A STUDENT from Royston has won the £3,000 first prize in an art competition set up to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Cambridge School of Art. Jennifer Smith, 21, of Layston Park, won the first Searle Award for Creativity, which has been set up to ackn

A STUDENT from Royston has won the £3,000 first prize in an art competition set up to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Cambridge School of Art.

Jennifer Smith, 21, of Layston Park, won the first Searle Award for Creativity, which has been set up to acknowledge excellence in a range of artistic fields, including illustration, graphic design, photography, and animation.

The competition was founded by Cambridge artist Ronald Searle, who is most famous for creating the St Trinians cartoons.

Jennifer said: "The theme of the award was Petersfield, the area of Cambridge where Ronald Searle grew up, and I decided to create a book following the moonlit journey of a girl as she wanders the rooftops and along the pavements under shafts of streetlight.

"It was the first book I had binded so it was quite an achievement.

"Getting the judges' approval of my work is really satisfying.

"This has been a great confidence boost for me, and I am sure that it will have a very positive effect on my work."

Jennifer attended Studlands Rise First School and Greneway School before joining Freman College.

She left Freman College in 2005 to join Cambridge School of Art, where she is in the second year of an illustration degree.