Artists : Louise Ellis

Louise Alexandra Ellis was born in East Yorkshire, England in 1977 and has been creating art for as long as she can remember. It was the colours and patterns in the feathers from her grandma's feather duster that first inspired her to become an artist at the age of nine. One sparse feather duster later, a growing collection of feathers soon appeared in an illustrated book of birds with the said feathers as their wings and tails.

As she grew up Louise loved drawing, the movies ‘E.T. (The Extra-Terrestrial)’ and ‘Labyrinth’, the book 'Where The Wild Things Are' by Maurice Sendak and Jim Henson’s ‘The Muppet Show’. Since graduating from The University of Lincolnshire and Humberside in 1999, with a BA Hons in Illustration, Louise has illustrated for many clients in children's publishing, editorial, advertising and greetings cards. Her first children's book was published in 2000 entitled 'The Grudge', written by Glenn Dakin. Louise works traditionally, using acrylics, watercolours, watercolour pencils, texture paste and collage to create her highly detailed, imaginative and playful illustrations.

Louise has a passion for children's books and is always developing her ideas for her own picture books. Her imagination is well fed with weird and wonderful things from her sketchbooks. Inspired by the magic and enchantment that nature brings whether on land, in the air or under the ocean Louise likes to think that her illustrations and stories are something that children can relate to and enjoy.
Louise was highly commended in The Macmillan Prize for Children's Picture Book Illustration 1999 and gained a Certificate of Achievement from HRH the Prince of Wales in the Young Artists' Britain Award 1998. Louise values working as an illustrator very rewarding.

She loves cats, horses, music, sea life, fairy folk, old buildings, chocolate, cacti, brooches, finding character in inanimate objects, antique dolls, vintage fashion accessories, collecting and reading old children's books and reading stories to her cat Polly (an occasional model for some of her work).

You can see more of Louise's work on her website www.lou-a-ellis.com