Tidy studio, tidy mind?

In the studio today.... well as you can see it is immaculately tidy as ever! Still working on the grouse piece, I'm making slow progress as I had to stop to make a couple of alterations to a portrait ready for the gallery to collect it again yesterday. Tomorrow I'm going in to my son's class to talk to them about my work. They're doing a topic on Lowry at the moment and Joe kindly told his teacher that his dad was an artist so I got invited in. I'll take in the piece I'm working on along with tools of the trade- brushes, easel etc and tell them about the way I work- hope they think its interesting. Joe's very excited about it.

Myspace

Donna has just set me up a myspace page, which we've put a link to on here. The idea is that we want to generate as much traffic in the direction of the website as possible so that when it's up and running ( hopefully in the not too distant future!!!) people we will know where we are.



Some of the entries on here will be duplicated ( maybe in a condensed form?) over on my myspace page, and Donna will put a link on there to direct people back here. Please feel free to leave comments on either, it would be good to hear what you think about what we're up to.

Latest grouse piece

This week I've been working on a fairly large grouse piece. An American client has commissioned me, through the gallery, to produce "a typical Andrew Ellis game painting". I'm using reference material from a recent visit to the Allenheads estate in Northumberland, along with photographs and sketches from various trips to Scotland. I finished drawing it out on the board late last night, so today I can start getting the paint on. I'll add in some photos as it progresses.
This morning I finally got around to posting on the bird forum again, I used to be on there regularly but I've been so busy lately I've just not had a chance. Thought I'd better give them a quick update and let them know I'm still here!
Yesterday afternoon, my Taekwando instructor,Chris, asked me to go over to his place and help him cope( trim the beak) one of his hawks. He's only recently got into falconry and wanted to pick my brains about aviary construction and feeding shoots. We ended up comparing the philosophies of martial arts and falconry!!

My name is Andrew Ellis, I am an artist mainly specialising in wildlife, although recently I have been branching out into portraiture through some of the commissions I have been offered. I have been painting and drawing for as long as I can remember, my preferred medium is acrylic paint although I sometimes also work in oils. My work has been sold as far a field as the Middle East, America and Europe, and I have been fortunate to travel to places such as North America, Botswana, South Africa and the Middle East in pursuit of reference material. I am also very much inspired by the wildlife nearer to home and am actively involved in countryside management, releasing grey partridges with the help of local farmers.
Aside from painting my other great passion is falconry. I have been a falconer for over 15 years, and work closely with organisations such as IAF ( International Association of Falconers) and the BFC ( British Falconer's club) to raise the awareness of falconry around the world.
My original paintings are sold through the Halcyon gallery in London and my wife, Donna, is currently in the process of setting up a website to sell limited edition prints of my work.
I hope to use this blog to; chart the progress of some of the pieces I am working on, to reccount my trips abroad, and nearer to home, to gather reference material, and to waffle generally about falconry, wildlife and other things in my life. Hence the blog title......birds,brushes and other stuff!