Nines Flanders had no idea that a school assignment in art class connected to Google would lead to becoming a finalist in a national competition.

“I was kind of like, ‘It was unlikely,’” said Flanders, 17, who identifies as non-binary.

But the senior at Kennebunk High School is now representing Maine as one of 54 national finalists in a contest to create a new Google Doodle. If Flanders wins, they will receive a $30,000 college scholarship, and the school will receive a $50,000 tech package.

The Doodle for Google contest began in 2008, centered around the “Doodle,” or image that often replaces the Google logo when visitors use the popular search engine. Google puts the winner’s doodle on the site as a guest artist, and this year’s theme was “I care for myself by…”

Flanders’ project clearly involved music, with an image featuring a character listening to earbuds, with notes trailing behind that spell out Google. Flanders said music is clearly an inspiration, with Lady Gaga and Will Wood and the Tapeworms topping their playlist.

Flanders said inspiration comes from many places, starting as early as fourth grade while reading the “Warrior Cats” book series.

“I thought it was really, really cool and I got super inspired by that,” they said.

Flanders experiments with different art mediums, occasionally using colored pencils or oil pastels, but mostly works in digital art drawn on a tablet using ProCreate software. 

“I think I’m trying to find a way to interact with my emotions,” Flanders said.

Flanders struggled to describe their artistic style at first, finally calling it surrealistic, informed by classical painters such as Vincent Van Gogh and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Brendan Roddy, the Kennebunk High art teacher, described Flanders as more of a symbolic artist, using realistic images in unusual ways to tell stories. Upon hearing this, Flanders grinned and said, “Yeah, use that.”

Roddy said Flanders is part of a new wave of artists, building on recent popular art movements.

“That’s what I think Nines is doing, elevating the game of what manga and animation were doing 10 years ago,” he said.

Roddy said he introduced the Doodle for Google contest to 13 of his students, including Flanders, as a class assignment.

“I was more of a coach and a mentor,” he said.

The school found out Flanders was a finalist in late April via email. Flanders was shocked.

“It was pretty surprising. I didn’t really expect that,” Flanders said. 

Flanders is planning on pursuing a bachelor's degree in illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design after graduation.