Photographs and samples of draft artworks are included in this website to inform teachers and students. High standards of artworks are the outcome of intensive visual art workshops, many of the artworks taking six hours or more to create. This next section outlines this process.

Information introducing the My Place Asia Australia project was distributed to students prior to the workshop to give them time to think about and create sketches of their special places.

During the workshop students viewed and discussed the laminated artworks and bi-lingual stories created by previous participants. This visual and verbal stimulus encouraged high levels of interest, motivation and commitment.

In-depth brainstorming and discussion followed, generating diverse ideas and suggestions about significant places and experiences. With reference to their initial sketches, students expanded these and recorded their new responses on paper, noting in point form the key features of their place.

Visual art workshop for primary students in Tianjin, China.

Over the next two hours students experimented with an extensive range of excellent quality art materials, exploring different colours and textures.

Western Australian student developing ideas and experimenting with art materials.

These included water and acrylic paints, very fine brushes, water colored pencils, thin and thick wax crayons, oil and dry pastels, felt tip pens and fine liners. Teachers played a key role encouraging experimentation and offering suggestions.

Teachers providing suggestions during the visual art workshop in Western Australia.

Students were encouraged to consider the use of space and the scale of their artwork. They were invited to be self critical, to reflect and evaluate their ideas and select the most appropriate combination of art materials to achieve their desired effects. Students also paid great attention to detail, giving their artwork an illustrative or narrative quality. After this intensive drafting and trialing phase, students were confident to create their final art works.

Secondary students from NSW creating their final artwork.

The same approach to the visual arts workshops was applied in China, Korea and India.

New Delhi primary school student creating her final artwork.

Secondary school student from Cheju Island in Korea finishing his artwork.

Secondary school student using traditional Chinese inks and brushes to create his artwork in a Beijing school.

When students in a cross-cultural context are engaged in art-making that is relevant, challenging, expressive and personal, their imagery and final artwork generates intense levels of interest for other students and their communities. The school-based exhibition emerged as a significant phase and as the cultural exchange agent, facilitated observation and direct interpretation by children and teachers. In this cross-cultural context the artwork and bi-lingual written stories, serve as communication, substituting for face-to-face interrelationships.