I stumbled across and adored Elly MacKay’s art work long before I even knew it was Elly MacKay’s.

A couple of years ago, I decided to create a vision board to help inspire me as I embarked on my new journey towards being a published author. I found a picture of a girl rowing a boat in a magazine and cut it out to use as an inspiration for myself. In other words: like the girl in the picture, I was going to get to my destination, but it was going to require a lot of hard work and take some time.

This is the picture and you can buy your own copy, or another print of Elly’s wonderful work at her Etsy shop. See below for the link. Note: all illustration here are from Elly’s website or Etsy store.

Later, I “met” Elly via SCWBI Canada East and was shocked to discover she was the illustrator of the picture that had provided me with so much comfort and inspiration.

Not only that, I discovered I had other examples of her work in my home: Elly has done the illustrations for Tundra Books’ version of the Anne of Green Gable series (and the Emily of New Moon Series) and I was so in love with them that I bought the set, even though I already had a complete set. Of course, one can never have too many sets of Anne lying around…

In addition to being a talented illustrator, Elly is a wonderful picture book author as well:

I own them all and delight in the wonder she brings to her readers.

There is something exquisite and ethereal about her illustrations, even as the texts themselves are wonderful vignettes about the importance of exploring and loving the natural world around us.

For me, the most wonderful aspect of Elly’s work is the WAY she creates her illustrations. Each picture is a created world, layered illustrations that give the reader a sense of depth and of stepping into another world.

You can read about her process here, but you also need to see it on video:

Her worlds are so compelling you want to crawl right into them and live happily ever after, if only for a few hours.

Once you buy the books, you are probably going to want to buy a print, or two or three. You can do that at Elly’s Etsy Shop, Theater Clouds.

Then go visit her website. Elly’s books are available at Chapters, Amazon and at local bookstores!

Eventually, I will own every book Elly has written or illustrated, and maybe, just maybe, I will get lucky someday and she’ll collaborate with me.

In the meantime, I think she is one of the finest illustrators in the business and I love all of her work!

I’m pretty sure that now you do, too!