Jake • 9 • Wicklow

8-11 Category   •  2026
When I started this piece, I didn’t want to make a regular flat painting. I wanted something you could almost feel with your fingers. I love watching the sky at sunset because the colors stretch across the whole sky like stripes of purple, pink, and blue. I painted those stripes first, then added a bright yellow field at the bottom because yellow is the happiest colour I have. The most important part of my artwork is the tree. Instead of using brown paint or markers, I found thick, twisty string that looked like real bark. I wanted the tree to feel magical, so I bent the branches into big curls and loops instead of making them straight. They remind me of a rollercoaster or a giant spring. It was tricky to glue the curls in place, but I liked figuring out how to make the string stay exactly where I wanted it. For the flowers, I used star shapes in colours like orange, yellow, and blue. I made them stick out from the branches so they wouldn’t look flat. It makes the tree look like it’s growing little magic stars instead of leaves. If this tree were real, I think it would smell like summer, and maybe the curly branches would jingle in the wind. At the bottom, I created grass using long, skinny strips of green paper. Some strips are dark green and some are light, just like real grass in a field. I glued them so they poke up from the bottom of the page. It makes the tree look like it’s hiding behind tall grass, and you have to peek through to see it. I named my artwork "The Magic Curly Tree" because it shows how imagination can change ordinary things. Real trees don’t have loop‑the‑loop branches, but in my art they can. I had a lot of fun mixing paint, string, and paper. It taught me that you can use almost anything to make art if you have a good idea. I hope that when people look at my piece, they feel like they’re standing in a colourful field watching the sunset.