ARTIST Simon Drew has barely had time to take down his Christmas decorations but is already looking forward to Easter.

The artist has spent more than a fortnight painting the 2ft 6ins tall glass fibre egg in his gallery in Fosse Street, Dartmouth, often watched by interested members of the public.

On Tuesday, he took the finished egg off to London where it will become part of the huge Easter egg hunt around the capital in aid of two charities, Action for Children and Elephant Family.

Simon has decorated the egg with colourful ducks and added the lines: "Because a bird has no placenta, eggs is how this world they enter". He said: 'We had a lot of people coming in to watch.'

The Big Hunt is expected to be the biggest Easter egg hunt on record.

It is being sponsored by the jewellery company Faberge famed for their jewelled eggs.

Simon and dozens of other leading artists are being asked to decorate the large eggs before they are 'hidden' in public spaces across London – for members of the public to hunt.

Artists who joined Simon in decorating eggs included the Chapman Brothers, Marv Quinn, Henry Holland and Nick Haslam.

Entrants will be paying a small fee to join in the hunt to find the eggs during Lent.

At the end of the hunt the eggs will be auctioned by Sotheby's with the aim of raising £1m for each charity.

Simon said his egg will end up on a street in London somewhere but even he will not be told where.