Hunter student artwork turned into T-shirt design worn by thousands

Eight-year-old Andy Nguyen loves soccer but he also loves making colourful creations from scratch.

Last year, when he was Year 1 at Toronto Public School, Andy worked very hard to bring a bright, collage interpretation of ANZAC Day poppies to life.

Now, the Year 2 student's artwork has been worn by more than 9000 NSW public school performers.

"I feel very happy," Andy said.

"I used stamps to make circles and used markers to do the dots and paper to make the flowers," he said.

As part of Operation Art, a joint initiative of Westmead's Children's Hospital and the Department of Education, Andy's work was selected to be turned into a T-shirt design for several department-run concerts.

His T-shirt design had already adorned students as they performed at the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Town Hall and was now returning for the Festival of Instrumental Music at the Sydney Opera House with more than 2700 student performers.

The department's art unit music team chose his work for its bold colours, striking imagery and ability to capture the creativity at the heart of the festivals.

Andy said he loved doing art and making stuff.

"I like cutting things and stamping and making dots and gluing stuff on each other," he said.

Andy's art teacher Emma Butler said he was very talented at drawing and layout and had a great sense for art composition.

"It was leading up to ANZAC Day, and we were creating artworks of poppies, we looked at fields and talked about the story of it and they did collage artworks. I wanted the kids to try out different media," Ms Butler said.

She said she allowed students to work out how they were going to put the flowers together themselves and it was up to each student to choose the background colour and layout.

"I'm really proud of him, and I'm pleased that everyone gets to see what he's done because he is a talented artist and he loves his sport, I love that he's seen this different side of himself that he's able to acknowledge," Ms Butler said.

"I think what really brought it home was when I saw the photo that the arts unit had of all the thousands of kids in the Opera House, with his artwork just replicated that many times," she said.

Andy's ANZAC Day Poppies will be exhibited at Maitland Regional Art Gallery from November 7 to February 21 alongside 104 artworks by students from the Hunter and the Central Coast.

The work will also be gifted to a hospital in the Hunter after the exhibition.