When I was 5 years old I received a sketchbook for my drawing. It was from my primary school headmaster and it had the words 'Art Prize' written on the cover. I was very chuffed.

After that the very first art competition I entered was when I was in primary school, and I had to design a poster to advertise the 'Blackcountry Banger' sausage. I was a runner up in the end.

Then my Year 5 teacher encouraged me to enter a competition to design a Christmas card for the Halesowen Town football club. I didn't like football and I had no interest in entering but I gave it a go anyway and ended up coming 1st! My design was then printed onto proper Christmas cards.

When I was 12, I coloured in a picture of some fish for a competition at Stapeley Water Gardens and entered it just for fun. I ended coming 1st in that too, and my picture was displayed in their café.

In late 2004 I found an advert in the newspaper for a big art competition at Merry Hill. I had to create a 2D piece of artwork on the theme 'unity' using any medium, and it had to be A1 in size. A1!! It was huge! My idea was to draw a scene with horses and wolves living in harmony. I chose to draw animals because I didn't like drawing people and so that mine would hopefully stand out from the others. After two months of drawing and colouring I finally completed my piece and entered it. For 2 weeks running from the end of January to the beginning of February, my artwork was exhibited amongst over 150 other entries and the public voted for their favourites.

2nd in the Kodak Lens competition at the RBSA, aged 16


Young Artist of the Year 2005 at Merry Hill shopping centre, aged 13

Several months later, I had won my category of Young Artist of the Year. It was an amazing feeling finding out I'd won and later receiving my award and prize money. Then a couple of months later my artwork was displayed at the shopping centre, and I was even featured in the newspaper on three separate occasions.

When I was 14, there was a house art competition at school to draw a picture of an animal. I felt I had to enter it because drawing animals is what I love to do, and so I drew an A4 picture of some polar bears and gave it in. Not long after I found out I'd come 1st and won it for my house team. My polar bear picture was then put up in our school library for a while.

At the beginning of 2007 I entered an online art competition. The idea was to design a sea life stamp, and so I painted a small picture of a killer whale in acrylics. Then I uploaded it to the website and people voted for it. A while later I found out that I'd come 1st.

A few months later I entered another competition on the same website, only this time it was to draw a cartoon. So I drew a picture of a splodge thing and uploaded it, and about a month later I had come 1st again!

In 2008 I entered an art competition for Kodak Lens where I had to create a piece of art based on the theme 'Your World Through Your Own Eyes'. As I had only a weekend to do it and I was supposed to be revising at the time for my exams, I wasn't going to enter it. But then I changed my mind and painted two penguins sat on an iceberg watching another piece of their home floating away. I thought it would be different to what everyone else entered, and when it came down to the judging evening I came 2nd overall. I was also featured in the newspaper again!

 

 All images and content © Stephanie Sekula 2008. All rights reserved.