“Attention is the beginning of devotion.”
I’m Ellen Brown, a science writer and colored-pencil artist based in Duluth, Minnesota. Both sides of my work begin in the same place: curiosity about the natural world and a desire to look closely and really see. Whether I’m drawing a bird or writing about one, I want to understand what makes a bird a bird—and what its life can tell us about ourselves and the larger world we inhabit.
I hold a master’s degree in science writing from Johns Hopkins University and a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies from the University of Minnesota. My background as a science writer shapes the way I approach art. Research and accuracy matter, but so do beauty, story and the sense of recognition that can pass between a viewer and a bird.
About Ellen
Why Birds?
Birds have been part of my life for as long as I can remember. My parents kept feeders outside our family home, and I continued the practice when I had a home of my own. After my mom died, my dad sometimes arrived for a weekend visit carrying a fifty-pound bag of black-oil sunflower seed as a hostess gift.
During the COVID-19 lockdown, my dad entered a nursing home four and a half hours away. I placed a bird feeder outside his window and gave him a copy of Birds of Minnesota. Watching the feeder gave us something immediate and living to share during telephone calls and window visits. When I visited, I refilled his feeder and eventually began replacing broken feeders and filling empty ones outside other residents’ windows, too.
After my dad died during lockdown, I returned to colored pencils—a medium I had loved when I was young and an interest I had shared with my late mother-in-law, whose artwork I had long admired. From my office and studio window, overlooking the feeders in my own yard, I began drawing birds.
The work brought together several strands of my life: science and art, observation and conservation, and the personal meanings birds had come to hold. Drawing them keeps me close to the natural world and to the people I have loved.
Artist’s Statement
I draw birds because they reward attention. A bird glimpsed at a feeder may initially seem familiar, but the longer we look, the more we really see: the structure of a feather, the shift of weight around a delicate foot, the particular intelligence of an eye. My drawings slow that encounter down and invite the viewer to come closer.
Colored pencil is especially suited to this kind of looking. It is a patient, layered medium that allows me to build color and detail gradually while preserving softness and light. In my ongoing Small Birds Collection, I work on toned fine-art paper and on translucent drafting film. When I use drafting film, working on both sides allows me to lift pigment and develop additional depth while keeping the bird itself finely observed.
My background as a science writer shapes every piece. I research the birds I draw, try to observe them in the field, and care deeply about anatomical accuracy and natural history. But these are portraits rather than scientific specimens. I am interested in birds as individual living beings and in the memories, associations, and stories they carry for us.
Conservation is an essential part of the work. I make annual contributions to organizations that protect birds and their habitats, and I contribute original artwork to selected conservation auctions and fundraisers throughout the year. Birds inhabit nearly every ecosystem on Earth; when we protect the places they need, we also protect the larger communities of life those places support.
I hope my work gives people another reason to notice birds, learn their stories, and care about what happens to them.
