Nia - Official artist for the Bristol gromit trail

Bristol's a really creative place, there's a huge amount going on here from street art, music as well as other environments like 'Spike Island', 'Arnolfini', 'Watershed', 'Pervasive Media Studios' The best bit about all this is that UWE has a stake in every single one of those organisations and all for the benefit of the students. I'm Nia and I study Fashion Communication at UWE, I saw a poster up in Uni and that's how I found out about the project. Eventually I got a call back that UWE had sponsored me to paint the Gromit. I was really pleased to be selected because there was so much stiff competition. There is so many great illustrators and artists like Cath Kidston and Paul Smith, it's just really good to be working alongside them. UWE works in partnership with major cultural players in this city. So, it is natural to work with Aardman and our students have responded to it and one student has gone off there and come up with a really nice project and she's one of those 80 Gromits so, I'm very excited about what she's produced. My inspiration came from the classic Paisley pattern but I just tried to adapt it a bit and make it a bit more my own. It was nice to be designing someone who already had a bit of a personality. After it's been varnished it looks like a ceramic almost, it's really made the colours pop. It took me about two weeks, two very hectic weeks and I just painted it all by hand. I'm really happy about how it's turned out. Gromit is internationally known, so I think it's going to be quite a draw and I think people are going to be surprised by some of the less well-known names and some of the really well established artists. Gromit Unleashed is a public art trail, its 80 sculptures spotted around Bristol and then they eventually auction them off and all the money goes towards the Wallace and Gromit Grand Appeal. Nia will really prosper from having done this because she is taking a brief that is open to all - she's come up with an original idea, she's applied it in a professional setting and she's now going to make it work. It's a tremendous journey for student in the real world. My Gromit's going on North Street, which I'm really pleased about because there's kind of a creative buzz around there. The hardest thing to do is to kind of get your name out there and it will be great to just have all the people on the trail seeing my name. Nia represents everything that I hope all our students would want to be part of, which is a university that promotes the real world, a university that creates opportunity, a university that says 'here's a million chances which we've made available to you, come forward, be creative, take part and enjoy!' I used to come to Bristol when I was younger and I could tell there was a creative community here. It just seemed a really great place to be as a student. You've got other people around you, that you can work alongside - like photography and film and you can bounce off each other but it was nice to be able to do something out in the real world.