It’s time to dust off your paper and pens and get doodling! The Span Arts’ Cheerful Project is launching an exciting competition to design a beautiful community colouring book with entries judged by renowned colouring book illustrator Millie Marotta!

The project is looking for people to design an image which reflects their own ’Reasons To Be Cheerful’ and are hoping to get a wide range of people putting ink on paper; whatever your ability, age or address you can enter the competition with a chance to win lots of inspiring prizes including a host of Millie Marotta goodies and tickets to Span Arts comedy or theatre.

Anyone can enter! All you need to do is draw your black & white image on A4 and submit it to Span Arts by 5pm on Friday, March 31.

Millie Marotta is one of Britain’s most celebrated illustrators. Her debut title, Millie Marotta’s Animal Kingdom, spent a record 22 weeks as the official paperback non-fiction #1, and was Amazon UK’s bestselling book of the year 2015.

Millie lives in Tenby, and her intricate illustrations are inspired by a love of wildlife and fascination with the natural world. To help you find your inspiration Millie has compiled her Top-Tips for colouring book illustration which can be viewed on the Span Arts’ website.

Millie said: “This is a fantastic opportunity for everyone to have a go at drawing with the chance of seeing their work in print! My advice is to create your colouring page using your own natural style of drawing. You don’t have to copy what you see other people doing. Working in your own style is what will make your image unique and stand out from the crowd.”

Stuck for ideas or need help executing them? You can join The Cheerful Project at their drop-in workshop on March 18 at The Queen’s Hall, Narberth, from 10 am to 4 pm, where the Cheerful team and local digital illustrator Liam Cole will be on-hand to help you with your designs.

40 lucky people will get to see their illustrations published in the final fundraising book and two budding designers will be chosen by Millie Marotta to receive the accolade of ’Millie’s Choice’ plus a treasure trove of luscious prizes. There will also be a ‘People’s Choice’ award with an opportunity for the public to vote for their favourite designs on Facebook; the two images with the most ’likes’ on the Cheerful Project Facebook page will receive prizes too.

Entries can be posted to the Span Arts building in Narberth or emailed to [email protected] with a 50p donation per entry to raise money for the organisation.