Ian Andrew (1962–) Biography

(Ian Peter Andrew)

Personal

Born 1962, in Beckenham, Kent, England; Education: Attended Croydon College of Art; Camberwell, B.A. (with honors); Croydon Intermedia, Certificate in Animation; Royal College of Art, M.A. Hobbies and other interests: Collecting rubber stamps, exhibitions, live music concerts, comedy, cinema, theater, cycling, human rights activities, writing letters, "mysteries and the unknown."

Addresses

Office—300 Fortuneswell, The Isle of Portland, Dorset DT5 1LZ, England.

Career

Freelance animator, London, England, 1989–94; Len Lewis-Shootsey Animation, London, England, illustrator of backgrounds and renderer of models; worked as animator for TVC, Grand Slamm, Stuart Books, Alison de Vere, and Cinexa.

Member

Society of Authors, Association of Illustrators, Institute of Contemporary Arts.

Honors Awards

First Bite Award, Bristol Festival, and Best Newcomer award, Zagreb Animation Festival, 1989, both for film Dolphins; shortlisted for Mother Goose Award, 1996, for The Lion and the Mouse, and for Carnegie Medal, 1999, for The Kin; shortlisted for Kate Greenaway Medal, British Library Association, 2005, for The Boat by Helen Ward.

Illustrator

Amanda Jane Wood, The Lion and the Mouse: An Aesop's Fable, Millbrook Press (Brookfield, CT), 1995.

Julia Derek Parker, The Complete Book of Dreams, Dorling Kindersley (New York, NY), 1995.

Rumer Godden, Premlata and the Festival of Lights, Greenwillow (New York, NY), 1996.

Caroline Repchuk, The Forgotten Garden (based on an idea by Mike Jolley), Millbrook Press (New York, NY), 1997.

Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, adapted by Michael Lawrence, DK Publishing, 1997.

Virginia McKenna, Back to the Blue, Millbrook Press (New York, NY), 1998.

Berlie Doherty, The Midnight Man, Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA), 1998.

Peter Dickinson, The Kin, 4 volumes, Macmillan (London, England), 1998, published in one volume, Putnam (New York, NY), 2003.

Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, adapted by Naia Bray-Moffatt, DK Publishing (New York, NY), 1999.

Michael Morpurgo, Colly's Barn, Mammoth (London, England), 1999, Crabtree Publishing (New York, NY), 2002.

Penelope Lively, In Search of a Homeland: The Story of the Aeneid, Frances Lincoln (London, England), 2001.

Russell Hoban, Jim's Lion, Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA), 2001.

Anna Sewell, Black Beauty: His Grooms and Companions: The Autobiography of London, Kingfisher (New York, NY), 2001.

Joan Aiken, The Scream, Macmillan (London, England), 2002.

Peter Dickinson, The Tears of the Salamander, Macmillan (London, England), 2003.

Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, Templar (Dorking, England), 2003.

Tom Pow, Tell Me One Thing, Dad, Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA), 2004.

Helen Ward, The Boat, Templar (Dorking, England), 2004.

(With Nick Harris and Helen Ward) Egyptology: Search for the Tomb of Osiris: Being the Journal of Miss Emily Sands, November, 1926, Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA), 2004.

Peter Dickinson, The Gift Boat, Macmillan (London, England), 2004.

Also creator of short animation film called Dolphins. Contributor of illustration to Greenpeace Book of Dolphins, 1990; illustrator of books, including Exploring Australia, Exploring China, and Exploring India, all for Belitha Press.

Work in Progress

Illustrations for Waterboy and Piratology: The Bible.

Sidelights

British artist Ian Andrew began his career as an animator, moving into children's-book illustration with 1995's The Lion and the Mouse: An Aesop's Fable. Praising Andrew's black-and-white artwork for this book, a Publishers Weekly reviewer noted that the artist's "gossamer soft" illustrations imbue Aesop's classic text with "visual rhythms often missing from monochromatic art," while Janice Del Negro, writing in Booklist, called the work "rich in tone and intriguing in composition." In addition to providing illustrations for the works of other traditional children's books, such as Anna Sewall's Black Beauty and Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, Andrew has also worked with contemporary writers such as Russell Hoban, Rumer Godden, and Berlie Doherty. His illustrations for The Boat, Helen Ward's retelling of the story of Noah and the ark, was short-listed for the prestigious Kate Greenaway Award in 2005.

