Dolores
Avendaño

Harry Potter and
the Philosopher’s Stone

Dolores Avendaño grew up surrounded by magic. She especially remembers the walks through her grandparents’ countryside in Bariloche. “I imagined castles in the mountains. There are some trees that creak in the wind, the coihue, and my mother told us that they are the fairies that open the windows. There was always a bit of fantasy,” she tells Desmarcarte.

The key to the life of this Argentinian of Spanish descent is her dreams. Since she was just a little girl, she knew very well that her future would be linked to the world of illustration. Deep in her childlike soul, she knew that her hands would give free rein to the tremendous imagination that ran through her head, capturing on paper the most diverse magical and fantastic characters, which would delight children and adults alike. 

Her training in Graphic Design at the University of Buenos Aires and subsequent study in Illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design in the US shaped her art, although not without challenges, such as facing discriminatory comments due to her non-native language during her stay in the United States.

After months of an exhaustive and intense search among publishers and clients, the first assignment arrived: On Halloween night , a hardcover, large-format book, fully illustrated, for a major American publisher. “I couldn’t believe it, it was my dream. And I was getting it straight out of university, in my first job,” says Dolores excitedly. “The publisher trusted me completely, they left everything in my hands, the format, the type of illustration, the size... and I decided that the entire book would be illustrated – and double-page! There was so much drawing that there was barely room for the text.” It was her big chance and she had gotten it thanks to her effort and tenacity: “At first the blank page left me totally paralyzed: my first book, from a major publisher and in New York. But it was a brief moment, it didn’t last long, and then what I did was focus on the text, on the work, on the present moment, and my mind automatically forgot about what people would say or not, whether they would like it, whether it was going to be a good book, all that has to be completely set aside, and that’s what my teachers had taught me: the importance of focusing on the process. I did it and the final result came by itself, and I had the enormous satisfaction of having that first book in the windows of all the bookstores in New York and Boston. It even appeared in a scene in the film You’ve Got Mail by Meg Ryan!

Since I was a child I wanted to dedicate myself to illustration. At six years old I looked at the illustrations in children’s books and said : “When I grow up I want to do that.” Seeing the illustrations puts you in that world. I wanted to create those worlds. It came from deep within me. It was a certainty. When I went to study illustration in the United States, after a month of being there, even though the degree lasted four years, two of the three professors recommended that I study something else. It was a very good school, with a very high level. And I didn’t particularly stand out. They told me that the degree was very competitive, that it was going to cost me a lot... But I continued on. Because it was what I always wanted to do, I saw myself doing it. It’s about determination, about the mentality of wanting something despite what others think. Being told something like that can bring you down or it can make you want to prove that you can do it. I always had a very clear idea of ​​what I wanted. I didn’t stand out in sports and, with effort, with training, I was able to do it. I didn’t achieve all of this alone, there were times when I got discouraged, I had doubts, I questioned myself, and others when I felt overwhelmed by a situation, but there were always people who supported me. And that’s very important. The people in your life give meaning to things.

At the end of this first sweet moment, and full of uncertainty about how to keep in touch with the new clients she was starting to have in the US, her visa expired and she was forced to return to Argentina. But as you can guess, this was nothing but a new opportunity to make this illustrator’s work bigger. She began to work with publishers in Argentina, including the local subsidiary of HC, whose parent company in Spain had just bought the rights to the book about a little wizard boy who was starting to make a name for himself in English-speaking countries. On one of her visits to the publisher, the art director offered her to illustrate the cover of that first book, and upon hearing the word “magic” she knew that this job was for her. She had only one week to carry out the assignment—read the book and make the sketch and the original—but nothing stood between Dolores and her dream. It turned out that that little wizard boy was Harry Potter , and that first cover was followed by six others. And JK Rowling’s character began to work her magic in the life of Dolores Avendaño.

It was a chain of events. The first book I illustrated, On Halloween Night, was very important. When I returned to Argentina, I worked for different publishers until Emecé, which had the rights to Harry Potter in Spanish, asked me to illustrate a true story about a criollo horse, called Sufridor, who went from Ushuaia to Alaska. The book was told by the horse, it was for children. When I finished those illustrations, the art director told me about a book about a boy wizard and asked me if I would be interested in doing the cover. I loved the idea and that’s how I started illustrating the Harry Potter books.

I was hooked by the combination of magic and adventure in the story. Each book is a huge adventure. But at the same time, the character has a very notable human side and one can connect with him through illusions. Deep down, we all have this fantasy of doing magic.

Eduardo Ruiz, emecé’s art director, told me the book was about “un chico mago” (a magician boy), he wasn’t known yet as Harry Potter. When emecé was sold, I continued with Salamandra.

They gave it to me because I had just illustrated another book for the publisher and they thought my style was right for Harry Potter . I loved the theme of magic, the story, I was hooked, it was fun, but I didn’t think at all about what was coming. I never imagined the fans’ theme. That they would contact me to ask me what the next cover was like... Fan clubs have done interviews on me. I read the books beforehand, sometimes the publisher tells me what they want me to illustrate, and sometimes they don’t. It gives me freedom. In the case of Harry Potter, they pointed out a scene to me; in general it coincided with the American cover. It was useful for me to read the book to make a counterproposal, to suggest a moment before or after, to give it a personal touch.

Without counting the time that the publisher spends in accepting the sketch or the part doing the colouring, I spend a week or a week and a half. During that time, I’m not constantly working on the cover, that time includes moments of moving away from the picture so I will be able to view it in a more objective way.

