Jim
Kay
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
I was a freelance illustrator initially straight after leaving the University of Westminster way back in 1997, blimey that’s 24 years ago. I worked in magazines mostly, very quick turnaround. Usually I got the call late afternoon and the work had to be done by the next day. Back then you had to shoot your work onto color slide; so I would create the illustration in a few hours, get the last tube into London and drop my work off at a place called ‘Joe’s Basement’ where they would photograph it for me. I’d take the color 35mm slide over to the publishers, drop it off, and get the night bus home. Days before digital folks! I simply couldn’t make a living just off illustration though, so I worked in a hospital for a few years, did all sorts of jobs actually to make ends meet. Pretty much gave up on illustration for over a decade, moving from job to job. I worked for a few years at the Tate Gallery in London, then a few more at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. I eventually did a solo exhibition in a London gallery thanks to encouragement from a very kind curator, and started to get dribs and drabs of work from there. It still took many years of scratching a living in different jobs and support from my partner until A Monster Calls came along and I was able to work on illustration full time.
Scientists say the Big Bang is to be followed by the Big Crunch. I feel I have first hand experience of this theory, for hearing the news that I’d got the commission was an explosion of delight, followed instantly by an implosion of brain-freezing terror. From my point of view it is, without doubt, the best commission you can be given - I’m a bit of a control freak, so to be given the opportunity to design the characters, the clothing the architecture and landscapes to possibly the most expansive fantasy world in children’s literature, well lets just say I’m extremely excited about it. However, I am also mindful of the huge responsibility this represents, I just want to make sure I do the best job I possibly can.
When Harry Potter was offered Louise started to help me full time, and not long after that we formed the Limited Company as it made life much easier in terms of accounting and organisation. We were both working on Potter, and Louise has largely been helping me out ever since, which has sadly meant that she hasn’t had a chance to do much of her own work for a long time. I haven’t drawn anything for myself in over 10 years now.
There was a fantastic General Art and Design course (and still is) in Mansfield where I grew up. This was the first time I had a go at printing, fabric design, sculpture, ceramics. It was all really new and exciting to me. The lecturers made all the difference too, they were passionate, enthusiastic; and many were active practitioners of the arts too, working on their own little exhibitions and projects. After that it was an Illustration degree at the University of Westminster in north-west London. Made some wonderful friends there, still chat every day.
My agent just rang up one day and said, “Are you sitting down? Harry Potter. Seven books. What do you think?” At first I wasn’t sure because I’m a big fan of the films. But I thought, “Gosh, I can design everything: the costumes, the architecture, the people, the creatures.” That’s a dream commission.
I didn’t sleep for months. I was just terrified. I used to get terrible shakes when I was drawing. Normally, in publishing, you work on a book that no one’s read before, unless it’s a classic, like Alice in Wonderland or Peter Pan. But everybody’s read Harry Potter, and everybody has an opinion on it as well. But you don’t get in the ring without expecting a few punches, so you have to brace yourself for those.
We’ll see what happens when the book comes out. I don’t think, “Oh, how can I please everybody?” You just think, “How can I please the author?” That’s all you can do: Please the author, and please yourself. Then if other people like it, that’ll be a bonus.
[The publisher] Bloomsbury was very open-minded, so I started just by drawing and drawing. There were no demands, no “You’ve got to have this scene!” I envy illustrators with a lovely, consistent style, but I change styles like I change my pants. So there’s oils in there, acrylics, watercolor, digital coloring. Things that weren’t necessarily supposed to be in the book got in: the architectural studies, the insects, the leaves. There’s an illustration of a cat in the front door of Hogwarts at night—that was a concept drawing that ended up in there.
There’s a lot of art in the book, and with incredible detail.
I would notice blank spaces and think, “Oh, I could fit an illustration in there.” At the beginning we were saying, “Well, this is going to be about atmosphere, with hints of detail every now and again.” And then I would sit and draw every shop in Diagon Alley. In the books there are lots of gaps between the shops in Diagon Alley, so I said, “Do you mind if I fill the gaps?” Very good of the author to let me fiddle about and add bits and pieces.
I’m always trying to find a style. I don’t think I have a style, and I desperately want one. I envy all these illustrators that have a lovely, consistent style. But I sort of chance styles like I change my pants! Just because I like trying different things. So there’s oils in there, there’s acrylics, watercolor paper, there’s a bit of print. Everything, drawing, digital coloring, everything. Just because I get bored really quickly, so I like to try different things.
