David Wyatt

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cover of Peter Pan in Scarlet by Geraldine McCaughrean

David Wyatt

Peter Pan in Scarlet chapter header, ill. by David Wyatt

David Wyatt (born November 28, 1968) is an English commercial artist. He is the illustrator of the UK edition of Peter Pan in Scarlet by Geraldine McCaughrean, the authorized sequel to Peter and Wendy. He painted the cover and drew the interior silhouettes which decorate the beginning of each chapter, and produced further full-color pages for a more fully-illustrated edition of the book.

Born in Northampton, he was adopted and raised in West Sussex. As a child, he learned to play the piano; however, his interest in reading and drawing combined into a love of comics. At 16, he attended art college in Reading, and obtained his first work doing the occasional page for British comic 2000 AD (including a Future Shock by later-acclaimed writer Neil Gaiman). He signed on for a further year at college, but left just two weeks later. He split his time between menial jobs, his art portfolio, and playing guitar in bands. He created the occasional cover commissions, but was just as keen to make a career in music. After an unsuccessful band tour of Scandinavia, he quit the rock and roll lifestyle and moved to Dartmoor to concentrate on illustration.

Wyatt has worked in most traditional media, but now mainly produce work on an Apple Mac. The Dartmoor landscape provides inspiration; otherwise his ideas come from everywhere - "watching a film, walking round Sydney Opera house, the dog pulling a stupid face; anything." He has illustrated authors including J. R. R. Tolkien, Diana Wynne Jones, Terry Pratchett, Philip Pullman, Terry Deary, and Brian Jacques. Wyatt is the illustrator of Larklight, Starcross, and Mothstorm by Philip Reeve. He has also worked on a number of album covers, computer games, beer labels and stamps.

He now lives in Devon, in an ancient house in a graveyard, with an Australian and a border collie. He is a keen lutist, cyclist and wanderer of the moors.