1st place

For seniors Lexie Levitt and Audrey Johnson, painting the Little Big Game mural is far from new, as the two have worked together on the banner for the past three years. This year, as seniors, the stakes felt higher; but they knew exactly how they wanted it to look and executed their vision seamlessly. 

The process began with gathering inspiration from Pinterest and Google, which helped them settle on a final design. 

“I came up with four or five different designs, and then after that I asked [Levitt] which one she thought would be best. So then once I picked one of those designs, I iterated it. And so I tested different fonts, different sizes, different color combinations,” Johnson said. 

Their intricate design involved stenciling letters, freehanding the main elements, and meticulous painting every detail. The pair began by painting the background red, followed by filling the letters in black. Johnson then spent hours shading the panther, often sitting in the D-building hallway for six to eight hours at a time.

2nd place

The junior class created a colorful mural that mirrored the homecoming theme ‘Dancing in Ibiza,’ featuring a panther on the beach.

The group, made up of about 11 juniors, began by sharing ideas and deciding on their approach. Allegra Terry was one of the lead designers, along with Junior Serena Koopmans.

“We knew we wanted it to be not just black and red like usual. We wanted to work with the Little Big Game theme, and the Hoco theme. So we went with a day in Ibiza because we thought it’d be kind of like a fun precursor to Hoco,” Terry said.

Due to tight deadlines and limited supplies, Terry said the junior team faced a few issues when it came to completing their plans.

“So in total, I think we had a week to work on it, which was kind of hard, considering everyone has different schedules and different availability. And another problem we encountered was that we kept running out of paint,” Terry said.

However, they were able to come through with a bright and eye-catching poster that earned them second place.

3rd place

The class mural was an entirely new task for the freshly elected freshman class cabinet. Having only been in their roles for a few weeks, the six freshmen were able to create a unique design that combined multiple aspects of the panther mascot, as well as the Ibiza Homecoming theme.

“We chose to do the silhouette of the Panther, because we thought it was gonna look cool. And then Ms. Riley actually came up with the idea of having the flowers on it, because it’s the flowers of Ibiza, which is the hibiscus flower,” Vice President Audrey Wang said.

Like the other projects, Wang said that the mural proved to be very time-consuming. They began by outlining their original design in pencil, then painting specific details like the flowers and written words.

“My favorite part was just hanging out with my friends on Student Council and just painting and I think we did a good job,” Wang said.

4th place

The sophomores took a similar approach to their mural, marking their second year designing it. This time, they wanted to incorporate a different aspect; the pink panther.

“First we came up with an idea, and we wanted to do a pink panther. And we decided on doing a more realistic version. Then we kind of drafted a mock image on Canva, and we got paints. We found a time and painted it,” sophomore class coordinator Bruce Peters said.

Unlike the juniors and seniors, who recruited artists from their grade to assist, the sophomore cabinet ended up completing the mural on their own.
“Some class cabinets decided to find a group of artists within their grade. That’s one of the challenges. We weren’t able to find a group, so we had to do it ourselves,” Peters said.

Coordinating schedules also proved difficult, Peters said. The project began with four members but dwindled to just two members working on it together.

While the sophomores dedicated time and effort towards their poster, they fell short in creativity compared to the other groups and came in last place.

“Making [the mural] was just a relaxing process. You just kind of just painted and it was chill. You didn’t really have to use your mind too much,” Peters said.