Fantastic visit to ABA - An IB World School in Muscat, Oman. January 2019.

I’ve just returned from a week long visit to ABA - An IB World School in the city of Muscat, the capital of Oman. It is the furthest I’ve travelled for a school visit as it is 5000 miles away and it took 8 hours to get there by plane!  I was invited by the super enthusiastic Miss Mara H who is the elementary librarian teacher, to talk and create workshops for around 700 pupils over 5 days.  I had such a fun and enjoyable week meeting all the international staff and pupils, they all had some interesting and amazing stories to share. The pupils were very well behaved and asked some very thoughtful and intelligent questions about my life and work as an illustrator and author. They also worked very hard to create their own fantastic artwork and characters which are now on display at the school.  Here are a few photos below, just some highlights of an amazing week in an amazing city.  Thank you to Mara, Courtney and ABA for such a wonderful experience! I hope to return to see you all again soon! Stephen :-)

A super display created for the children by Mara the amazing Teacher - Librarian. So the pupils could read all about my work and life as an Illustrator and Author before my visit last week. Thank you so much Mara!

A display of my work in the library at ABA World School in Muscat……about to talk about how I create my illustrations.

Here I am showing the pop-up Skyscraping Cities spread from ‘My Pop-Up City Atlas’. Published by Templar.

Talking about one of my picture books called ‘Get Busy Dad’s Back’…..about penguins!

Showing my original artwork from my ‘Get Busy, Dad’s Back’ picture book…..which is a story about a penguin family who build a cardboard city out of paper, card and colourful paint! 

Showing one of my favourite drawings of lots of New York Buildings for ‘My Pop-Up City Atlas’.

Here I am showing the process of how a pop-up Atlas is created. This is the ‘Skyscraping Cities’ rough spread created by the Pop-Up Engineer Andy Mansfield, who I worked with on the 3 Templar Atlas’s.

One of my favourite sights from last week. This is the Mohammed Al Ameen Mosque in Muscat, Oman, which is stunning against the night sky…..amazing colours!

Another of my favourite sights from last weeks visit to Muscat, this is the amazing Royal Opera House…..they polish the marble floor everyday!!!