A design created by wildlife artist Jeremy Paul has been published on Marks and Spencer biscuit tins.

The tins are one of a select few designs for the Christmas project, of which Jeremy’s design features a panoramic scene with squirrels, badgers and other creatures in his British woodland theme.

Inside the tins are all butter honeycomb biscuits, which are new to the food store.

The Colby artist, whose work now takes pride of place on M&S shelves, is delighted to be a part of the project and shocked by the positive response from island residents.

’I was delighted to see it in the shops,’ he said.

’It all began when I received an email from M&S about a year ago asking if I would take part in an upcoming project. However, they didn’t tell me what it was, so it was a bit puzzling.

’After I agreed and they told me their plan, I began to collate ideas for the tin. I completed the painting in January this year, but I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone about it.

The Christmas tins were released early last month and the public response has caused the food manager, Kenny Marshall, to bring in new measures to cater to the demands.

’I struggled to keep the tins on the shelves, they were that popular! We’ve had to stock them up as people were buying them in threes and fours.

’We decided to do a signing last week and it was great for people to come an meet Jeremy and raise funds for the ManxSPCA, which is our chosen charity this year.’

Jeremy found the signing a ’good experience’ and joked about the biscuit tins bringing in more popularity in comparison to his other professional art pieces.

’It’s been a fun project and I have met a lot of people through it,’ he said.

An open exhibition on Jeremy’s work is currently on display at the Isle Gallery in Tynwald Mills which will continue to run until Sunday (November 12).

His ’Travels of a Wildlife Artist’ display provides the public with talks and slideshows showing his commitment to painting wildlife from first-hand experience.

Jeremy has travelled to many parts of the world to capture a range of wild animals in their natural habitats, such as otters and tigers, and has just returned from photographing lemurs and chameleons in Madagascar.

The exhibition features 35 new paintings of ’local’ and ’exotic’ wildlife and includes the original paintings commissioned for the Isle of Man postage stamp series of ’Coastal Birds’.

The gallery’s opening hours are: Tuesday to Saturday from 11am - 5pm and 1pm - 5pm on a Sunday.