School art teacher, encouraged all pupils to create their own portraits at home for the exciting competition.
“A lot of the children produced beautiful drawings and paintings and Katy used a different art medium which really made her portrait stand out,” she said.
“Each of the children came up with their own, distinct interpretations, which was great to see,”
More than 2,500 children from primary schools across the country entered the competition, run by independent charity the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.
Judges included well-known artists such as Korky Paul, illustrator of the popular Winnie the Witch series, award-winning author and illustrator Marcia Williams and Ricky Martin, presenter of CBBC’s Art Ninja, together with Tim Cooke, chief executive of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.
Shakespeare Week education officer Sally Gray said: “It was incredibly hard to choose the winners having received some cracking entries in a multitude of styles, from pop-art and multimedia collages, to traditional portraits and abstract images.
“It was amazing to see Shakespeare interpreted in so many different ways.”