As you enter the workshop room of the 38^th Sharjah International Book Fair you see how children were learning to make masks, you stop at the doorway, stunned by several dragon and unicorn craft box heads ready to greet you.

The workshop on day 5, called ‘Dragon Masks’, saw children letting their imaginations run wild to create a unique mask using a vast array of materials. The workshop leader was at hand to give children top tips for customising their character.

While the little ones remained engrossed with cardboard templates, coloured paper, flowing streamers and sticky pens, their instructor Henk Steyn from Oli Oli Children Museum, took them through the craft material strewn around the place, “just loosen your imagination and use these items to create something unique, let your creative juices flow. Don’t be scared. Express yourself. Consider yourselves to be an artist and don’t doubt your work”.

With this, he instructs a child to fold the core board to make a unicorn’s horn. He then encourages them with ideas to customize their characters.

Speaking to Henk, on the sidelines of the workshop, he says, “Through this workshop, we are trying to give children the space to be creative, so that they can explore and respond to it in different ways. Take art from the past and improvise on it with your idea as far as you can, from simple to complicated, from common to unique”.

By the end of the 30-minute session, each child had a wonderful working mask to take home for a show!

For many such interesting workshops that have been delighting students, check out the SIBF 2019 website, at www.sibf.com. These programmes await visitors until November 9, at the Expo Centre Sharjah.