A BUDDING young artist has won a place in an international competition after painting a poster of peace.Rachael Bennie, 12, was picked as top of the class in the first round of a Lions Club competition after having her poster voted the best out of the 200 entered by Deben High School in Felixstowe.

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A BUDDING young artist has won a place in an international competition after painting a poster of peace.

Rachael Bennie, 12, was picked as top of the class in the first round of a Lions Club competition after having her poster voted the best out of the 200 entered by Deben High School in Felixstowe.

And now that she beat all her fellow year eight and year seven pupils at the school she could go on to win a trip to New York as well.

Rachael drew a large poppy with ying and yang symbols in the middle. She said: "It means good and evil coming together."

The poster also includes spheres inside the other poppies which look like worlds, but Rachael said they were initially supposed to be peace signs, although people have since interpreted the symbols as drawings of mini-Earths.

The year eight pupil, said: "I didn't think I was going to win."

April Lawrence, 12, who won second prize with her poster of flags from all over the world, said: "I thought of peace and tried to blend all the flags together, I just thought of the different flags all as one."

Adam Fulcher, 12, whose poster of peace signs and a rainbow won third place, said: "I wanted to just get peace signs in to one. I just thought peace and instead of drawing peace I thought of drawing peace signs."

These signs include white flags, a dove, an olive branch and a sign associated with the era of peace – the Sixties.

Mrs Longhirst-Pierce, the head of art at the school, said: "I'm very pleased with what they have done. There were a lot of restrictions, they couldn't stick anything on and there was not to be any writing so it was quite difficult.

"I think the judges were quite pleased with the results because they said they were out of touch with 12 and 13-year-olds art work so they were quite charmed with some of the ideas as well as the care that was taken."

This is the first time the Felixstowe Lions Club has held the Lions International Peace poster contest, although it has been running for 15 years.

The posters were judged by Mrs Longhirst-Pierce and two members of the Lions Club.

John Gooch, Lions member and organiser of the contest said: "If you want to make a poster about war it is very easy to draw tanks and guns, but if you want to depict peace it is a very difficult subject to put on paper.

"I think they have all done well. We will have 30 of the posters displayed in the library for two weeks and so anybody can come along and see it, of course a lot of the parents have not seen what their children have done yet."

Rachael, who won an extra prize of £50 worth of watercolour painting equipment will now have her poster entered in to the next round of judging at Mildenhall where her entry will compete against other posters from the district.

If she gets to the international final she could win the grand prize of US $2,500 (£1,579) and a trip for her and her family to go to New York for the awards ceremony.