INTERVIEW with Painter, Artist Peter Andrew Jones
By Alex Ness
December 5, 2025
I remember becoming a fan of Peter Andrew Jones while in University as an undergraduate, seeing the cover of White Dwarf #76. I'd likely seen his work previously, but at this point I decided to both collected White Dwarf for the content, but deeply appreciating the cover art, which captured perfectly, a dark perhaps fantasy image. Taking me to a different land.
All images here are copyright their respective owner, and fair use is the only use by me. Peter Andrew Jones 1980-2025© All rights reserved.
I hereby present my interview with Mr. Peter Andrew Jones:
ALEX: As I am a fan, I could aim towards my favourite works, but let me start with, why did you choose being an artist as your vocation? Was it clearly obvious from the beginning or did you work towards it along with other aims in the beginning? I am aware that aviation held a realm of fascination for you as well, does that often show in the work you do, whatever the genre?
Peter Andrew Jones: As mentioned several times to readers of my magazine, I had zero intention, aspiration, desire or inclination to be an artist, I simply had drawn from a very, very early age as a coping mechanism in response to growing-up in what these days is referred to as "relative poverty" and to entertain myself. Having said that, growing up living in one room with my parents, in a post-war smog-ridden London, there were things to enjoy as distractions. Even on my meagre pocket money I could travel the entire length of London's Underground system which, in those days, worked reliably, and allowed me to visit numerous art galleries, museums, art fairs and more, all for free. Probably, unconsciously, being able to walk up close to Salvadore Dali's works, something that is impossible for young artists in today's world, had an enormous impact on me, indeed, also when visiting the Tate Gallery on most Sundays and sitting in front of John William Waterhouse's giant Lady of Shallot painting was somebtiwng that was very special to me, eventually leading me to recently creating a celebratory piece so many years later as an adult!
Ultimately, the cliche, of having a wonderful helpful art teacher at school who encouraged me to go to art school, was in fact a reality, and so I did, simply because I could see no reason not to.
ALEX: As a working artist, did you intend a path through science fiction, fantasy or otherwise? Was it based upon what you were interested in seeing, or more about being paid to use your significant skills to create:
Peter Andrew Jones: As has also been shown numerous times to readers of my magazine, my introduction to the genre was totally accidental. A very kind visiting lecturer at St. Martins got me an interview with the art editor at Puffin Books and it all took-off from there. She had a need for cover art, and I offered to fulfill it.
ALEX: Going to and graduating from the St. Martins School of Art, you must have sharpened your skills. But as such, were there warning signs for serious artists of what cultural media were less well thought of, by the field? Or did every genre and medium have a place of respect by the education you received, so long as it was treated with seriousness or respect?
Peter Andrew Jones: The subject never crossed my mind, nor was it ever presented to me. In any event, I became so immersed in what I was creating I was too busy to even consider such thoughts. Nor do I still.
I'd read (be it correct or not) that the reason Italian Renaissance Artists began painting on canvas was that because paintings used in Italian Churches were much bigger than those created by Northern Renaissance Artists (because the churches there were smaller) that painting on canvas enabled them to roll the paintings (um, does that actually seem feasible, when it is painted in oil paint?) in order to transport the painting through the entrance doorway.
Regardless of whether it be an accurate account, it does have a logic to it, and it certainly connected with my own "evolutionary experience" when choosing surfaces (or "grounds" as the art world likes to call them) to paint on.
I'd also read that Jan Van Eyck, a northern renaissance Artist, who, as was a favoured technique back then, had a painting that he had executed on a wooden panel, spoilt, when the panel cracked.
Certainly, none of this was a preparation for being a Science Fiction book cover artist!
And that was just the start of what was to transpire . . .
The account about Van Eyck connected with me deeply. As a classic
technique of the day, when I first began experimenting with what method I
was expected to use when creating and supplying images for book covers,
simply proved dangerously unreliable, "dangerous" . . . because if the
demands of the industry were that deadline fidelity was "flexible, but
only up to a point" (to quote Art Editor Doreen Scott at Puffin Books)
then it would be a distinct threat to my reliability if, at the point of
delivery, the painting was badly damaged if the technique employed
failed at the last moment.
The technique I was taught at art school was that of stretching a
sheet of paper on a drawing board using gum-strip to allow the paper to
be worked on, wet, and then it would become flat when the surface,
moistened by the water-based paint I was using, dried out. I would then
cut the paper from the board and use cow gum applied with a spatula to
mount the paper on a sheet of stiff cardboard.
Things needed to change, especially, as my career took off, and demand increased, I could not risk disruptions to workflow.
