Stephen Biesty

British illustrator Stephen Biesty was born on 27 January 1961 in Coventry and grew up in Leicestershire. In 1979 he joined Loughborough College of Art and Design where he did an arts foundation course. In 1980 he moved to Brighton Polytechnic to gain a BA Hons in Graphic Design specialising in illustration, focusing on historical and architectural drawings. After graduating from Brighton with a first class degree, Biesty went on to gain an MA in Graphic Design at the City of Birmingham Polytechnic, working further in historical reconstruction.

Stephen Biesty is a master of cross section. Working with Richard Platt, who writes the text for the majority of his books which have covered a wide range of informative cross sections aimed at adults and children all published by Dorling Kindersley, Biesty has found great success. Most notably his 'Incredible Cross Sections' (1992) which is an international bestseller with over one million copies in print worldwide. Biesty took great inspiration from this and continued his partnership with Platt to come out with a rage of cross section books including- Man of War (1993), Castle (1994), Incredible Pop-Up Cross-Sections (1995), Incredible Explosions (1996), Incredible Everything (1997), Incredible Body (1998)and finally Biesty's Absolutely Best Cross Sections Book (1999). In fact since 1999 he has also illustrated the Millennium Dome Pop-up Book(1999), Gold: A Treasure Hunt through Time (Meredith Hooper) (2002), and Rome(Andrew Solway, Stephen Biesty) (2003). Biesty now lives in Somerset with his wife and son. Stephen Biesty uses nothing but paper, pen, ink and water colour paints. He never uses a ruler, drawing everything freehand. This is Stephen Biesty describing his work :

''There's really no end to the amount of detail you can include. I don't use a computer and I don't think I ever will. I draw with a pencil initially and then I work on top of that with ink, usually a Rotring needle-point pen, but sometimes I use a fine brush which gives the line a little variety, a little texture. Then of course I add colour and atmosphere with watercolour washes.''

''I always put figures in. As an illustrator you quickly catch on to the fact that nobody's going to look at it if there's no human interest. When you start including figures, you can begin to create a sense of atmosphere. You can show how people relate to a space and you can explore the realities and practicalities of the place, how people lived, how they adapted to their surroundings, how they slept, how they ate.''