Curious, bright green eyes stared back at her as her pencil strokes glided across the page, creating a face to accompany the glittering eyes. Her emotions and excitement swelled within her as she colored each detail to its perfect hue and looked forward to a future in continuing doing just what she loves most – art.

Starting from elementary school art projects and continuing on to master her straight-forward and comprehendible style through high school, junior Mickailynn Holman has grown to love art and design. She believes it has given her an outlet to show her emotion to others.

“I draw most often when I’m having a really extreme emotion,” Holman said. “So if I’m really angry, then I’ll draw something really powerful; or if I’m really happy, then [the drawings] are kind of doodley and random.”

Holman’s favorite thing to draw is people, because she said she is interested in how they all act, think and look and she enjoys portraying what she sees. She said her favorite types of people to draw are thoughtful and intellectual people because they seem to always have a sincere and deep look on their face.

“My favorite person to draw is my mom,” Holman said. “Because she’s really pretty, and she always has a different expression – she never makes the same one twice. So it’s fun to try and draw her differently and capture all her [expressions].”

Holman was mainly influenced by her cousin who went to an art institute and taught her different techniques. He stressed to Holman how she should draw, rather than what she should draw, which helped her improve and like her own unique style.

“[My cousin] always told me, ‘I want you to do better than I did, because I couldn’t finish college, so you should finish and go all the way with it,’” Holman said. “He always told me that it was something I’m really good at and that I would have the capability to succeed in the art industry.”

Although she knows that art can have many difficulties, she said there are some benefits as well. Being artistic makes school projects easier and gives her better grades. She also said that because she designs a lot of things, people already see her work and when she starts her own business, she will know who to talk to.

“I think art helps me express myself better, rather than holding my emotions in,” Holman said. “If I don’t feel like I can talk to someone specifically, then I can just draw it out and that’s kind of like my own little personal evaluation that allows me to let go of grudges and to see situations through others’ perspectives more.”

Holman has already had a few experiences with selling her artwork. In eighth grade, her gym teacher worked with an organization to help women get out of bad circumstances such as human trafficking. The company was looking for a new logo, so Holman’s teacher asked her and another girl in her class to design a logo as a contest, and he would submit the better one to the company.

“When the time came, her [ideas] were okay – they weren’t as thought provoking or as personally attached – so he chose mine, and he gave me $50 for it because it was a logo,” Holman said. “But that was when I first thought, ‘Oh hey, I’m good enough to get money!’”

To try learning more, Holman took one art class in seventh grade, but her school burnt down that year and she was transferred from the class once they came back to school.

“That class didn’t help me because I lost all of the artwork I had made that year and my teacher was kind of a jerk to me; she didn’t like anything I did or how I drew it,” Holman said. “So that kind of put a damper on how I felt about art, and I stopped for a couple of years.”

After that experience, Holman did not take any other classes for art until a graphic design class her sophomore year and her Digital Arts and Animation class this year, in which she has been working on improving her talents on the computer side of art.

“The graphic design class really helped me find what I want to major in because before then, I didn’t know what I could even do with art or how to make money from what I was interested in,” Holman said. “That class taught me how to make a business off of my own talents.”

In the future, Holman plans to attend Full Sail University in Florida. Full Sail will accept her Richland college credits she has already received and they offer an internship while she is still in school. She will major in Graphic Art, which she said is basically multimedia and advertisement, as well as videogame design and comic books.

“To me, art is a major stress reliever and it kind of keeps me sane throughout my crazy days, so I want to implement that with my future family and my future projects and career,” Holman said. “I chose Graphic Design because I’m really good at it, and everyone sees graphic art – everyday, everywhere. So I think, ‘Why not show people what I’m capable of?’”

Holman said the hardest part for her right now is building up people who enjoy her art, and then making her art more professional. She wants to show that art is something she really cares about so others will care about it as well.

“I think whenever people are more accepting of the way I draw, and when they enjoy my art, it makes me want to do it more and work on my talent more and get specific skills for different areas of art,” Holman said. “Instead of just drawing sad stuff all of the time because one person liked a sad drawing, it gives me a perspective of what different people like to see in art.”

Holman has almost always wanted to be an artist, or at least had the idea in mind as a backup plan because she has always known that art is something she enjoys and something she can always improve on.

“I like the challenge,” Holman said. “It’s not the easiest job to do, and it’s definitely not the easiest to get money for – especially if you’re going to be working for yourself – which is what most graphic designers do. So, I like to challenge myself to do something that other people can’t do, because they always tell me I can’t do it either.”