David Ellwand


David Ellwand is an English photographer, illustrator, and author. He is a trained photographer, who has exhibited his landscape and abstract photographs throughout western Europe and the United States.
Ellwand is known for his photography on award-winning, best-selling fashion books for fairies, Fairie-ality: The Fashion Collection from the House of Ellwand and Fairie‐ality Style. He is also known for his award-winning Amazing Baby board book series for Templar Publishing, as well as the best-selling books Ten in a Bed, Teddy Bears, and Cinderlily. His other works have been published by the Penguin Group's Dutton Children's Books; HarperCollins ; Chronicle Books; Templar Publishing; Baker & Taylor's Silver Dolphin Books; L'Ecole des Loisirs ; and Moritz Verlag-GmbH. His target audience includes babies and children up to eight years of age.

Personal background

David Ellwand was born in 1966, in Liverpool, England. He graduated from Kettlethorpe High School in 1984 and studied photography at Kitson College in Leeds, England. Ellwand is married to Ruth Huddleston. She is a former sales and marketing director with Templar Publishing. He works from a studio in an old converted church in Dorset, England and lives in West Sussex with his wife and daughter, Lydia.

Professional background

David Ellwand began his career in photography at the age of 18. In 1991, he set up a photography studio, primarily focusing on producing commercial photography for advertising agencies. He later moved into book illustration and photography, using a variety of mixed media, formatting, and techniques. Several of his better known works include black-and-white photographs, as well as collage and mixed media using hand-tinted, full-colour photography, using natural items and household objects.
In April 2010, Ellwand was featured on the children's television programme, Blue Peter. He was commissioned to design and create a large wooden house out of a tree trunk for the fairies to live, in the Blue Peter Garden. The episode featured him showing the programme presenter, Andy Akinwolere, how to create a selection of small pieces of furniture for the house.
In 2011, Ellwand began working on a series of books based around the supernatural, experimenting with historical photographic processes, including wet collodion process. Drawn to the supernatural, he notes, "I've been to a lot of places where folklorists say that fairies have been sighted. Nowadays anything supernatural might be purported to be a UFO, but in Victorian times it would be considered to be a fairie, or a will-o'-the-wisp, or whatever. It's really quite fascinating."

Photography

;Fairie-ality series
Ellwand's best-selling fashion books for fairies, Fairie-ality: The Fashion Collection from the House of Ellwand and Fairie‐ality Style, were published by Candlewick Press in 2002 and 2009. The book showcases 150 fashion designs created out of household items, as well as flowers, feathers, leaves, grass, shells, and material found in nature. Fashioned art pieces include dresses, coats, trousers, hats, undergarments, and shoes. The series was so successful that he was asked by Elle Magazine to create a gown for their Christmas issue. Shoe designer Stuart Weitzman, commissioned eight almost-human-sized "fairie" shoes for a window display making the round of his boutiques. In 2003, Madame Alexander dolls created a Fairie-ality doll and trunk set. In 2004, Cedco Publishing manufactured two journals, based on the Fairie-ality series.
;Baby Unique series
;Amazing Baby Series
;Children's books
;Boasting series