Doodling for Google

Art+1+students+tasked+with+creating+a+doodle+for+Google.+For+WTV+Executive+Producer+Neha+Perumalla%2C+broadcast+journalism+provided+her+inspiration.+

Neha Perumalla

Art 1 students tasked with creating a doodle for Google. For WTV Executive Producer Neha Perumalla, broadcast journalism provided her inspiration.

Wade Glover, WTV Daily Update Producer

Art 1 students are working on a project that could eventually be submitted to Google. The internet search engine puts on a yearly competition for art students in grades kindergarten through 12th to be featured as the company’s logo for a day.

“It’s always fun to think that maybe somebody that you’re teaching might be the winner and win $30,000 for their college scholarship,” art teacher Pernie Fallon said. “The grand prize winner, the school they go to gets $50,000. It goes towards their art program, so that’s a pretty good incentive.”

Each year has a different theme for the contest, and Fallon thinks that adds to the excitement for the project. This year’s theme is “What inspires you?”.

“The learning goal is for the students to use their imagination,” Fallon said. “To work together and talk to each other, and share what inspires them, and take that inspiration and turn it into a work of art and a story that tells what inspires them.”

One on the criticisms of judging art is that it is subjective, but Fallon says one way to work around that is to understand what inspires the students, and that coincides with the theme for this year’s Doodle 4 Google.

“I try to honor every students’ individuality and their personality and their interests,” Fallon said. “Each of us are inspired by different things — colors, music, friends. The list goes on. It’s endless, so I try to find out what they’re interested in and let them have brainstorms about what direction they can take that interest and how they can achieve that goal.”