ALEX: Were some industries easier to work with magazines, books, comics or games? What made such work easier or more difficult? Did compensation help where it was more difficult?
Peter Andrew Jones: Each industry had its own unique environment, but certainly, as my career progressed, and the markets evolved from paperback books to eventually computer games, the entities publishing these items were radically different from each other. Books were a fairly mature market and the people working in it were very experienced and highly professional (which made usefully educating demands on me to also be professional in my response) but as the role-play book industry evolved into computer games things changed dramatically. As it was a totally new market often the people coming into it, as publishers, were often totally inexperienced in running a business and, arrogant though it may sound, I increasingly found myself providing the organisational input needed to bring projects to a final presentation point. Indeed, it was my total frustration with that as it became worse and worse, that lead me to becoming self-published, so I could focus all my creative energies on producing a positive outcome, rather than spending massive amounts of time managing matters that were not actually my responsibility, but needed doing to bring projects to a conclusion.
ALEX: What people, events, cultural experiences would you suggest were the greatest influences upon your work and enjoyment of art? From being a boy who did plastic models and airfix dioramas, did they help you in creating scenes as a professional artist?
Peter Andrew Jones: Those as already mentioned, plus, definitely, teaching myself all the skills needed that enabled me to become self-published, including, but not limited to, teaching myself to hand-code a website when no software existed back then, being the first artist in Britain to run an e-commerce website and absorbing legal skills (copyright knowledge, licensing techniques) business management and so much more . . . . .
ALEX: What media project offered great reward but cost you the most time and hard work to finally achieve it?
Peter Andrew Jones: All and none really, in the sense that, a major part of my career and business success was that I was reliable (something fairly rare in the creative industries then) and so clients trusted me to "just get on with it" which allowed me to effectively manage my own part of any project. Indeed, in the paperback book era of my career publishers in the UK were told by W.H. Smith, then the UK's leading book retailer, that they would "take any book that has a PAJ cover without needing to first see it" and that led to sales reps out on the road not having to show cover proofs of my work to shop owners, thus reducing their workload, and to art directors "just leaving me to it" which also reduced their workload and indeed, mine.
Peter Andrew Jones: Reliability, and organisational ability, equals profit, for all involved. That forged mutually respectful relationships. To quote Brandon Chase at Group One Films in L.A. when I was there working on a film poster for him - "A deal's only as good as the people who make it". Sadly, as time wore-on, and businesses expanded, things changed, and many talented and business-like people were fleeing various industries, especially book publishing and TV industries, because they felt that things were becoming "too corporate" eclipsing the very creativity that they enjoyed and which had originally forged those industries.
For me too, that changed things significantly, simply because so many wonderfully talented and professional people I had worked with were now not there, and as readers of my magazine also know, it got so bad, that one major art director I had worked with many times actually told me "you don't need us any more" when, after a year of him trying to get "senior management" to make a decision about what they wanted on a book cover, used one that I had spontaneously created and supplied because I too had gotten fed up waiting for a decision and . . . . the cover sold so well that "a cheer went up around the room" during a meeting - well, it proved his point, I was taking all the decisions, and responsibilities, and so I thought, I might as well do it entirely for myself, which again, was how I came to be self-published and be able to "just get on with it!".
ALEX: Do you have a favourite work from the near 50 years of artwork? Why is that so?
Peter Andrew Jones: That is very difficult to pin down, if only because I have never stopped to consider it.
ALEX: How much do you think AI will change arts, and will it ever be considered greater than physical and hand drawn, mentally planned, and emotionally constructed art? In the long scheme of time, will AI art even matter?
Peter Andrew Jones: Again, this was, in fact, a major theme in my most recent magazine issue, prompted by a 20 year old artist training to be a computer games artist who contacted me about the current concerns and impact of AI on the creative industries. There is no fundamental answer to the question, because, it depends on who you are and where you are in any particular marketplace, indeed, it was always the case, but these days, it is global in nature, not remotely the same as when I started out, in an era where, again, reliability and mutual respect between key people in key positions "made things work".
ALEX: What is the greatest advice you received when young considering art, and what has been the best advice you've given others?
Peter Andrew Jones: Advice given to me > My art teacher at school, an excellent artist in his own right, once remarked (about making a painting) "sometimes you have to do it wrong, in order for it to look right".
Advice by me > Understand the difference between "supply and demand" and "demand and supply".
Peter
ALEX: Thank you Peter Andrew Jones for your time and thoughts!
FIND Peter Andrew Jones at:
His Self Titled Site
His page at Facebook
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