Welcome back to the Student Artist Spotlight! This edition will be showcasing June Holloran (‘28) and Ceci Roupp (‘27)!

First up, our first Sophomore artist of the year, June Holloran (‘28)! Not only are they a visual artist, but a musician and writer as well!
They are an active member of the Lincoln Jazz band and play the guitar outside of school as well. As for the visual arts, they can often be found making digital drawings.
They have been interested in art for most of their life, which they attribute to their grandmother. Holloran says they’ve loved art because “my grandmother is a very talented artist, and she would always draw with me when I was young.”
Recently, they wrote a story and decided to make a drawing focusing on the main character of said story. This drawing depicts a person leaning out of their environment.
They also took inspiration from another piece of art they had seen online. Holloran says the online drawing had their character “basically shown to be ‘escaping’ the digital canvas.”
Seeing this unique technique being used, Holloran decided to try it out themself with this drawing. The girl in the drawing can be seen leaning over almost a window-like area, with her arms falling over solid gray.
This gray color is representative of the character breaking through their world within the screen and “escaping” as Holloran said.
To Holloran, this piece represents the heavy feeling of knowing something you shouldn’t. They say this drawing showcases this character and how “she’s basically self-aware I made her.”
The girl’s facial expression and overall body language is heavy, dull, and full of dread, which helps the viewer better understand her want or even need to escape.
The poem behind the girl also hints to the reader that the girl is breaking through her own digital world and physically reaching too far.
Holloran had such an intricate idea for this drawing, and it was executed incredibly well. They were able to add texture by using different shades of the same colors, blending and not blending certain areas, and by mixing their use of hard and soft edges.
In the girl’s hair, there’s lots of pointy edges and different tones of brown, which show the way her hair is and likely curly or wavy.
The different tones help to show where the light source is coming from, which seems to be above and in front of the girl. This allows the image to have depth, while still being 2-dimensional.

Next on the agenda, Ceci Roupp! At Lincoln, she is a well-rounded student with active participation in the Swim & Dive and Wrestling teams.
She even qualified for Swim & Dive districts and was a state alternative swimmer this year! She hopes to do the same next season.
Roupp has always had a deep interest in art, having memories of drawing and painting ever since she was three years old.
Roupp has been taking art classes in and outside of school for many years, which led her to make the self-portrait shown below. She was given a free choice assignment and got inspiration from another drawing she found on Pinterest.
Roupp says this drawing “shows how I see myself and my ideals.” She was able to do this through the colorful background and her values of creativity and imagination.
The colorful background “represents the idea of imagination.” This is seen by the sharp edges, contrasting colors, interesting shapes, and scribble-like textures.
The background makes this piece pop more, as it contrasts heavily with the black and white subject, and the chaos of it all conflicts with the calm within the portrait.
It gives the viewer an exciting feeling, boosting their energy with these harsh levels of contrast and almost messy, but neat look. It also inspires the viewer to embrace their inner creativity by the stark differences shown within the image.
Roupp also did a really great job with the shading in this drawing. The details in the hands, face, and camera give the piece more depth.
The shading and her use of gray tones also helped make the teeth look incredibly realistic.
Another intricate detail is the camera because it adds more complexity to the image. It’s really cool how Roupp decided to make her eye visible to the audience through the camera’s lens.
It also helps to show how skilled Roupp is in drawing human motion and movement in the way she’s holding it; The wrist being slightly turned, and the fingers bent in multiple ways and places.
Human motion and joint placement are often considered one of the hardest things to get accurate when drawing, so Roupp being able to do it so well speaks volumes about how talented she is.
To get as good as she is at this skill, she had to put in immense effort and practice over the many years she’s been doing art. It really puts to scale how much she cares about art and how much she strives to be the best she can.
Ceci Roupp and June Holloran are highly talented artists, and we can’t wait to see everything they do in the art world moving forward!