Ella Beech lives in Cambridge, UK with her family. After doing a BA in Fine Art Painting, Ella moved into Children’s Publishing, beginning in design at Dorling Kindersley then moving to Macmillan Children’s Books, where she stayed for 15 years, latterly as Head of Campbell Books. In 2019 she realised she wanted to go back to her painting roots and enrolled to do the MA in Children’s Book Illustration at the Cambridge School of Art.
Ella works largely by hand and finishes all her work digitally. She is drawn to the happy accidents and rich textures that are made when creating work on paper: “I invariably make a mess, and that way, I make new discoveries too”. Her work is rooted in observational drawings – finding the beauty in the everyday, through experiments in colour, texture, light and composition. She is interested in character-driven narratives with a twist of whimsy and hint of the surreal. She likes to bring her design background into her work, focusing on the interplay of colours, and bold and striking compositions. When she’s not making art, you can find Ella knitting and sewing, scouring car boot sales for treasures and delighting in 1950s musicals! She also runs creative courses and workshops and is a Patreon creator.