Praising Doherty's picture book The Midnight Man, Booklist contributor GraceAnne A. DeCandido dubbed Doherty's story about a boy and his dog who are drawn into dreamland by a mysterious man on horseback a "magical tale." Andrew's "colored-pencil illustrations Andrew's evocative, sensitive illustrations bring new life to a 2001 edition of Anna Sewell's classic children's novel Black Beauty, which was first published in 1877.are the stuff of dreams," noted DeCandido of the companion artwork, while a Publishers Weekly reviewer wrote that the "velvety world" created by the artist reflects the reassuring safety of home, making the dreamworld on "the vast moors at the edge of the world" more threatening by comparison. In Jim's Lion, Hoban's story about a frightened young invalid who fights for his life with the help of an inspiring nurse, Andrew's drawings "perfectly match the gentle, soft tone" of Hoban's story, in the opinion of a Kirkus Reviews writer. The artist's colored pencil and pastel art, in shades of blue, green, and earthy beige, "accentuate[s] the warmth" between the boy and his nurse, a Publishers Weekly writer commented, while in School Library Journal Faith Brautigam wrote that the "breathtaking" illustrations "perfectly match the quiet courage of the boy depicted" in Hoban's story.

As Andrew once told SATA: "It's important to grab opportunities with both hands, which is probably why I was at college for much longer than I intended. I was originally trained as an illustrator, but I found my obsession with animation growing, as I had a desire to work with sound and had always been inspired by film. This transition has always seemed to be a natural one. It was a move that proved invaluable, allowing experi-mentation and thinking on a completely different scale, with total awareness of time, producing hundreds and hundreds of drawings for just a few seconds of screen time. Your drawing becomes looser, and the process opens you to use media you wouldn't have considered before just to save time.

"When I finished at the Royal College of Art, I had completed a short animation called Dolphins. It was inspired by a lone dolphin off the west coast of Ireland in Dingle Bay, where I spent many of my summers during that time. Even though the film is really a study of dolphins in motion, it makes reference to the use of drift nets, which, sadly, cause many to drown when they become entangled. To my delight, Greenpeace saw the film on an animation program and asked to use it as part of a campaign in response to concerns over the status of small cetaceans around the coasts of Britain and Ireland. The Greenpeace vessel Moby Dick visited Cardigan Bay in Wales and Moray Firth in Scotland; these two habitats are home to virtually the entire British semi-resident coastal population of bottlenose dolphins. The tour was used to make people aware, locally and nationally, that there were dolphins in these particular areas and that they were under threat. My liaison with Greenpeace culminated in frames of the film and commissioned illustrations appearing in the Greenpeace Book of Dolphins in 1990.

"In the same year I ventured to Berlin to try to get work on a production of The Little Prince, but it turned out to be a fruitless venture. So I turned my attention to the National Film Board of Canada in Montreal. I went to see the 'pinscreen' housed there. Created by Alexandre Alexieff and Claire Parker, it enables you to animate with light, using hundreds of retractable pins. The quality is just beautiful, and some moments in their films Night on Bare Mountain and The Nose greatly influenced me. I became very aware of the drama achieved in the use of black and white. Someone at Candlewick Press asked me where I found the inspiration for the illustrations in The Midnight Man. I replied that the book grew out of 'my love of black and white films of the 1930s with their use of dramatic lights and shadows.' I try to capture on paper the luminous feel of those films.

"Seeing the pinscreen was a defining moment, and it inspired my black-and-white drawings for The Lion and the Mouse, which were intended for an animated film. I did manage to get them on to film for the Annecy animation festival, but the project was later shelved. That is why I owe so much to Templar and Millbrook Press, who saw the box of black and white drawings, chose the ones they liked, and added a text by Amanda Jane Wood. It was a real gamble for them, and it was my first published picture book.

"So, in full circle in 1996, they came back to me with Back to the Blue. I used the same techniques used in the animated film on dolphins—pencil and pastel. I knew the story well, having followed the jubilation at the closure of the last 'dolphinariums.' It was incredible to be able to work with Virginia McKenna, whose work with Bill Travers through the Born Free Foundation showed unparalleled conviction to saving animals in appalling situations. It was one of the most rewarding projects to be involved with. The publicity was like nothing I'd seen before—celebrities lending their support, attending signings with Virginia, a poster produced with my drawing on it, and quite wonderful feedback, from children especially, but also from readers of all ages—a joyous experience.

"I hope at some point I am destined to renew my acquaintance with such incredible subject matter as the dolphins, with their musicality, their easy sensuality and evident intelligence, but most of all their ability to call our assumed dominion over nature into question."