At that time, Emecé was the publisher that had the rights and I had already illustrated a book for them, Sufridor . When I handed in the originals, that same day the art director said to me: “Dolores, we have a book here and we need the cover. It’s about a wizard boy, I don’t know if you’re interested.” And I thought: “A wizard boy? I love it! That’s the theme for me, I’ve wanted to do that all my life.” That wizard boy was Harry Potter. But at that time he was just that, a wizard boy. I never imagined being the illustrator of Harry Potter. Life surprises you.

I have worked on Harry Potter covers since ’97 or ’98 (I can’t remember now) Anyway I will be sorry when it is finished. It’s the same when someone reads a good book, you want to finish it, but you are sorry when you finish it. I sincerely don’t know how doing the last book will be.

In the first place, the best is that it is a job I enjoy very much! I already enjoyed it before it was a famous book. And on the other hand, thanks to the interviews that the books have gotten me, I could get sponsors for my runs.

I try to not think about that because it would be impossible to satisfy everybody’s expectations! There would always be someone who won’t like it and someone who will love it.

When they asked me, the books were not yet a publishing boom; I had done the illustrations for another book aimed at children that tells the true story of an American and a Russian who crossed the entire American continent on horseback, and the editors considered that my style was suitable for the covers of all the volumes of JK Rowling’s work.

The opposite example is that of the covers of Harry Potter. My work was totally limited. This has to do with the fact that I illustrated only the covers. I didn’t do any internal illustrations, which I would have loved to do. The other day I was asked what I would love to illustrate and that is exactly it: the interior of Harry Potter. Because I think it is a very rich story. But even though the work is limited to the descriptions that the author of the book makes of the character, if you look at the designs of the covers of Harry Potter in the different language versions, they are all different. Each one has its own style, its own interpretation. The editor also told me which scene to illustrate for the cover.

For the Spanish edition, published in December 1998 by Ediciones Salamandra, illustrator Dolores Avendaño was given only one week by the art director to read the book, illustrate the cover and deliver the cover. She was immediately hooked on the idea of illustrating a book about a ‘magician boy’ and her cover shows an alarmed-looking Harry swooping on his broom for the golden Snitch, as Hogwarts and Fluffy loom in the background, and a unicorn bounds on the shore of the Great Lake. She remembers it fondly:

I did not know Harry Potter yet, nevertheless I felt it was the subject for me and I was very enthusiastic/happy about doing the job. The Art Director asked me to illustrate the same scene as the North American cover, in my own style. Among other details I gave the three-headed dog and the unicorn more visibility, I thought it added a little more magic to the cover.

A boy with disheveled black hair rides a flying broomstick in the middle of the night. His red cape twists in the wind; he moves at full speed. He wears a pair of round, worn glasses, but what stands out most about his appearance is the distinctive scar that the boy sports on his forehead, a scar perfectly shaped like a lightning bolt. That boy is a wizard and his name is Harry Potter. Although he is not the Harry Potter that everyone knows; this is the Harry Potter drawn by Dolores Avendaño, the illustrator of the saga in Spanish.

Dolores had some guidelines: the art director had asked for Harry on the broom, the unicorn and the castle. The most difficult thing was how to aesthetically resolve the image of the protagonist sitting on the broom. After three sketches, the image arrived that, a few months later, would flood the shelves of all the bookstores in the Spanish-speaking world.

When designing the image, she says she always aimed to show key moments from the books and stick to the scenes as they are narrated. In the first volume, at the editor’s request, she included a combination of elements that were not part of any passage. 

Dolores’ creative process goes beyond simply capturing the ideas of an editor or art director. She immerses herself in the scenes, interprets them and, like a magician of images, begins to trace on different papers to superimpose them and shape the desired composition. In her hands rest the Harry Potter originals, witnesses of the journey they made before arriving at her safe house. Among them, one stands out, which was originally going to be the cover of the fourth book, now adorning a wall in Hong Kong, a personal treasure of the illustrator.

In order to work in detail on the different tones, Dolores prefers daylight. In her studio, white predominates and the books on the bookshelf stand out. But the space fills with color when the characters she draws and paints appear. The nature of Loma Verde, like a painting in the window, completes the scene of inspiration.

Did you have any contact with JK Rowling?

No. Only when Warner wanted to unify the covers, after the film had been released. Rowling was the one who approved them and decided that each publisher should continue with their own because the saga already had three books on the market and they were not going to change them at that time. In exchange, we gave up the merchandising rights . The image of Harry Potter is mine, but I cannot market it. Likewise, one day I went to a bakery in Palermo, accompanying a friend who wanted to see a birthday cake for her daughter and they gave us the photo album so we could see the different designs. Turning the pages I saw Harry Potter as a cake. (Laughs)

I had to deliver the Harry cover in a week . That included reading the book, doing the sketches and the original. I felt that it was the book for me.

Several things came together. There was a change in the cover and they asked me to put Harry in the foreground , but I always preferred to show the universe. I also realized that I had an unfulfilled dream, which was to run long distances.

Although he makes some adjustments with the PC, he continues to use the board he used when he was studying Design. “The feeling of the brush in my hand, the ritual, I love it. My choice is to continue working like this,” he adds. On a desk he displays some of his old Harry Potter illustrations: Hagrid, Dumbledore, the dragons appear.

I start to see it as I move forward with the pencil on the paper, only then does it begin to take shape. The illustration is never a faithful copy of what is represented in your imagination, where the features are more diffuse. The finished product is always more complete on paper.