Junior Emily Holland works hard on her basketball trying furiously not to smudge her perfect work. She knows the ball will be a senior gift to a basketball player and hopes it will be perfect.

“It’s definitely a job for a perfectionist,” said Holland. “It was difficult to to not ruin the letters by accidentally smudging them.”

Recently, select art III students were given the honor of creating personalized basketballs to give to the senior basketball players. Students were given the task to design their ball using only Sharpie pens. This is the first year the art class has participated in this project and hope to continue the new found tradition.

“The project helped me to expand my art technique by using Sharpies to draw,” said Holland. “I had never used them in my art before.”

In order to be selected for the special project, students were required to first draw their idea for the basketball by hand on a sheet of paper. From there, art teacher Dawn Graham picked the winning designs.

“It was an honor to be chosen,” said Holland. “I knew it would be a challenge to create three-dimensional letters, but it turned out to be really fun.”

Junior Ricardo Ramirez used his graffiti art skills to make his basketball extra unique.

“I just free-styled it on my own,” said Ramirez. “I used to draw with a graffiti design all the time, so it was fun to use it again.”

Ramirez started out his art career with his father’s help. As he grew his artistic style developed into using spray cans to paint a graffiti centered piece on a canvas. This project allowed him to continue and expand his graffiti technique.

Senior basketball players were given their personalized basketball Feb. 17 on senior night at half time during the home game versus Fayetteville.

“I think the kids did such a good job,” said Mrs. Graham. “They definitely went beyond my expectations.”