Artists
Sahar Abdallah
Sahar Abdallah is a children’s books illustrator from Egypt, lives and works in Canada. She held several solo exhibitions in Cairo and in Toronto and participated in collective exhibitions in Egypt, Canada, UAE and Lebanon. Her work won a numerous awards; The state prize for her illustrations 2012, Egypt. 2018 Etisalat award,UAE ” The best Illustration category ” for illustrating Think of Others by the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish and also in 2020 “ The book for the year category” Layali Shahrzizi. Her book Fanoun’s Tales was selected in image of the book “ illustrator’s book” Moscow 2019. She participated also in many workshops related to children’s books in Egypt, Lebanon, Oman, Algeria and India.
saharabdallahillustration.blogspot.com
View all art by Sahar Abdallah here.
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Rebecca Bender
Author/Illustrator Rebecca Bender is best known for her award-winning Giraffe and Bird books. Her illustrations also grace the chapter books Slug Days, Penguin Days, and Duck Days. Rebecca’s awards and honors include the OLA Blue Spruce Award, a Cooperative Children’s Book Cen- ter best-of-the-year choice, and a Toronto Public Library best-of-the-year selection. Rebecca graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design at the top of her class,
earning the Medal for Illustration. She lives in Burlington, Ontario, with her husband and three children, two cats and a yellow bird named Sunny.
View all art by Rebecca Bender here.
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Jeni Chen
Jeni Chen had always loved to draw since she was a little girl but she never thought about becoming an artist. It wasn’t until she became a mom that she began drawing comics every month about the funny things her son said or did. Jeni started taking art classes for fun and ended up getting a fine art certificate from Emily Carr University of Arts + Design. Now she is a serious artist with experience producing public art installations and leading community-engaged workshops.
View all art by Jeni Chen here.
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Gary Clement
artist.
He is the author and illustrator of 3 children’s books; Just Stay
Put, The Great Poochini and Swimming, Swimming.
Gary has also illustrated many other children’s books including
Coyote Solstice by Thomas King, Oy, Feh, So by Cary Fagan and
most recently, My Winter City by James Gladstone.
His books have received numerous awards and nominations
including 3 nominations for the Canadian Governor General’s
Award for Illustration, which he won for The Great Poochini, an
American Indian Youth Literature Award for Coyote Solstice as
well as being shortlisted for the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award
for My Winter City.
He is the political cartoonist for National Post, a Canadian
national newspaper. The work he does for that paper includes his
perspective on the news of the day and has taken him as far
afield as Nunavut to document life in the Far North and to Beijing
where he covered the 2008 Olympics.
His cartoons and illustrations have appeared in many other
magazines and newspapers including The New York Times Book
Review, The Boston Globe and Scholastic Magazine. His
illustration work has been selected on numerous occasions for
American Illustration and has garnered 2 National Magazine
Awards in Canada.
Gary has maintained his art practice, which consists of painting
and drawing, throughout his career and regularly shows his
extracurricular work at Dianna Witte Gallery in Toronto.
Peggy Collins
Marie-Louise Gay
Marie-Louise Gay has written and/or illustrated over sixty books for children: from picture-books like the Stella and Sam series, Caramba, Any Questions? Fern and Horn, the Three Brothers to novels like Travels with my Family or The Traveling Circus. Her books have been published in over fifteen languages. Some of her books have been adapted for puppet theatre, live theatre and an award-winning animated TV series. She has won many awards for her work, such as two Governor General’s Literary Award, the Vicky Metcalfe Award for a body of work, the E.B.White Award and has been nominated twice for the Hans Christian Andersen Award and the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. She lives in Montreal.
View all art by Marie-Louise Gay here.
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Celia Godkin
Celia Godkin is an author and illustrator of nature books for children. Her award-winning titles as author/illustrator include Wolf Island, Ladybug Garden, When The Giant Stirred, Fire!, Hurricane!, Skydiver, and The Wolves Return. She has illustrated four books written by Shirley Woods, including Jack, the Story of a Beaver. In addition to children's books, she has illustrated textbooks, periodicals, scientific papers, zoo signs and coins for the Royal Canadian Mint.
www.celiagodkin.com celia@
View all art by Celia Godkin here.
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Soyeon Kim
Qin Leng
Qin Leng is a designer and illustrator known for her illustrations of children books. She graduated from the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema and has received many awards for her animated short films and artwork.
Throughout her career, Qin has illustrated picture books, magazines and book covers with publishers around the world. Hana Hashimoto, Sixth Violin, written by Chieri Uegaki, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award, and received the APALA Award for best picture book.
She lives in Toronto with her husband and her son.
Qin's Website @qinillustrations
View all art by Qin Leng here.
Loris Lesynski
Loris Lesynski is the bestselling author of 14 books for children, 9 of which she illustrated herself. She knows children and enchants them with her brilliantly funny poems.
Lesynski is not only a wonderful poet but also a talented artist. Her watercolors lend detail and humor to every page. I can’t imagine any elementary school student or teacher not being inspired and entertained by her artistry with works and pictures. –Resource Links
Loris’s Boy Soup illustrated by Michael Martchenko was selected as the TD Grade One Giveway Book for 2013 and 500,000 copies were distributed across Canada. She lives in Toronto.
View all art by Loris Lesynski here.
