Art enthusiasts were drawn to Ellesmere for another picture perfect art exhibition.

A record-breaking 1,000 plus visitors poured into Ellesmere College to admire 300 works of art by 70 artists and sculptors, at its eighth National Art Exhibition.

A preview evening on Wednesday, May 29 saw the college open its doors to more than 300 visitors, who had the opportunity to preview all of the art and also chat to the artists over champagne and canapes.

There was a record number of sales too by popular artists such as local artist Mark Warner, Maximillion Baccanello and Graham Cox of the Royal Cambrian Academy (RCA) – The British Ironwork Centre also had sculptures on display from artists including Luke Kite

Nick Pettingale, director of external relations at Ellesmere College, was delighted with the amount of visitors and said: "The Art Exhibition is now a well established event in the art calendar and we are very excited about next year's event being bigger and better than ever before. We are delighted with the visitor numbers this year as we aim to provide a showcase to profile both local and national artistic talent in the region and there was something for every taste and budget."

The five-day exhibition was officially opened by Ellesmere-raised Rae Smith, set designer of the National Theatre's production of War Horse, Carolyn Trevor-Jones, area chairman of The Arts Society in the West Midlands and Ellesmere College's headteacher, Brendan Wignall.

Rae was also the feature artist for this year's exhibition, with her sketches of Ellesmere which have been seen by more than 11 million people worldwide on the set of Michael Morpurgo's War Horse, proudly on display.

Pupils from Whittingham, Criftins, Gobowen and Cockshutt primary schools, along with year five pupils from the college, had their artwork on show with the theme of ‘Learning, Imagination and their Future Self' as part of Ellesmere College's ‘Young Artist Project’.

Guests were encouraged to vote for the 'People's Favourite' piece of art or sculpture with the winner Max Baccanello receiving £100 for his artwork ‘Zorba’.