Submit Work

A collage or creative works, including drawings, watercolours, written words and printing

Creative Reflections is a collection of visual art and the written word, open to submissions from anyone in Suffolk, England, aged 16 and over.

Theme: Mental Health.

Submissions open until 30th June, 2025.

Selections of eligible work will be presented on this website and hopefully in a book for distribution in Suffolk.

This initiative is created and managed by Art Branches CIC – a not-for-profit community organisation specialising in inclusive creative projects for improving wellbeing across the East of England.

Eligible Creative Works

Illustration of the eligible creative works

✓ visual art (including: drawing, painting, mixed media, collage, handmade digital art, sculpture, printing by hand, textiles, etc.)

✓ written works (poetry up to 25 lines, prose up to 250 words)

✗ not eligible: photography and ‘AI’-generated art/text

Help With Creative Ideas

Here are some example creative questions to help with generating ideas:

  • What do mental health challenges ‘look’ or ‘feel’ like? What are the colours, words, shapes, textures, etc. that you associate with these? Could you illustrate this?
  • What helps you feel better and how would you describe or depict that?
  • How would you communicate your experiences of mental health to others, visually or in writing?
  • When did you last smile / cry / feel calm / feel low / get anxious...and why?
  • Where is your favourite place for lifting your mood?

Submission Requirements & Tips

illustration showing the maximum number of submitted pieces per person to be six

Up to 6 pieces per person.

▻ a written work associated together with a visual artwork will count as 2 pieces.

▻ a diptych, triptych, group, etc. viewed as one artwork, and submitted as a single image, will count as 1 piece.

illustration showing that scans are preferred but photographs of the work may be accepted if they adhere to the requirements below
For visual artwork, we only require high-quality images of the work, not the original work itself.

For flat work, scans are much preferred, but we will accept photographs of the work that are...

1: clear and sharp with uniform lighting, free of shadows and reflections:

illustration showing how to avoid shadows and reflections when photographing a piece of flat artwork

2: made flat and square to the camera with no perspective distortion:

illustration showing how to avoid perspective distortion of flat artwork when photographing it

Artwork needs to be on a single sheet, not spanning across pages:

illustration showing art on a single sheet (which is suitable) and across two pages (not suitable)

Image size: at least 2000 x 3000 pixels.

! Do not include words, imagery, terms, phrases or themes that are considered offensive, obscene, abusive, inappropriate or mention/infer self-harm.

Avoid including frames, borders or the edges of work unless these are integral to the creative content.

We will not transcribe written works sent as images.

All submissions must be your own original work.

How To Submit Work

Submit by email to:

email address for submissions
Submissions need to include:

✓ the creative work as attachments or as a link to files on a reputable file sharing platform. Indicate if any submissions are to be associated together

✓ the name, initials or pseudonym to be attributed as the creator, or whether the work is to be attributed as ‘Anonymous’ or 'Anon.'

✓ the title for each piece submitted, or whether it is to be described as ‘Untitled’. Titles should match filenames.

And optionally:

▻ your village, town, city or community group

▻ the medium of each artwork.

Notes & Terms

  • By submitting your creative work(s), you agree to the right of the organiser (Art Branches CIC) to publish it/them online and/or in hard copy form on a non-exclusive, royalty-free basis. This means you still own the copyright on your content, you are not transferring that to the organiser and you are free to publish the work elsewhere.

  • Your name and email address will be used solely for the purposes of collecting submissions and communication with you and will not be shared outside the organiser's team with any other party.

  • The organiser reserves the right not to publish some, or any, of the work submitted, or to remove a previously published piece without notification or explanation.

  • Where necessary, the organiser may respectfully crop parts of the artwork to accommodate a particular publishing format, clean up edges, etc.

  • The organiser may pair or group pieces from different creators. Each piece would be attributed to its creator, making clear that work is from different people.

Further Information

For further information, contact us through the organiser's website: artbranches.org/contact. See the 'About' page to discover more about Art Branches, our other projects and ways to follow us on social media.

Art Branches CIC logo

All content is protected by copyright. Do not copy or reproduce.