Mitchell teen is SD Doodle 4 Google art contest winner
Seventh-grader Angela Schleich will be honored at an assembly at 1 p.m. Wednesday at the school gymnasium, 800 W. 10th St. The event is open to the public.By: Tom Lawrence, The Daily Republic
- Angela Schleich
- Angela Schleich's winning doodle
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Mitchell student Angela Schleich is about to have her artwork go national.
Which isn’t bad for a seventh-grader.
Schleich, 13, is the South Dakota winner in the Doodle 4 Google competition. If she receives enough online votes in the Doodle 4 Google contest, she and Mitchell Middle School will collect prizes that include a college scholarship, a grant for the school and more.
The seventh-grader will be honored at an assembly at 1 p.m. Wednesday at the school gymnasium, 800 W. 10th St. The event is open to the public.
Google declined to release Schleich’s drawing until Wednesday. She learned about two weeks ago that she is a state winner.
“I couldn’t really believe it,” she said Tuesday during a break at the school. “Art’s my favorite class.”
According to Google, the theme that was selected for this year, “If I could travel in time, I’d visit …” was intended to allow young artists to “harness their curiosity to imagine the past, present, or future” through a doodle.
“This open-ended prompt is intended to encourage creative, inspiring, and fun ideas of what place they could explore and observe regardless of when an event that they want to depict took place,” according to the Doodle 4 Google website.
Schleich chose the Jazz Age of the 1920s for her doodle. It depicts a man playing a standup bass, a woman playing a tambourine, a saxophone and a horn player, all lined up to form the word “Google.” Google is a massively popular online website people use to search for information. It often changes its homepage to show various depictions of the word “Google.”
Schleich said entering the Doodle 4 Google competition was a class assignment from Renee Berg, the middle school’s art teacher. Berg selected some doodles and submitted them to the competition.
Schleich, who used colored pencils, is one of 50 state winners. All are invited to New York City for a Google event May 17, where the national winner and four other national finalists will be named.
Her parents, Lori and Robert Schleich, of Mitchell, will accompany her; they plan a three-day stay. Google is paying for two of the trips.
Angela said all eight of the Schleich children have talent.
Her older sisters Melissa, 28, Mary, 26, Tricia, 24, Stacey, 20, and Joanna, 15, helped her learn to love and appreciate art, she said. She has shared her interest in it with her sister Alice, 11, and brother Phillip, 5.
Angela said she chose the Jazz Age because it always has interested her, even though she was born 70 years after its heyday.
“It was like a happy time, you know,” she said. “Our family watches old movies. I think it’s interesting.”
This isn’t her first award for drawing. She won a duck stamp drawing contest when she was in fifth grade, Angela said.
Google has divided the competition into five age groups: kindergarten through grade three, grades four and five, grades six and seven, grades eight and nine, and grades 10 through 12. One national finalist will be named from each age group.
Judging is based on artistic merit, creativity and how the theme is expressed in the design.
Google employees selected 250 doodles — including at least one from each state — from the thousands that were entered. Then, the Google staff and guest judges, who include singer Katy Perry and children’s book author Mo Willems, selected the state winners.
The national winners will be selected by an online vote.
The public can view the 50 finalists at www.google.com/doodle4google/index.html and vote from 8 a.m. Central time today until 7 p.m. May 10.
The national winner will have her or his art featured on the Google homepage and will receive a $30,000 college scholarship, a Google Chromebook computer and a Wacom digital design tablet.
The winner’s school will receive a $50,000 technology grant.
The four national finalists will receive $5,000 college scholarships and a Wacom digital design tablet. All 50 of the finalists will receive a T-shirt with their doodle on it, and their design will be displayed in a special exhibit at the New York Public Library.
This is the fifth year Google has held the competition. In 2011, more than 107,000 entries were received. The winner was 7-year-old Matteo Lopez of South San Francisco, Calif.
Despite her success as an artist, Angela said she doesn’t plan to become a professional.
“Maybe for a hobby, not for a career,” she said. “I think I want to be a psychologist.”
Tags: life, updates, art, local, mitchell, google, doodle
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