Then I work with models: I’ve always done it, ever since I was a little kid. I used to make things out of Lego and draw it. For me, it’s getting my head around three-dimensional objects, which is always difficult when you’re drawing. For the cover, I made a train out of cardboard and foamboard. It’s very quick – you only spend a few minutes on them.
I do have a plastine and paper model of Hogwarts, too, and that took a couple of hours. But I can’t spend too long because I’ve got so many illustrations to do. It takes me five or six attempts on each one, so if you have a hundred illustrations in book, you have 500 or 600 images you’re working on. Models are just great because you can light them as well, and I love playing around with lighting. I tend to think of illustrations as little film sets, so I’ll set up people, and then I’ll change the lighting and the camera angle.
Yeah. [Then] I went to work in museums and libraries, and didn’t draw for about 10 or 11 years. I think I started [again] when I was moaning about an artist that had gotten an exhibition, and a friend of mine said, “You know, you’ve got no right to complain about this, because at least this artist is doing it. This artist is trying, and it’s really hard. It’s really hard to keep putting yourself out there and to raise the money to do this, and to put on exhibitions.” She was right. So I started drawing in the evenings and just went from there.
I did a solo exhibition, then I got some publishing jobs from that, and then it sort of grew from there. I got A Monster Calls, the Patrick Ness book, and little bits and pieces: concept work for television, stuff like that. It hadn’t been a great deal until Harry Potter came along, which is why it was slightly daunting, because I’d not really drawn children before.
They’re really hard to draw, because you know, you age them. With just two lines, you can age a child five years if you put the lines in the wrong places. If this were a one-off book, I probably wouldn’t have done it, but as it’s a series, I thought it’d be best to find real children that I can follow and track how they physically change throughout the seven-year period. It’s just a way of getting past the technical problems of drawing a child that ages over seven books.
The text is absolute king. It’s the most important thing, and you have to remind yourself, as an illustrator, to do this, because once you start scribbling and drawing, you can very easily wander off-script. You have to constantly remind yourself to go back, and keep checking what the author’s put. The surprising thing is that actually Jo puts very little physical description for the characters, which is nice. It gets the reader to formulate their own idea.
So I will check through all seven books, every description of every character. The same for everything: The architecture, the villages. I have this sort of bible, as it were, of descriptions of characters, and I keep referring to that. Then I had to cast the book, effectively in the same way that you cast a film.
There are a lot of portraits in book one because that’s me saying, “These are my characters, this is how I see them.” What you have to do, if you want to distance yourself from a very, very successful film franchise and try and make it your own, you have to say, “Well this is the world I’m creating.” So in book 1 and book 2, there are a few static portraits, just to put down the face of the characters.
When I started working on Harry Potter I barely slept for the first year worrying about what people would want or expect, but the stress of it almost gave me a breakdown. You simply cannot work like that, because second guessing pulls you away from what is important, and that is your emotional, and very personal, response to the text. You have to then try and do the best you can to please yourself (almost impossible for illustrators, as I mentioned before), and secondly try and do your best by the author. I think if you really care about what you do, if you try hard to do the author’s words justice, then that’s the best starting point. If other people like it, then of course it’s a bonus. I think it shows when you try and please everyone, it loses something - believability perhaps.
It sounds obvious but you start with the text. The story is everything, and so I want to bring what I can to really show the depth of Rowling’s stories, to their best. Then it’s a case of research, and lots of it. The books have made me look at people differently, I’m always scanning crowds for interesting faces. For an illustrator there’s no such thing as an ugly or odd looking person - they are all interesting. Luckily for me, Kettering is home to some very interesting people indeed. Museums and libraries are my favourite places for inspiration. You might see something, it could be a medieval shoe, an old clock, or a stuffed monkey and immediately it gives you ideas about the characters in the story, the things they would do, the way they walk. The tricky thing I’ve found is my annoying habit of reining in the more fantastical elements of my sketches when working them up, it’s taken a while for it to sink in that for this commission I can go a little bit crazy. Above my desk, the words ‘It’s Fantasy, Stupid” are now a daily reminder to have a bit of fun.
