Vettriano offer to young artists

Jack Vettriano is seeking art contributions from youngsters

Fife artist Jack Vettriano has invited schoolchildren to create works based on a 19th Century museum collection of birds, beasts, fish and fossils.

He set up the Jack Vettriano Trust in 2002 to fund projects from royalties he receives for copies of his work.

The Museum of the University of St Andrews Young Artist Award is open to primary and S1-S3 pupils in Fife.

Entrants can create art from the Victorian collections at the Bell Pettigrew Natural History Museum.

Vettriano, 55, was made an honorary doctor of the university in 2003 and founded a scholarship there in 2004.

The eight winners of the MUSA young artist award will each receive medals and vouchers to spend on painting equipment.

'No mystique'

The artist has often spoken of his sense of hurt at the way he is treated by the Scottish arts establishment and has hit out at the "gobbledegook" of critics who attack his work.

He has contrasted the intellectual approach of his opponents with his own paintings.

He once said of art: "To me it's not that mystical - there's no mystique at all. I'll try to demystify it at the earliest opportunity.

"It's that attitude which accounts for my work's popularity."

More than 500,000 posters of Vettriano's work have been sold, the majority in the UK, the US and Japan.

His painting The Singing Butler is the best-selling fine-art print in the UK and earns £250,000 a year in licensing fees alone.