Terry’s paint a picture of your house competition
Winners of Painting Competition Announced
It’s great when kids can be creative. Drawing and painting allows them to play around with form, colour and style and most importantly, have fun! Not so much fun for the parents if that creativity extends to walls, floors, carpets and furniture however! So it seemed a good idea for our latest competition to encourage the artist in children with more of a focused task. We decided to look for children up to the age of 11 to take part in our national painting competition. We set the challenge of painting their house.
This could be as imaginative as they liked, so if they wanted orange sky and a unicorn in the garden, so be it! The competition opened in August and closed on the 30th September. We had lots of great entries, many of them being shared on social media. It was a tough job deciding on 1st, 2nd and 3rd place, but after much deliberation the winners were chosen. And here they are. 10 year old Oliver May won 1st place, with his imaginative, space inspired drawing. 
Oliver loves all things 'space'. He became hooked when he watched Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield posting his photographs from the ISS and saw the video of him playing the guitar and singing David Bowie's 'Space Oddity'. He also loves to watch Professor Brian Cox on Stargazing Live and his programmes about the universe and recently met him on tour. He followed Tim Peake's mission to the International Space Station and dreams of becoming an astronaut himself one day.
Oliver’s proud mum, Katherine says, “When Oliver found the competition online, he did not hesitate to want to draw an observatory on the roof and was relieved when he heard that accuracy was not important and he could let his imagination flow.” In 2nd place was Oliver’s 8-year-old sister, Eleanor May. The Terry’s team was impressed with her treehouse version, complete with swing! Eleanor is an avid reader and her drawing was clearly inspired by her favourite books, Enid Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree series. 
The talented siblings mum says, “Eleanor is looking forward to treating herself to a new Roald Dahl pencil case with the prize money and Oliver has been saving up to buy a guitar. And I can't wait to start shopping on the Terry’s website to update some of our home décor.” The brother and sister from Harrogate were encouraged to draw from an early age, and given a whiteboard, so thankfully, there weren’t too many incidents of drawings on walls or furniture.
When asked how they reacted to their wins, mum Katherine said “Oliver started to run around the house shouting 'yeahhhhhhhhhhhhh' and Eleanor was stunned into silence with her hands across her mouth, they were both so thrilled.” In 3rd place was 7-year-old Evie Turkington from Crowthorne in Berkshire. Evie has always loved drawing and painting and would perhaps like to become an art teacher when she grows up. 
Her inspiration came from the prize incentive and she likes a reason to put in extra effort. She always makes special birthday cards and pictures for family. Mum Liz says “I think my winter project might be some new blinds or curtains for the kitchen or some kitchen chair covers so the voucher and money will go towards that. I will also be buying a picture frame for Evie's painting so we can put it up on the wall.” You can see all of the entrants to this competition here.Keep an eye out for more competitions from Terry’s Fabrics in the coming months. Keep an eye out for more competitions from Terry’s Fabrics in the coming months.
