Illustrator of:
Take Me Home, Country Roads
Grandma’s Feather Bed
Ancient Rhymes: A Dolphin Lullaby
Sunshine On My Shoulders
Earth and Me – Our Family Tree: Nature’s Creatures
Earth and Us – Continuous: Nature’s Past & Future
Earth and You – A Closer View: Nature’s Features
The Tree in the Ancient Forest
Stickeen
Wonderful Nature, Wonderful You
Phone: (614) 449-9494
Website: www.jeanetteandchristophercanyon.com
Email: canyonstudios@columbus.rr.com
As creators of children?s books, my wife Jeanette Canyon and I are dedicated to providing engaging, educational, and entertaining programing to promote literacy & the arts. Our presentations take audiences of all ages on an informative and imaginative journey as we share our creative processes of illustrating stories and picture books. From the inspiration of our ideas, through the creation of the art of our books, we share many stories, techniques and motivational messages – encouraging children to create and share their own stories and art in multiple ways. Here are some of our key program messages to nurture creativity?and to support children in bringing their own stories to life through words and pictures:
The Adventure of Research
All we need to be is curious?and opportunities to learn are all around us to explore our world! Research can be an exciting and wondrous adventure?and it certainly is for authors and artists! Within our presentations we share how our research and travel adventures inform and inspire how we illustrate our books.
The Importance of Journals
Everyone is creative?and all of us have ideas. Journals are especially important for artists and writers! Creating a book requires a lot of imagination, ideas?and a place to explore them. Within our programs we share many examples of how our journals provide an important place for us to begin exploring and developing our book ideas.
The Joy of Composition
To communicate artfully with others?one must be a good composer. Creating a picture book requires many compositional skills of writing, conceptual design and illustration. Within our presentations we share many examples of how we brainstorm, develop and compose our ideas from our rough drafts, through the creation of our final art and books!
For over 15 years my wife Jeaneatte and I have enjoyed very special opportunities to be the invited guests of many wonderful schools, libraries, and conferences throughout the nation and around the world. We cherish every opportunity to share our art, books and unique children?s literature programing?and it?s important to us to provide your school, community, or organization with a meaningful and joyful experience in having us as your guests!
It?s also important to us to make coordinating our visit easy and fun for you! We work directly with every school and organization we visit. We personally answer all of your questions and concerns?and we provide you with our Visit Planning Packet full of helpful and fun information to assist you in making our appearance a successful and memorable event.
PRESENTATION SPACE REQUIREMENT
From large concert halls to one-room school houses, we have presented our programs in a variety of venues, however, one very important requirement is that we need to conduct our programs in a space which can be significantly darkened. We use projected video slideshow media to visually share with our audiences how we create our art and books. We depend upon this primary feature within all of our programing.
GENERAL PROGRAM INFORMATION
We present together and conduct four 45-minute sessions per day. We are delighted to present to any group size and we are honored to present to all grade levels. Our programs are presented in a theater-style format which can be set up in any room conducive to a quality slideshow and audio performance.
We offer 3 school visit Daily Program Options. We understand that every school is unique. We are happy to work with you in offering alternative schedule suggestions to make a visit to your school possible!
Daily Program Option 1
This school visit programing option starts the day off with an exciting Full-School Assembly, followed throughout the day by three grouped Grade Sessions (specifically designed for each age group). This recommended program option provides every student the opportunity to attend 2 sessions, for a total of 90-minutes of quality programing.
Daily Program Option 2
If your school population is too large to have a Full-School Assembly?or if you do not have a space conducive for a Full-School Assembly, we conduct four grouped Grade Sessions throughout the day (specifically designed for each age group).
Daily Program Option 3
We offer the programing option of visiting 2 neighboring schools in a day. This budget sensitive choice makes our appearances more affordable, as both schools share the total costs for our visit. When visiting 2 schools in a day, we are happy to conduct two 45-minute Large Group Assemblies at each school, however, this depends on the distance, travel, and necessary presentation equipment tear-down & set-up time required for each school.
We provide every school we visit with our:
Appearance Agreement
Our Appearance Agreement is clear and concise in covering all details?providing you the professional assurance of having us as your guests.
Visit Planning Packet
Our Visit Planning Packet provides helpful instructions & suggestions for planning our presentation schedule, presentation space, equipment needs and other important details.
Autographed Books & Other Fun Stuff!
To assist you in promoting the event, we include an autographed complimentary set of our books. We also include a sheet of autographed bookmarks along with an appearance flyer for you to copy and use. For schools & organizations who wish to conduct a book sale with our visit, we also provide complete easy to follow book sale ordering & autographing instructions (see below).
Our home studio is in Columbus, Ohio (USA)
For appearances within our driving region (generally within a 500 mile radius of Central Ohio), we provide our own state of the art audio & video presentation equipment. Our professional sound system and video projection equipment will provide a high quality audio and video experience for up to 700 audience members (providing your room is conducive to our Presentation Space Requirements).
For appearances outside our driving region we require the use of a sound-system, LCD projector, projection screen and other basic equipment needed for a quality audio and projected video slideshow presentation (our equipment list is provided in our Visit Planning Packet).
BOOK SALES & AUTOGRAPHING
Offering our books for sale along with our visit is completely at your option. Our priority in visiting your school is to support, inspire, and encourage a life-long celebration of reading, creativity and the arts (not to sell books)?however, most schools and organizations who host our appearances do desire to make our books available to their excited and eager young readers anticipating our visit!
If you choose to conduct a book sale along with our visit, we supply our books to you directly. There are no publishers to deal with, no third party book suppliers?just us! We handle your orders personally and supply our books to you with no processing fees, no shipping or delivery charges?and we guarantee that every single book ordered through us will be autographed and personalized to the name(s) to whom the purchaser requests!
Purchasing children?s books directly from the people who create them is of tremendous support to authors and artists such as ourselves?and your support is deeply appreciated! In our commitment to supporting literacy, it?s important to us to make our books as affordable as we can to all communities we visit. We are pleased to offer all of our books at substantial discounts?along with purchasing options in both paperback and hardcover editions for nearly all of our titles! If you wish to conduct a book sale along with our visit, you may pass these discounts along to your book purchasers?or you may sell our books up to the retail prices and utilize the proceeds as a fundraiser for your school or organization. These options are completely up to you.
We make ordering our books extremely easy?we know how busy you are, and it?s important to us to provide you with everything you need to make coordinating a school book sale a simple and pleasurable experience. Our Visit Planning Packet includes complete easy to follow book sale and ordering instructions, a clearly detailed Book Sale Agreement ? and even our official Book Ordering & Autographing Form already made up for you to simply copy and distribute!
COSTS & CONTACT INFORMATION
Our total Honorarium is $1,500 per day, plus expenses.
Where applicable, expenses typically include lodging, mileage (if using our own transportation), airfare, and meals on the day of our appearance. For Events outside the state of Ohio, we request a 2-day minimum commitment. (This commitment can be met by hosting us 2 or more consecutive days at one school?or 2 or more consecutive days at different schools with any combination of our Daily Program Options)
We are happy to answer any questions or to provide you with additional information about us, our books and our programs!
Please contact us at:
canyonstudios@columbus.rr.com
Phone: 614-449-9494
A SPECIAL NOTE
With heartfelt appreciation to all schools, libraries & organizations who invite notable authors and illustrators to share their work?and with deepest respect for children everywhere, we recommend that you request recent references from anyone you are considering inviting for your special event. It is an honor to share our work with you?and you deserve the assurance your students and community will receive a warm, friendly, and quality program experience! We are proud to provide you with multiple referrals from our most recent appearances
