Essay Competition Winners 2025

This is a pastel sketch of a baby orangutan.

I was inspired by these gentle giants by a visit to South Africa. 

This cat was painted for a friend. I like the way cats hide and then pounce and hope this picture conveys such an image. It is in acrylic paint on a textured surface.

Oil on canvas, I painted this for a friend of mine.

These cows became very interested in my husband and me during last summer’s “lockdown walks”, which took us past them very often!

I have always loved black and white line drawing but learnt this form called zentangle on a cruise! I adore seahorses and applied this method of ‘doodling’ to a seahorse!

This is a pastel portrait on velour paper of my Parson Russell Terrier called Daisy.

I was inspired to paint this by a recent visit to Dunham Massey National Trust property where you can see many young deer happily grazing in the park.

Rufus belongs to a friend of mine, and I was asked to paint him. I think he is rather handsome, but I he has a look which is saying 'I want to be alone'.

Zentangle is a form of “doodling”, creating images using structured patterns called “tangles”. It’s very relaxing ! This pictures uses just one tangle called “Amaze” .

My painting of Kiera, who belongs to our daughter, was inspired by the loss of her Labrador Charlie, who sadly passed away this year. I wanted to gift a painting of Kiera to our daughter to support her well being.

We were supposed to be in Brazil right now, enjoying the wildlife of the OSA Peninsula. Obviously we had to cancel our trip so painting this beautiful animal reminds me of what we are missing.

A lone bull elephant seen on safari in Kenya painted in watercolours. I tried to capture its solitary state.

I used my earlier drawing of two elephants as a background, and then added the window frame and surrounding flowers by using a digital tool.

Bright eyed and bushy tail! Hare today......