TWO University College Falmouth students have shared top honours at the Cheltenham Illustration Awards.

Alex Higlett and Anna Cattermole, both studying for an MA in illustration: authorial practice, were awarded joint first prize and each presented with an iMac computer.

Anna specialises in documentary and reportage illustration, and her winning illustration was part of a series that documents the Newlyn fishing industry.

Alex's prize was for narrative illustration based on her interpretation of fragments of an unsolved murder, or suicide, that took place in New York in the 1930s.

Alex has self-published the illustrations to this story in a book entitled Adrift: A Shadow in the Shallows.

Both Anna and Alex were also selected to participate in Europe's pre-eminent illustration and graphic arts festival, Illustrative '09, staged in Berlin.

Courses

Also picked were fellow students Katherine Child, Megan Whatley, Hannah Chapman, Vicky Clark, Laura Wady, Charlotte Oldfield, Tanya Tugwell, Jan Lewis, Julian Waite, Adam Gado, Jane Townsend, Georgina Hounsome, Esther Connon and Richard Dinnis.

The authorial illustration MA, selected by Illustrative '09 for its reputation for innovation in illustration, was one of only five courses in Europe invited to exhibit in what is predominantly an international festival of professional illustration from across the globe.

"This prestigious international showcase celebrates the very best of illustration and graphic arts so for our 16 Falmouth students to have been selected to represent the UK's most exciting illustration talent is an accolade indeed," said course leader Steve Braund.