Art-mad seven year old's colourful rock snake is a hit with children in Hinckley

A little boy with a passion for painting has launched his second community art project. The snake made of colourful rocks at Argents Mead Park in Hinckley was started by Lorenzo Codner-Jolob, seven, and within a week there were 21 stones.

Two years ago Lorenzo started another trend - decorating wooden spoons to make them look like people. The spoons were stuck into the ground at the park and by the end there were more than 40. His mum, Tara, at the time worked with adults with learning disabilities and got her clients to take part, too.

Lorenzo goes to St Mary's Primary in Hinckley town centre and stops to look at the colourful snake, named Jake, every day after school. Mum-of-three Tara, 35, said: "It was something I'd seen online being done by someone else and Lorenzo wanted to start his own and painted a stone to be the head of the snake.

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"Lots of other children have been adding their own painted stones and I've put pictures online and they've been shared and liked hundreds of times."

The only problem is Hinckley's shortage of available rocks. Tara said: "I was talking to a member of staff at a shop the other day and she said lots of parents had been asking her if they sold rocks so they could paint their own.

"But they don't have any." Tara has enquired about a local hardware supermarket donating some to ensure a steady supply.

She said Lorenzo was now an Art Ambassador at his school and loved painting. She said: "He loves art and doing paintings and I'm really keen to push him with his creative side."

The painted stones are similar to the IslaStones that were hidden around the Hinckley area in 2018 in support of Isla Tansey, a little girl with a brain tumour who died aged seven. And Tara plans to take that idea from the IslaStones project to clear the park of the stones after Jake the Snake is complete.

She said: "We didn't get permission from the council, although the gardener at Argents Mead didn't seem to mind. But we don't want the council to be left with a load of rocks!

"So what we plan to do is get everyone to take their rocks away again at the end and hide them around the town, like people did with the IslaStones."