Mick Ellison

Senior Principal Artist

Email:
mickSPAMFILTER@amnh.org

Mick Ellison studied art at the Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland and received his BFA at the Maryland Institute College of Art. He joined the staff of the American Museum of Natural History in 1990, where he is a scientific illustrator and photographer in the Division of Paleontology.

His work has appeared on the covers of The New York Times, Nature, Science, and Natural History Magazine. Other clients include National Geographic, Time, Newsweek, Discover, IMAX, Nova, BBC and CNN. Mick has also provided illustrations and photographs for a number of books, including Discovering Dinosaurs (Knopf), The Science Times Book of Fossils and Evolution (Lyons), and Unearthing the Dragon (Pi), a book he produced with Dr. Mark Norell about their experiences working together in China.

Dust Spirit

dust_spirit_705w

This image was created by Mick Ellison in Ukhaa Tolgod, Gobi Desert, Mongolia in the summer of 2001. Pictured from left to right: Julia Clarke, Guillermo Rougier, Mark Norell (behind Guillermo), Bonnie Gulas, Jim Clark, and Diego Pol.

"We were digging out an ankylosaur nest that we discovered on the side of a hill. Diego was trying to bury me as I attempted to snap a picture."

Examples of Mick's Work

Gobi Desert at Dusk
Oviraptor Fossil
Fossil Lizard
Fossilized Dinosaur Eggs
Crow Illustration
The fossilized skeleton of a baby Protoceratops dinosaur on a small round stone slab.
Illustration by Museum artist Mick Ellison of a Warbler Finch on a branch beneath a musical score
E. andrewsi
Hand-drawn color illustrations of the heads of two Oviraptorid dinosaurs.
Museum artist Mick Ellison's drawing of the first feathered dinosaur found in China, Sinosauropteryx, as it might have looked in life
Microraptor
A drawing of a person with straight dark shoulder length hair and a light colored shirt titled, “Pencil sketch of Indian girl.”
Thunder Clouds Over Gobi
Upper Irrawaddy River, Myanmar
Old Man in Chinese Rural Village
Northern Flicker
A pencil sketch of a woman in profile.
Reconstruction and fossil of a small dinosaur
Reconstruction and fossil of a small dinosaur
Illustration of 2 fossil crayfish by artist Mick Ellison
west-lake hangzhou kiosk
Sinornithosaurus slab
Fossil Spider
Child holds two fossil specimens in their outstretched hands.
   

Education

B.F.A. Maryland Institute College of Art, 1987