Whether or not the likeness was uncanny the judges were unable to say.

But a panel of experts had the tough task of trawling through more than 1000 colourful portraits created by schoolchildren of their mums.

A large selection of the artwork with their bright painted smiles will remain on display in a unit close to Debenhams in Market Gates until the middle of next week.

And organisers are still reeling from the success of the competition which saw staff photographing and uploading 1226 head and shoulder images to the shopping centre's Facebook page for all to see.

Dee Dillamore, the centre's deputy manager, said: 'We held this competition two years ago and we thought we had a marvellous uptake with five schools taking part and over 300 entries.

'This time we had 11 schools and over 1200 entries. It was phenomenal, really quite overwhelming.

'The pictures have really made us smile and we had to photograph them all which was pretty time consuming.

'But the results were a pleasure to see. There was so much interaction on Facebook.'

Judges chose two individual winners based on the quality of their artwork rather than how much they actually looked like their subjects who were mostly mums but included a sprinkling of dads and grandparents.

Taking top honours in the 5-8 year old age group was Shania Rashid of Alderman Swindell Primary School with her picture of mum Kellyanne Rashid.

And leaving the rest trailing among the 8-11 year olds was Izzy Wilson of Ormesby Village Junior School with her drawing of mum Liz Newman.

They each won a £25 shopping voucher for themselves and a bag of goodies for mum which contained among other things a silver and pearl necklace from Hines, vouchers, a No7 gift box, smellies and a toy from Wilkinsons and much more.

Talented painters at Ormesby also won the award for best overall school for the number and quality of entries, winning £100 for art materials.

The winner of the People's Choice Award will be announced on Monday.

A shortlist of six winners will be selected based on the number of Facebook 'likes' achieved, from which only one will be victorious.

The pictures will all be returned to the schools they came from so families can display them with pride at home.