Hull boy, 5, gets artwork in summer show

Two pictures painted by a five-year-old boy while he was being home-schooled in lockdown are to be featured in a Royal Academy of Arts exhibition.

Vincent, from Hull, painted an animal for each letter of the alphabet and two pieces of his work were picked for the Young Artists’ Summer Show.

The exhibition runs from 13 July until 8 August, and features work from young people aged between 5 and 19.

His paintings of a meerkat and a pig are now available to view online.

Vincent, who was four when he started the project during the first Covid-19 lockdown, said drawing and painting made him “really happy”, adding: “I started doing an animal for each letter of the alphabet, starting with T, all the way round and back.

“I looked at pictures of animals on Mummy’s phone and I chose the one that I liked the best.”

Giving advice to fellow budding artists, the youngster said: “The one thing every artist needs isn’t paper and pens, but confidence.”

His mother, Claire, bought a map of the world and they were learning about each country, including the animals that lived there.

“My husband was using our only laptop during the day, so it just gave us a chance to do a bit of maths, geography, and all those elements of school that we weren’t able to access,” she said.

“By the end, it became that the art element was bigger than the sum of those parts.

“We started in May 2020, when Vincent was just four, and finished in the July.

“The last pieces took him about 10 hours to do over three sittings and by then he was using watercolours, gouache and felt tips to add detail.

Claire said the lack of activity during the lockdown was making him irritable, but focusing on art really helped.

“On the days when he was drawing, he slept really well, he was more content, less irritable, less argumentative,” she said.

After entering the pictures, she said she never expected to hear back but they were both thrilled when they did.

“When we saw the pictures on the website this morning, he was just really proud of himself,” she said.

“I think it has made him realise he can achieve bigger things in his life, It’s really exciting for him.”