Cliff
Wright
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After the commercial and popular success of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Bloomsbury approached a more experienced British illustrator for the cover of its sequel: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. One day, Sussex-based and Brighton Art College graduated illustrator Cliff Wright received a phone call from Bloomsbury, asking him if he would work for the cover illustrations of a book series about a character named Harry Potter. After accepting the offer, Cliff Wright got a copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, and with little time, used the front cover from Thomas Taylor and some of the scarce character descriptions from J.K. Rowling, and conjured up his own image of Harry that he would illustrate using his own style. Bloomsbury suggested some scenes to Cliff Wright, although they were open to him proposing other ones. But Cliff Wright liked the publisher’s suggestions, so he went along with them. On his early drafts, it can be seen that Cliff Wright initially drew the Ford Anglia flying over a very industrial British setting. It would ultimately be replaced with the countryside setting we all know, with the Hogwarts Express heading to the wizarding school. During the process of drawing the illustration for the cover of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Cliff Wright got to exchange with Bloomsbury and got some insights from J.K. Rowling and her team by fax: he would send some sketches, and get some feedback to adjust some elements. For the car for example, he sent a series of drawings of the car from different angles to see which worked best to give the impression of flying, together with placement of the characters. Although illustrating the characters ended up being quite easy as J.K. Rowling’s descriptions aren’t too detailed, one of Cliff Wright’s challenges was to draw the now famous Weasley family Ford Anglia, as he confessed he had no knowledge of cars at all. As he once said, it was even easier for him to draw Buckbeak the hippogriff on the cover of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban than it was to draw the vehicle on the cover of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets… In the end, the cover illustration of the book as we know it is actually… two different illustrations merged together. Bloomsbury commissioned Cliff Wright to make a drawing of the Ford Anglia with Harry, Ron and Hedwige inside, to be used as a promotional display for bookstores. They either liked the car or the characters better on this drawing than they did on the original one with the Hogwarts Express in the background, so they decided to overlay the Ford Anglia and its occupants on the original art, from which we can still see the British countryside and the Hogwarts Express.
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Drafts revealed by Cliff Wright on his website show two different versions of the Hogwarts Castle drawing on the back cover of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, with two very different architectural styles. One has to remember that the idea of Harry Potter movies was still years away from becoming reality, and Hogwarts as we know it from the movies wasn’t a thing either. The first draft sent by Cliff Wright shows Hogwarts as a very medieval-looking castle that one could imagine knights coming out of. J.K. Rowling’s comment to this drawing was that her Hogwarts Castle is more “shambolically turreted”. This prompted the second design for Hogwarts, which would end up being the one on the back cover, with more turrets coming from random areas of the walls, much more disorganized.
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The original artwork for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, with the car and its occupants only, went on auction at Christie’s in 2001 but was unsuccessful at meeting the reserve price of £30,000. The work has since been acquired by investor Luke Heron on behalf of illustration investment company Storyboard Assets Plc for an undisclosed sum. On July 12, 2012 the illustration was sold at Sotheby’s for £12.500. On April 08, 2015, it was sold at Heritage Auction for $13.750. It is interesting to note that with years, the illustration has lost the brightness of its blue color and looks very much faded now.
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For the cover of the third book, Bloomsbury once again asked Cliff Wright to illustrate. If the composition of this picture isn’t complicated — in Cliff Wright’s own words, simple is often the most effective, he happened to struggle with having to illustrate the hippogriff. In terms of feelings, Cliff Wright confessed he wanted to give a sense of drama, with impending danger: The sense wanted was one of high drama underscored with impending danger. There is trepidation but also bravery on the faces of the characters. The composition supports the mood in several ways and breaks away from traditional compositions - a square format, low viewpoint and the image breaking the edge of the paper all create a sense of drama. The image relies heavily on the movement of the action. The direction of that movement is very obviously diagonally upwards and to the right. So there is an uplifting mood too: scary, but optimistic. Additionally, the direction of the action will hopefully make you the viewer want to go with it and open the book! My working sketches show how I developed the idea that the Hippogriff should dominate the scene, with its head and wings breaking the edge of the paper. A square format is an unusual choice, but it helps to focus on the centralized moon and the two figures breaking the circumference. The background moon is very large and dramatic. The line of its circumference leads you through the Hippogriff’s eye to the main character. The two children are ‘pushed’ towards the top right into a relatively small area of the image. Partially framed by the Hippogriff’s ear and back of its head, Harry’s face is dominant since he is of course the focus of the book. The viewer’s perspective is low which increases the sense of drama. The large area of space underneath the figures also contributes to the idea of movement. Try closing that area down and the image becomes far more static and less dramatic. One challenge with the illustration for the third book is that hippogriffs weren’t so widely famous before they appeared in the movie adaptation. To help with this problem, J.K. Rowling herself faxed an image of what she had in mind when picturing what this fantastic beast looks like. Cliff Wright executed quite many sketches to understand leg movement, for which he used the help of… one of his friends’ horses. After all, isn’t it one of the animals the hippogriff is based on? Some of the adjustments suggested by Bloomsbury and J.K. Rowling based on the sketches from Cliff Wright were to add ears to Buckbeak’s head, along with claws on his front legs, in order to help make it look a bit more menacing, matching the tone of the book. Looking back at the cover for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Cliff Wright confessed he likes some of the sketches better than the final illustration, as it feels more dynamic. In the final drawing, it looks like Buckbeak the hippogriff is not moving quite as fast as he did in some of the rough sketches.
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Cliff Wright’s first sketch for the dog on the back cover was a dog, growling, with his ears down. The feedback he got from Bloomsbury was that the dog in the book is actually much more menacing: “a scary, huge animal”, the dog on the sketch somehow giving the vibe of a “friendly pet”. J.K. Rowling said it looked like a “slightly dangerous Retriever”. They suggested maybe having the dog on all fours, possibly bounding or leaping, definitely “bigger, scarier, shaggier”. The final illustration for the Grim looks more “demonic”, in Cliff Wright’s own words, with a scarier look and mouth.
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After Bloomsbury ended up losing the original front and back cover artwork for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, trust was broken and Cliff Wright refused to illustrate the cover of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. To this day, it is still unknown what happened with the illustrations. Cliff Wright noticed that the interest in his work has increased since working on two of the Harry Potter books, with a positive outcome for him as many Harry Potter fans liked his illustrations. He said he found himself signing Harry Potter covers in places as remote as the mountains of Nepal. It also gave more visibility to his classes, in which he explains his artistic methods to people of all ages.