A KNIGHTWSOOD woman has beaten 1100 applicants to claim a £30,000 art scholarship.

Sarah Grant was one of five artists to win a Sky Academy Arts scholarship this year.

She will receive £30,000 for her chosen creative project and be mentored by Sky and arts industry experts.

“I was really shocked to find out I had won a Sky Academy Arts Scholarship. The idea that I can now work full time on creative projects really is a dream come true,” Grant said.

Speaking to the Evening Times, she said: “I was really shocked when I found out I had won a Sky Academy Arts Scholarship. I didn’t think a wee lassie from Glasgow had big enough ideas to win.”

Grant was chosen by a judging panel including writer and broadcaster Melvyn Bragg, Whitechapel Gallery, director Iwona Blazwick, English National Ballet producer Farooq Chaudhry, and music producer Cam Blackwood.

Grant, a budding film-maker, plans to use the money to produce an animation using stop-motion and hand-drawn images that tell the story of a girl and her relationship with books.

She English, film and media at Stirling University and will take a sabbatical from Apex Training and Creative to produce her movie.

“I will be using my funding to purchase new state of the art animation equipment and create a stop motion set entirely made out of my favourite books, which will set the stage for my short film, The Magic Word,” she said.

“I am honoured to be the first Scottish winner because I feel Scotland is on the brink of playing a really important part in the British film industry and I hope to play a part in that," she told the Evening Times.

This is the fifth year that Sky have funded artists like Sarah. Other winners this year include a classical Indian sitarist and composer, Jasdeep Singh Degun, who has performed at Buckingham Palace and the Royal Albert Hall. Another winner, Caitlin McLeod, is a theatre director with experience at the National Theatre and Shakespeare's Globe.

They were featured in a broadcast on Sky Arts, presented by Sky Academy ambassador, Melvyn Bragg, from the Savoy Hotel, London.

Bragg said: “There’s nothing more important in this country at the moment than giving professional mentoring and opportunities to young people.

"The more skilful and confident they are then the better our future and theirs. Sky Academy is tackling this head-on, giving bursaries of £30,000 per person which has proved to be career-changing for the talented young people who have received them”

Previous winners of the award include poet and playwright Sabrina Mahfouz, who won a Fringe First award at the Edinburgh festival in 2014.