AN arts project proved to be an emotional rollercoaster for students who were asked to create and then destroy their work.

Richmond School youngsters were chosen to work with Dales artist Rachel Anthill as part of the Swaledale Festival of music, art and walking.

The process involved completing a host of artistic exercises, but at each stage the students had to rip up their work before sticking it onto a canvas.

And just when they thought they had finished by sticking the pieces onto a huge graph paper map of Yorkshire, they were then asked to paint over the top with white emulsion.

“To be honest we all felt quite angry because we had spent hours on the panels,” said Madison Cutler, 13, who would like to be a photographer or an artist one day.

“But then as we sanded away the paint it revealed these amazing contemporary images, a bit like digital pixels. It was all very emotional.”

Joining Madison on the project were Martha Templeton, Felicity Clarke, Rosie Collier-Gent, Emily Davis, Tegan Morris, Kitten Burrows-Egan, Sam Rowell, Sam Brown, Libby Richardson, Katie Williams, Shauna Crosby Lawson, Ebony Dodds, Ben Metcalfe, Chitji Singh and Jerusha Pealing.

Art teacher Penny Thompson said: “We were delighted with our students’ creative approach to working on a project with a professional artist. “

The end result of more than 25 hours work is now being displayed for two weeks at Richmond Station and will then be put on permanent display in the school.