Levittown’s Audrey Zhang, 10, wins $5G in Doodle 4 Google contest

Levittown’s Audrey Zhang was one of 50 state finalists in the sixth annual Doodle 4 Google competition.

Although another student’s original doodle ended up covering the Google homepage on Thursday, Audrey, 10, won $5,000 as one of four national finalists. She was among those recognized at an awards ceremony in Manhattan on Wednesday.

The winner, Sabrina Brady of Sparta, Wis., received a $30,000 scholarship and other prizes and had her doodle, “Coming Home” featured on the site.

“I was a little disappointment, but she deserved to win,” said Audrey, a fourth-grader at Michael F. Stokes Elementary School in Levittown, of the winner. “I’m going to try again next year.”

Doodle 4 Google is a national art competition open to K-12 students across the United States to redesign the Google logo. This year’s theme was “My Best Day Ever .?.?.”

The doodle Audrey submitted was called, “ .?.?. When I discover paradise!” Through her drawing, she brought to life a mythical reality with dragons, leopards and fairies.

The contest garnered 130,000 submissions and was determined by millions of online votes.

The winning doodle told the story of winner Sabrina’s reunion with her father as he returned from an 18-month deployment in Iraq, according to Google’s blog.

Audrey’s mother, Hongmei Weng, was confident her daughter would win, but just as satisfied with the recognition and scholarship she received to keep pursuing art.

“I know how well my daughter can draw,” Weng said. “At such a young age, her drawings are already so mature and she’ll just keep getting better with experience.”

Audrey is a Kidsday staff artist and she has been drawing for Kidsday for two years.