AN award-winning artist has dropped in at an Astley school to give lessons to budding creative young people.

Suman Kaur, who was crowned winner of the BBC's The Big Painting Challenge 2017, visited St Mary’s Catholic High School on Friday to teach Year 11 and Sixth Form students a day of artistry skills.

She taught Sixth Form students how to draw portraits in a morning session before they paired up to put their lesson into practice with special attention emphasised on the correct proportions of each other's faces and the detail of their hair.

Suman then held an afternoon session for Year 11 students based on creating portraits of each other using charcoal where she discussed the importance of dividing the face up into sections to increase the accuracy of the piece.

Assistance head teacher at the Manchester Road school, Karen Roberts, said: "The students had a great experience and learnt a lot from a professional artist, creating some realistic and technically skilful artwork in preparation for the exam season after Christmas."