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When Grace McClellan was a young girl, her grandfather, Mike, was her first drawing instructor, patiently teaching her how to render everything from giraffes to three-dimensional houses. Her grandmother provided lessons in painting, further nurturing her burgeoning interest in the arts.

“I was constantly curious and always wanting to learn more,” McClellan recalls.

Those early lessons—and McClellan’s fierce dedication to her craft—have paid dividends. A senior at Eastern Illinois University majoring in art education, McClellan was recently named Blue Room Magazine’s Student Artist of the Year. She also had two lithograph prints accepted into the annual EIU Undergraduate Art Exhibition at the Tarble Arts Center, with one piece, A Second at the Hearth, earning an Honorable Mention in the printmaking category.

“This meant so much to me as a printmaker because this was the piece where I felt I actually ‘made art,’” McClellan says. “It showed that I understood the process, and I felt so deeply connected to the piece.”

While her middle school art classes in Monticello felt somewhat more structured than the unbridled creativity her grandparents encouraged, she still absorbed crucial fundamentals regarding perspective and drafting. By high school, her commitment to visual art had fully solidified, making art education at Eastern Illinois an easy choice.

Now working as a student teacher, McClellan structures her lessons to give young students room to explore their own imaginations without rigid constraints.

“What they do is really up to them,” she says.

Beyond the classroom and studio, McClellan serves as president of the Illinois Art Education Association (IAEA) Student Chapter, organizing events and directing meetings. In March, she and her IAEA peers spearheaded an exhibition titled Those Who Can Do, Teach—a direct effort to dismantle the tired adage, “Those who can’t do, teach.” For McClellan, challenging the misconception that art education is a fallback career was vital.

“Through our 60 submissions, we were able to show EIU, our friends, and our families that we, in fact, can,” she says.

Looking ahead after graduation, McClellan is considering pursuing a master’s degree in art education. As an educator, she intends to lead by example—creating her own work right alongside her students in the studio.

“If they are creating, I too will be creating,” McClellan says. “My goal is to never let the creative juices settle.”

Below is a conversation with McClellan about her artistic process, her time at EIU, and her vision for the classroom.

Sal Nudo: You enjoy creating art through lithography and chalk pastels. Describe each art form and what you like about them.

Grace McClellan: Lithography is an older form of printmaking where you draw on top of limestone. It then undergoes etching processes that set the oils from the crayon used into the stone. With the help of gum arabic and tannic acid, it leaves the image in the stone, which allows the artist to roll ink onto where the drawing was and, with pressure, be able to print the drawing over and over again. I enjoy this process because it combines my drawing skills with my printmaking skills. Lithography forces me to think ahead with how I want my print to turn out because of the different grease consistencies in our crayons. The higher the content of grease, the darker that part of the image will be. I went through many trials and errors with this process.

Chalk pastels are a simpler medium compared to anything in printmaking. Just like sidewalk chalk, these are smaller sticks of colored chalk that are used for drawing. There is no color mixing, but it forces the artist to use colors next to each other to create an illusion of mixing. This technique bleeds into my painting style and is what helped me understand how to paint properly.

SN: Tell me about the two lithograph prints of yours that were accepted at the EIU Undergraduate Art Exhibition, out of roughly 300 total submissions.

GM: The pieces were “Can You Even Win?” and “A Second at the Hearth.” To my surprise, “A Second at the Hearth” won Honorable Mention in printmaking. “A Second at the Hearth” is a self-portrait in my apartment with a framed-photo collage wall. Each of these frames has something of a Greek mythology relation, and some are my own works from other EIU classes. Greek Mythology has a huge influence in my art and in my favorite era of art, the Italian Renaissance. I decided to modernize the image but date it by including specific images. It was also important to create a homey feeling in this image, hence the knitting in a rocking chair and my cat, Stanley, at the bottom. I treat this piece as if it is my baby. I am so incredibly proud of it.

SN: Tell me about the piece “Playtime.”

GM: This image was pushing the boundaries of what I felt I could do in painting. I am not confident in painting realistically, so I thought if I painted something near and dear to me, I would then be more than willing to put forth the effort to make it look perfect. This piece of duplicates of older and younger versions of myself represents life through the child’s eye and looking back on what it was like growing up as an only child.

As a kid, I had this imaginary friend named Felancy the Fairy, depicted on the roof of the playhouse. She was constantly watching over me, and I like to believe there are pieces of her always with me to this day. I was a very imaginative kid and took inspiration from everything around me. Whether my playhouse was a castle or a Dairy Queen drive thru, it was my safe space.

The only downside was that I was alone. Before starting this piece, I was scrolling on TikTok and someone said, “You are now who your younger self needed.” Now, I wasn’t ever in a dangerous or unhappy situation, but I was very lonely, and now I have the best friends I could ever dream of. This painting was inspired by that quote, and thus I gave myself someone to play with.

There are subtle nods to things in my life throughout this whole painting. For example, there is a bush of irises to represent my Grandma Carla, who passed away shortly before this painting had begun. The pose of my younger self on the porch with my older self taking a photo is a reference to how my mom made me take first-day-of-school photos there every single year. This painting changed the way I made art and will continue to be a piece I refer to.

SN: What does it mean to you to be named Student Artist of the Year by Blue Room Magazine?

GM: It means the absolute world to me. I am so grateful to have had the nomination of faculty that believed I could win the title. Even though I know some of my work does not compare to that of my peers, I feel this title also shows my connections through EIU, and that alone couldn’t make me happier.