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Michael Martchenko
Illustration. He worked as an Art Director in several Toronto advertising agencies. He joined TDF Artists Ltd,a commercial art, photo, and film studio and has been a Creative Director for 19 years. He illustrated his first book, The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch, in 1980 and established own company in 1993 as full-time illustrator. Since then, he has illustrated over 100 books, authored and illustrated two books and lives in Burlington, Ontario with wife, Patricia.
Michele Nidenoff
Michele Nidenoff was born in London, Ontario. She attended the Art Program at H.B. Beal Secondary School, where she studied drawing, painting, graphic art and animation. Following graduation she worked as a graphic artist in London. After moving to Toronto she attended Illustration and Media Studies at the Ontario College of Art (now OCADU). She works as a freelance illustrator with the majority of her work appearing in children’s books, magazines, anthologies and educational publishing. She has illustrated more than 20 children’s books. Michele also teaches drawing and watercolor to adults and calligraphy to students of all ages.
Michele's Website @michelenidenoff
View all art by Michele Nidenoff here.
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Debbie Ridpath Ohi
Debbie Ridpath Ohi is the author and illustrator of Where Are My Books? and Sam & Eva (Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers). Her illustrations also appear in books by Judy Blume, Michael Ian Black, and Linda Sue Park, among others. Honours include New York Times Notable Children’s Book, Junior Library Guild selection, and Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award finalist. She lives in Toronto. You can find out more about Debbie at DebbieOhi.com.
View all art by Debbie Ridpath Ohi here.
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Barbara Reid
Jamilah Salek
Jamileh Salek received a Masters of Fine Arts degree from Iran. Her work spans over two and a half decades and has been featured in over 60 solo and group exhibitions. Jamileh was selected to participate in the 2014 International Symposium Painting Saguenay-Quebec. She has received several awards over her career including the Toronto Arts Council’s Newcomer Artist Mentorship Grant. Jamileh introduced her work to Toronto audiences at the 2018-2021 Toronto Outdoor Art Fair. She splits her time between creating a new series of paintings and doing illustration work. She recently narrated and illustrated A Teeny Tiny Virus, an e-book created to help ease worries during the COVID 19 crisis.
View all art by Jamileh Salek here.
Kevin Sylvester
Kevin Sylvester has written and illustrated more than thirty books for kids.
His latest novel is The Fabulous Zed Watson! Co-written with his kid Basil, it’s the story of a non-binary kid who goes on a cross-continental adventure in search of the greatest monster book of all time! It’s on the short-list for the 2021 Governor General’s award.
He also has a new series, The Hockey Super-Six. These highly illustrated books tell the stories of six nerdy kids who get zapped with radiation and turn into super hockey players. Books 1-3 are out now from Scholastic.
His other novels range from science fiction (The MINRs trilogy) to mystery novels (The Neil Flambé Capers), and other super-heroes (Mucus Mayhem).
His picture books include Gargantua (Jr.): Defender of Earth, Super-Duper Monster, GREAT and Splinters.
He also writes and illustrates non-fiction books. There are sports books (Gold Medal for Weird, Basketballogy, Baseballogy) and books on financial literacy (Follow Your Stuff and Follow Your Money.)
Kevins Website @sylvesterartwork
View all art by Kevin Sylvester here.
Jeremy Tankard
Jeremy Tankard is the best-selling author/illustrator the Grumpy Bird picture books from Scholastic Press. His most recent books include the two Yorick and Bones graphic novels from HarperCollins, both co-authored with his teenage daughter, Hermione. These books are the culmination of a childhood dream of one day making his own comic books. He has also illustrated books by Dennis Lee, David Larochelle, Aaron Reynolds and Rachel Vail.
Jeremys Wesbite @jeremytankboy
View all art by Jeremy Tankard here.
François Thisdale
François Thisdale is an award-winning illustrator of many books, living near Montreal with his wife and daughter.
Francois intricately combines painting and digital images to create captivating pieces of art that have been featured in many books including his own, Nini, Birdchild, The Stamp Collector, That Squeak, Missing Nimama, Bon Voyage Mister Rodriguez and Poetree.
Awards for his work include the TD Award, USBBY Outstanding International Books, Crystal Kite Award, Mrazik-Cleaver Canadian Picture Book award honour book, Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon Illustrator’s Award Finalist and Marylin Baillie Award Finalist.
François' Website info@thisdale.com
View all art by François Thisdale here.
Sue Todd
Anne Villeneuve
As far as she can recall, Anne Villeneuve always held a crayon or a brush in her hands. She tries to draw every day, even on travel and vacation, curious of her surroundings and eager to observe every aspect of her environment. Colors, landscapes, facial expressions... Her imagination knows no boundaries when comes the time to lay on paper the countless encounters of her day-to-day life. This passion of hers for image and storytelling was the starting point for her career as author and illustrator, which she has now been fulfilling for over 30 years.
She has written and illustrated close to 40 books, created illustrations for magazines and newspapers and she designed cake boxes for a bakery. She's also worked on scenography for Cirque du Soleil and created posters for the Dairy Farmers of Canada.
Over the years, her work has earned her many recognitions, such as the Governor General's Literary Award and the Québec-Wallonie-Bruxelles Literary Award in 2000, the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award in 2005 and 2009, and the Mr. Christie book Award in 1998. She's met with hundreds of kids across Canada with whom she shared her passion for literature and art. She also gave watercolorsessions at the Fine Arts Museum of Montreal.
She now lives in the beautiful Laurentian region in Quebec, where she shares her home with her husband and two lazy cats. She is the young grandmother of two marvelous and energetic grandsons to whom she loves to read stories.
View all art by Anne Villeneuve here.