CHARLESTOWN - When Miri Kim was 4 years old, her mother spread crayons, colored pencils and paper on the floor.

And then her daughter started to draw. Family members soon noticed her artistic ability and her talent was nurtured.

Miri is now 14 years old and her drawings have progressed to be award-winning art on the national stage. Her most recent accomplishment is having one of her paintings, "Hooded Mergansers in March," judged to be one of the top 10 paintings of ducks in the country.

The painting, done in acrylics, is now on sale for all to enjoy in the form of a 2009-10 Federal duck stamp.

The stamps, which sell for $7.50, are required of hunters who shoot ducks. They are available for sale at the post office, regardless of whether you choose to hunt.

It might be the closest that admirers of this Chariho High School sophomore's art might get - at least for a little while. Miri says that at this point in her life she doesn't want to sell her art.

"Some people have offered," she says.

She smiles shyly, and says that she is attached to each piece.

Seeing the spirit and vibrancy in her paintings, it is easy to understand why. The colors, shading and detail in her art belie her age. As her art teacher, Solace Loven, of Lionheart Studio in Carolina, commented about a seashell in one of her paintings, "It is better than the original."

For this particular painting of a sea floor replete with coral, shells and fish, Miri held the shell in her hand and transferred the image to canvas. One can almost feel the softness of the shell by gazing at her work. The shading transfixes the eyes and draws one in - and the painting is not yet complete.

This is not the first time her pictures of ducks have won her accolades. She was awarded the Rhode Island Best of Show in 2008 and 2009 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Federal Junior Duck Stamp Program. Nationally, she received an honorable mention in 2008 for a painted rendering of a mallard hen and drake. The color and details in that painting are remarkable.

Miri says that work on the sea floor piece will be done in a few months.

"It has to be finished," she says.

That would put her on track to start work on another duck stamp entry for 2010, which is due in March. She has not yet decided what type of duck to paint.

Painting is not a chore to her. She calls it fun and says she does not know what she would do if she couldn't pick up a brush.

"I don't know," she says. "I love to paint."

On Saturdays she travels to the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence where she has received a certificate in Art School Preparation. She will soon be studying portraiture and photography.

The sea floor painting will be entered in the 2010 Scholastic Gold Key Award for Painting. She won the 2009 Rhode Island Scholastic Gold Key Award for Painting with an acrylic work of three women in South Korean dress, reflective of her heritage.

There is a wide range to her subjects. Working from photographs, she has painted a variety of scenes, including still lifes, flowers and far away places.

Miri has been at student at Lionheart Studio, on Pine Hill Road, since she was six years old. Working on paintings in the studio on the day she was interviewed were several other students, including her brother, Jung Kim. Her parents are Chansook Kim and Hung Kim. Artistic talent seems to run in her family. Chansook says that her younger brother, who resides in South Korea, is an art professor, while her niece is an architect and her other brother and his wife are involved in ceramics.

Miri had a showing of her art this year at the Cross' Mills Library, and plans another in October of 2010.

The offers to buy her work will probably pour in after that.

As her art teacher says, "She is totally uncommon. She is a fabulous student."

Loven adds that she sometimes will talk to Miri about variations in color, "but I have taught for 43 years ... I am astounded by her."