Paper City – Sydney Opera House and Luna Park

March 2, 2011
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54 comments

I was asked to create a Paper City addition for Art Month Sydney. To launch the festival this year, Sydney’s National Art School hosted an ‘Art Month Art Adventure’ event for kids. The project (named Itty Bitty City) was driven by LMNOP magazine, and was based on my Paper City, but also included many other decorations and various recycled materials. Almost 200 kids participated. It looked like so much fun. I wish I could have been there too! LMNOP let me post some images they took of the project, and there is also a great article, with more photos, here on the Art Month Sydney website.

So if you’re feeling inspired to play, download the new Paper City Sydney Opera House and Luna Park templates below! Happy building!

Click on the image below, then print.

54 Responses
  3. Butterfly Wishes and Wonderland Dreams

    Awesome!!! I'm so printing this for my girls to make! their polly pockets and fairies can vacation and visit australia now :)

    thanks for all your awesome post and creativity!

  6. Catherine Hansen Peart

    Yay! I come from Australia and this would be so great for my kids (who have lived overseas longer than they lived in Australia…)!

  10. Nessa

    As a former Luna Park employee … Yes, I made many a hot dog there in my youth! Congratulations you have captured our magic city beautifully!

  11. Anonymous

    yay!!! LUNA PARK is my 4 year old sons FAVOURITE place!! so he is going to love these prints – thanks!!
    lilly

  12. Joel Henriques

    Thanks everyone!

    Nessa – Cool! I'd love to see it in person! Sure looks like a fun place.

  13. jamie

    OH MY GOD.

    the whole paper city by all the little kids? so my jam. and so rad that you inspired so much greatness!

    your contribution is great, obviously!

    funny i put a diorama (cause thats sort of that it is, no?) on the blog today, too. ;)

  14. Joel Henriques

    Thanks Jamie! I just commented on your diorama post. And I love the new look for your blog. You've got the design skills!

  15. Angela

    Just stumbled upon your website through design sponge. Oh my!!! I just don't know where to begin, I am in love with everything you make.

  17. gaby@stilelemente

    My city of Sydney! Well, my old stomping ground anyway – it's great seeing something so familiar depicted in this way.

  21. Antonella mai content

    I love what you do, every day more. As a mum of two, as a blogger and as a person in love with beautiful things

  23. Olivier

    I like your creativity and your ideas, it's ecological and simple! Good luck for the future from france !

  29. Christi

    These worked great when teaching my kids about other countries. It made it come to life for them. Are you planning on doing any other major cities? It is a helpful resource when homeschooling my children.

  31. Jennifer D

    Joel , I printed out your cats and the halloween figurines. One child played with them for over an hour .The halloween figures were aliens and the bad cat …lots of killing occurred and visits to a planet . The cats went flew there in their beds (I had added a small cardboard jewellery box which fitted mum and dad in one and the three kittens in the other ) This child demonstrated he understood alot of concepts as he hung the cats by their tails as they flew to the planet etc . He also had them kissing, and coming back to life several times. Thanks for sharing your gift.

    1. Joel

      Thanks everyone!

      Jennifer – Wow, that sounds like an amazing show that your child put on! What a great story teller. I lover watching kids use their imaginations like this. Thanks for sharing!

      Joel

  33. Cyndi

    Only just seen this – its pretty amazing talent. Well done and kinda makes you feel good when you seen this sort of thing. Great stuff.

  34. Lilian

    Loved it wow fantastic thks for showing us art is fun an easy and family’s can do it together u r an inspiration to all have any ideas for a Disney proyect??my doughter loves princess and castels but I just don’t know how. To make them I also want to tell u that thanks to ur Sydney opera house my 5 year old which is learning about australia made a little project using ur drawings and came out beautiful

  36. Stephanie

    Wowww!! That’s a must for an opera mom’s daughters! I’m sure to print this one out! I’m actually going to print everything in the paper cities section! Thank you again!

  39. jo

    Hi, Joel! These paper creations are so cute! I wish my kids were still young enough to play with them. I especially like the international flavor. We’ve homeschooled over the years and tried to give our kids a world-view bigger than the little town in which we live. Do you take requests? I’d love to see something Russian, maybe St. Basil’s Cathedral or the Kremlin, and something Spanish. Chinese could be fun, too. We could go around the world with Joel. :) I’m going to try to incorporate the Parisian pages into a bilingual class we’re teaching this summer. Should be fun!

    1. Joel

      Thanks for the kind comment jo! Great suggestions! And yes, I totally have other cities on my to-do list. Just need to get the time! They take a lot longer to create than it might appear :) So much fun stuff to do!

  40. kt

    Made by Joel,

    Get out of paper town!!!! This is too good to be true. Bless you for sharing this with the masses for free. The children are going to flip… and cut and fold and create… You are great!!!

    kt

  45. Emilee

    I am an elementary Spanish teacher and am so excited to share the paper city with my students next week! We will be labeling different buildings and vehicles in Spanish and creating a giant town to put on display for the school! I second the requests for Spanish material! Thank you, your work is fabulous!

    1. Joel

      That sounds great Emilee! Thanks for writing! And yes, I really would love to make a Paper City Barcelona sometime. I’ve been there twice and really love it!