Drawn together: when kinder kids make art with teenagers

Students with a big age gap paired up to share what it was like to bring their joint creations to life

Published August 27, 2026

Kindergarten students from Stanwell Park Public School and Year 10 visual design students from Bulli High School have collaborated for the opening of Drawn Together, an art exhibition at the Clifton School of Arts.

Bulli High School teacher Amanda Bowen said that relinquishing artistic control over their own likenesses was both the trickiest and most rewarding part of the process for her students.

"They were asked to do a realistic self-portrait, rendering with pencil, and then they just had to give creative control away of their own self-image, which was really difficult for a lot of them," she says.

"It was about working collaboratively and handing over control to people they didn't know, knowing it was going to be quite childlike and whimsical. For the most part, they’ve really enjoyed the process."

At the gallery opening, three pairs of students shared what it was like to bring their joint creations to life.

Ophelia & Hugo

Ophelia (Kindy): "I really like it."

Hugo (Year 10): "It was a little bit harder for us because everyone got a video from their kindy buddies, but I didn't get a video. So I had a little bit of free will and I basically went to it and had an idea… so, it's a wizard. It's always fun collaborating, but it's a little harder when you don't have much communication."

Max & Riley

Riley (Kindy): "Mine’s a cheetah-puss and it can run and it has really wiggly arms! I saw it on Danny Go! (YouTube Channel). It's exciting to see, I'm having so much fun."

Max (Year 10): "Mine is a stick figure at the beach. It was fun getting to colour it all in with what they did; it was enjoyable, I had fun with it. It's fascinating what everyone did."

Sunny & Lucy

Sunny (Kindy): "I did an octopus."

Lucy (Year 10): "Mine's a ladybug with blue wings in a garden. It's been good working with the kindies. It's been a bit hard because he didn't make a video, so I didn't know what the drawing was and I had to sort of guess. It's cool to see all the artworks on the walls in comparison to what the kindies did."