Sarah Scho
Exploring how art invites young minds to imagine and create
Hello, and thank you for visiting.I’m Sarah — an illustrator, artist, and educator. My work has taken many forms: fifty-plus published books, ceramics and sculpture, and paintings that reflect colour, story, and light.What connects it all is a belief that creativity is about process, not product. For me, art is less about producing something polished and more about staying open to the feeling and fun of doing it. Young minds should know that drawing, shaping clay, or brushing paint onto a surface is something they can do themselves — without fear of mistakes.This site offers a glimpse of these ideas (and realities), and of my current explorations in art and learning at a time when education is being reshaped by technology.
Work
My work moves across images on a page, forms shaped in clay, and colours laid on canvas. Each medium carries its own voice, yet all are connected by the same intention: to invite young minds into a process of creativity and discovery in the age of AI.Illustration opens stories, ceramics and sculpture give them weight and presence, and painting offers space for reflection. What matters most is not the finished product but the act of "I make" — respecting the material, following where it leads, and leaving room for the fun and messy human imagination to grow.
Explorations in Art and Learning
My focus is how art and storytelling can support education in a world shaped increasingly by technology. How can we motivate and inspire young minds to create and grow when AI can serve up perfection in the time it takes a gnat to wink? How can we support teachers to get their students to read books and create amazing stuff?Certain ideas return again and again:
• Process over product — the value of making lies in exploration, not perfection.
• The tactile and visual — young minds often understand best when they can see, touch, and try.
• Empathy and reflection — art gives students space to step outside themselves, to imagine from another point of view.These are ongoing explorations rather than fixed conclusions. They shape how I teach, how I make, and how I think about creativity in education.You can see more of this in the Viking Kite project:
Contact
If you are a gallery, an academic, publisher, teacher, or simply curious, I’d be glad to hear from you. And if you're a student who wants to ask me a question... bring it on! Try and ask me a question no student has ever asked!
Thank you
Thanks for getting in touch. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.And here is a bonus photo, just for you chatty people, of my dog Nimly!
Clay, ceramics and sculpture
Clay has a voice of its own. You can press it, stretch it, collapse it back down — but if you give it attention, it tells you what it wants to be. I try to respect that conversation, following the material rather than forcing it.For me there are three strands:
• Clay is the beginning. It forgives, it allows play, it lets mistakes become part of the process. For students, clay is an open field.
• Ceramics appear when clay is fired. Something ordinary becomes numinous, changed by heat into a lasting form. This transformation always feels a little like alchemy.
• Sculpture is the larger act: shaping an idea into form, whether through clay, ceramic, or another material. It is imagination made visible.In education, this journey matters. Clay shows that mistakes are not the end. Ceramics reveal how change can endure. Sculpture makes ideas real. Together they remind us that art is a dialogue — between the maker, the material, and the story that emerges.
Illustration & Books
Illustration is where I began, and it is still at the heart of my practice. Over the years I have co-created and illustrated more than 50 books, both educational series and imaginative stories that invite students to see differently.I don’t think of illustration as decoration. A drawing should carry its own question. It should open a door for a young mind to enter, to wonder, and perhaps to sketch their own response. Sometimes it’s the small details — a shadow, a gesture, a face half turned — that make the imagination spark.Here you will find a small selection of covers and illustrations. They stand not as finished things but as invitations: try it yourself, see where your pencil might take you.
Paintings & Artwork
Painting is where I slow down. Oils, sketches, mixed media — each has its own pace.These works are less about teaching directly and more about reflection, but they are never separate. The layering of paint often shifts how I think about illustration. The play of colour influences the way I glaze ceramics. Each part of the practice feeds the others.Painting is quieter, but it keeps me listening.