I remember my best attempt at creative arts in high school to be something like this: halve a potato, carve stars in potato, dip potato in Buncho water colour, stamp potato onto A3 paper, all in the exact order. Nothing ever came close to making me feel like a potato king – until today.
Nine children, aged between 7 to 15, are the new potato kings of my life. They are among 1,300 super talented young artists who each submitted drawings to UMW Toyota Motor for the company’s annual Toyota Dream Car Art Contest. What brought tears to my eyes wasn’t their sheer talent, but the purity of the message in their drawings.
Participants at the national level were split into three categories: Under 8 years old, 8 to 11 years old and 12 to 15 years old. Through simple math, you would’ve deduced that each category will have three winners. If you got that wrong, well… you too can be my new potato king.
Without further ado, let me show you the nine winning masterpieces:
Category 1 – Under 8 years old
Category 2 – 8 to 11 years old
Category 3 – 12 to 15 years old
The winners here will represent Malaysia in the World Contest, which upon winning, will win a free a trip to Tokyo, Japan to attend the awards ceremony in August 2017. This contest aims to develop young talents and have them express their ideas on futuristic mobility through art form. In other words, these pictures are their dream cars.
Winners of each category received a brand new Apple iPad Mini 4, whereas runner-ups and second runner-ups get mountain bikes and tickets to Legoland respectively.
On a more personal note, this is a cause I wholeheartedly support; to continuously provide opportunities through multiple mediums for our young friends to hone (or at the very least discover) their best talents. Thank you, Toyota. And thank you, Lim Wei Wen for the delightful, artsy treat.
