Isabelle Buller with her plaque from Artsonia featuring her winning piece of artwork of a metallic ribbon she created in art class – HeartlandBeat photo
Henderson, NE — (January 2026) Isabelle Buller, a talented freshman at Heartland Community Schools, has been named ‘Artist of the Week’ in a nationwide voting competition on Artsonia.com, the world’s largest collection of online student art portfolios, featuring over 125 million works of art.
Buller’s winning piece of art is below:
Buller’s winning artwork, depicting a metallic gift ribbon, captured the attention of voters nationwide, receiving over 500 online votes.
“The assignment was to draw a gift bow and then color it with colored pencil,” Buller shared. “We were learning how to color match, add shading, and other things like that.”
When asked how it felt to be named Artist of the Week, Buller said, “I was excited to see that people had voted for my artwork, and excited to be able to get money for more art supplies at my school.”
Buller’s art teacher, Kelsey Gooder, who has taught art for 15 years, said, “What makes me passionate about what I do is seeing students succeed when maybe they don’t succeed in other classes.”
Gooder expressed pride in her student’s Artist of the Week achievement. “It is wonderful to see an award go to students that are not just athletic or academic but another facet of who they are,” Gooder said.
Gooder is one of thousands of teachers who use Artsonia, which enables teachers to digitally showcase student art, organize and plan art lessons, and fundraise for their classrooms. Artsonia allows family and friends of student artists to view the art online and create custom keepsakes from the student art. Artsonia donates 20% of its revenue to local art classrooms.
“Students love to see their work on display on Artsonia and love to be able to share it with other people who live far away,” Gooder shared. “When they are seniors, they love looking back on what they did in elementary school and see how they grew as artists or how their interests have changed.”
The Artist of the Week program was created by Artsonia 25 years ago to highlight student creativity and engage schools and communities in celebrating young artists. Each week, 12 student submissions are randomly selected from artwork submitted the previous week in four different age groups (PreK-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12) for public voting. Winners receive both recognition and prizes.
As part of the award, Blick Art Materials generously provides a $100 gift certificate to the winning student’s art program and a $50 gift certificate to the student.
“Artsonia’s mission is to bring communities together to celebrate children’s creative expression,” said Jim Meyers, CEO and co-founder of Artsonia. “Artist of the Week encourages local schools, families, and friends to get involved in the process of creating and celebrating student art.”
For more information, visit artsonia.com.
About Artsonia
Artsonia is the leading online platform for student art portfolios, featuring more than 125 million works of art from students in over 100 countries. The platform helps teachers showcase student art digitally, organize lessons, and fundraise for their classrooms. Families can view student art, leave comments, and order custom keepsakes featuring the artwork. Since 2000, Artsonia has donated more than $17 million to school art programs through its 20% giveback program.
To learn more, visit www.artsonia.com.
Below is another example of Isabelle’s artistic talent. In this picture of her dog, Olive, Isabelle used a stippling technique with only pen dots- photo courtesy Cami Buller
