Jack Andrews

I became fascinated by the world of fairies after visting a fabulous exhibition of Victorian Fairy Paintings at the Royal Academy of Arts in January 1998.

After many years as a graphic designer with a studio in Kent I decided in 2007 to move to Herefordshire to a place close to the borders of Wales. It is difficult not become emmersed in the folklore and legends of this beguiling area. Not far from my home lies Brecon, where you can find a still lake of Arthurian legend from whence emerged the Lady of the Lake. Everywhere you go legends abound, places like Wormelow Tump for instance, where legend has it that King Arthur's son Amyr was burried, unfortunately the Tump was flattened for road widening in 1896.

Soon after moving to my new home I started photographing places that I imagined faeries would dwell and then bringing them into the pictures. I had been taking photos since I was eight, developing my images in a makeshift darkroom which doubled as the familly bathroom, but faerie has added a new dimension. It is a little weird how it didn't take long for them to move in and start taking over.

I use a number of techniques to create my faerie images. Some faeries are created as cgi images (Computer Generated Images), which I then blend into my original photographs using Photoshop. Another technique I use is to draw the faerie then scan the sketch into Photoshop where it is then coloured and refined. I also paint some of the pictures using watercolours, acrylic, pencil or airbrush. Like any creative process it is always an endless round of experimentation.