FORMER Aberaeron Comprehensive School pupil Kim Whitby is earning a growing reputation as one of Britain’s brightest up and coming artists.

Kim, who taught for some time at Plascrug Primary School, Aberystwyth, now lives in Hampshire with her Aberaeron-born husband Jeff Moulton, a Colonel in the Royal Marines.

She graduated in fine art in 2014 from the Aberystwyth School of Art and later completed a Bachelor of Art degree at King Alfred’s College, Winchester before beginning her teaching career.

Kim caught the public eye when she appeared in the television series Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year 2016, where she entered as a wildcard and made it to the final.

Kim says that the best advice she ever received as an artist was from John Harvey at Aberystwyth School of Art, who used to say: “Just stay in the same place.”

“I used to be quickly distracted by the wealth of options of what and how to paint,” said Kim, "so I just painted fish, and more fish. But it could have been anything and in the end John said ‘Now you are a painter.’”

Her tools range from Chinese ink brushes and delicate dipping pens to large house painting brushes and hard pencils plunged into a pint-sized bottle of black ink, but her tiny half pan watercolour set is always by her side.

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