The Waterside Café at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall has come to life during the Tall Ships regatta with an exhibition of children’s artwork inspired by Tall Ships and Small Ships.

The fantastic paintings are on display as part of John Dyer’s Children’s Painting Competition and includes work by children from right across the UK.  The art competition being run by John Dyer, the Regatta’s official artist, aimed to encourage younger children to express their creativity in a piece of artwork.

Since the competition was launch there have been almost 150 entries, making the job of the judges from Falmouth Art Gallery and the National Maritime Museum Cornwall all the more difficult.

Exhibitions Development Assistant, Milly Newman who organised the exhibition says “It’s wonderful to see the Tall Ships inspiring such creativity.  And not just from children in Cornwall but from children all over the country.  It has been a real pleasure to be able to display their work for our visitors to enjoy.”

The winners have been invited to attend a special private view reception at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall in Falmouth tonight.

All of the children’s entries will be on display at the Museum until the end of the month and can also be viewed online at www.johndyergallery.co.uk.

The winning entries:

Fergus Hughes, Aged 4.  "Storm picture".

Emily Newton, Aged 4.  “The Big Ship Sails on the Allie, Allie O”.

Jac Cockcroft, Aged 5, “At the Lighthouse”.

Oliver Murgatroyd, Aged 6.  "Big Ships and Tall Ships".

Bryn Owen, aged 7.  "Celebrations Big and Small".

Izzy Boitoult, aged 8.  "Fireworks over Tall Ships and Small Ships".

Megan Breckell, aged 9.  Untitled.

Ryan, aged 9.  "Billowing Sails"

Charlotte Reburn, Aged 10.  “Bright Ship, Dark Night”.

Aron Clarke, aged 14.  “Festival Cove”.

“The exhibition certainly was a

triumph and so much work went into the whole event, the art and the competition”

“He got some lovely feedback from people there. He is very proud”

“She came out walking on cloud nine”

“A big thank you and well done for such a lovely competition. My children really enjoyed creating their pictures and then seeing them online amongst the other beautiful entries”

“Thanks too for the competition – he loved doing the picture and we all love the result”

Michael Sweeney

Communications Assistant

National Maritime Museum Cornwall - Visitor Attraction of the Year at the Cornwall Tourism Awards

01326 214558 (Monday to Friday 9-5pm)