To celebrate Back to School ’23, Crayola has inspired a summer drawing competition with celebrity artist Will Sliney. 

Based on last year’s successful competition which garnered more than 16m impressions on social media and hundreds of entries, this year’s plans are even brighter and bolder.

Both Crayola and Sky Kids’ resident creative genius, Will Sliney, share the values that every child has the power to be an artist and so are teaming up to give kids the right tools and skills to help them on their artistic journey. With a competition format encouraging children to take part by drawing their very own superhero, along with amazing money can’t buy prizes on offer and the chance to return to school a classroom hero, the stage is set for a summer of creativity.

“It’s amazing to see the huge variety in creativity that emerges from children’s imaginations when we see the entries,” said Crayola senior brand manager, Jade Childs. “Last year we had everything, from superfood superheroes like ‘avocadude’ to ‘enviroman’ whose job it is to save the world by teaching everyone how to care for the planet. One entrant even came up with ‘Nora the dinner lady’ who helps make sure everyone has a friend to play with at school. Crayola believes in unleashing and celebrating the colourful originality in every child, and campaigns like this are at the heart of our brand ethos.”

Will, one of the most successful how-to-draw artists who currently has two Sky commissioned TV shows in production, commented: “As an artist who began my own journey drawing with Crayola crayons and pencils, I couldn’t be more excited with this collaboration to show children that everyone can draw, and that art is a skill and not a talent.”

The campaign will be promoted across all owned social media channels as well as the Sky Kids platforms. To get children really hands on with the campaign, Crayola is enlisting the help again from the multi-award-winning and five-star rated, Creation Station – a creative franchise network which inspires over 20,000 children every week with creative arts and crafts classes and experiences across the UK. They will be hosting in-person art classes helping kids learn drawing skills from Will and giving them the help and tools to submit their own entry.