I read the book, then read it again and again, making notes. You start off with lots of little ideas, and draw a tiny thumbnail illustration, about the size of a postage stamp, to remind you of the idea for an illustration you had while reading the book. I then start to draw them a little bigger, about postcard size, and show them to Bloomsbury. We then think about how many illustrations will appear in each chapter, and try to get the balance of the book right by moving pictures around, dropping or adding these rough drawings as we go. With Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone Bloomsbury were great in that they let me try all sorts of things out, different styles, concepts. Some I didn’t think would get into the final book, but everyone was very open to new ideas. There was no definite plan with regards to how the book would look; we just experimented and let it evolve.
KAY: So, for example, the cover illustration, which is also a double-page illustration inside the book, that features Harry Potter on platform 9 3/4.
KAY: And it’s seen from above. You can see the train, the steam and lots of people moving about. And Diagon Alley, I filled the gaps between the shops that are described in the stories, which, again, I thought might be bit cheeky because, you know (laughter) I’m creating things for the “Harry Potter” world. Usually, when you illustrate a book, you’re working on something that nobody’s read before. But of course, I’ll be working on one of the most well-known and well-loved children’s book series in the history of children’s books, which is terrifying.
For book 1, we thought it would take 6 months to do each one. It took 2 and a half years to do book 1 – working 7 days a week, at least 12 hours a day.
I use this big ring binder the publisher made, called the Harry Potter Bible, which lists all the mentions of everything—from color, to clothing, to sweets, to magic, to food, to every single spell, to every single book published in the wizarding world. The descriptions of the characters are very meager. It’s usually the same repeating key words.
This whole illustrated edition is brimming with bits and pieces of Jim’s life. He’s infused J.K. Rowling’s stories with fragments of his own world and I suddenly want to hear the origin story of every single painted inch.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
After book one, I had four days off and then we went straight into book two. During book three, I was an absolute wreck. It’s been self-imposed stress, I must say. No one was giving me any pressure, I just really struggled with getting it right. I can’t imagine what Jo [aka J.K. Rowling] must have gone through, because I experienced a tiny fraction of what she did. And I do love it. The minute I finish one book, I can’t wait to start the next one, even after it’s nearly killed me. I can’t explain it.
Chamber of Secrets cover laid flat, and with the original slightly darker sky. I hid a green giant in there too, as a nod to A Monster Calls.
The endpaper illustration for Chamber of Secrets, showing greenhouse no. 1. Our dog Leroy can be seen lower left corner (he passed away while I was painting this), and our friendly blackbird Ted is also in the picture.
Which book do you think will be the most challenging one to illustrate? (Harry Potter’s Page) At the minute it’s book two! I think book one I was full of adrenaline, driven by sheer terror! Book two I want to have a different feel, and that makes it challenging to start again and rethink the process.
“Book one was over two years in the making,” Jim Kay tells me, “but for book two we had a few months. So I mocked up a little book of the final illustrated version, full of all the things I wanted to see. Time was the limiting factor, so I only had the chance of executing 50% of what I had originally planned. I would say no illustrated book is ever ‘finished’, you just run out of time.”
Like Kay’s illustrative approach to the first Potter story, this second book contains illustrations in many different mediums; from pencil sketches to gouache and watercolour. And the art historical and natural history references abound: the mandrake page that hints at a Leonardo sketch, the playful references to natural history species guides. All this stems from a love of books and nature for Kay.
“I love books. My bedroom as a small boy contained a bookcase creaking with huge encyclopaedias on natural history, and my life since then has been working around books, from the Tate Archives to the library at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. So for me, it’s just a continuation of that really. I think fantasy works when you keep it grounded in reality, and I want to give the creatures that populate Potter the feel of authenticity, by describing them in detail in scientific plates and footnotes.”
“I had to really hold back on the darkness for these first two books, I know in my head exactly what the Deathly Hallows will look like, so I’m trying to build slowly up to that – you need to leave yourself somewhere to go. Also, you don’t want to scare young readers from these wonderful stories.”
Then we went straight into book 2 and had 8 months, because the first one took so long. It was really intense. By the end of book 3 I was burned out and hallucinating.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
The break between book 3 and book 4 has meant I’ve been able to subjectively step back and reflect on the project. It does occupy every hour of every day, but because you want to do the best you can, there is a lot of pressure. It’s funny what you put yourself through.
It took a while but Goblet is in the bag; four down, three to go. As usual there are things that didn’t make the book that I really wanted to. It’s the curse of every illustrator that a book is never finished, you just run out of time. I’ve been out and about researching for the Order of the Phoenix last week, with trips to Great Dixter and Ightham Mote in the South of England. Have a look! (Ightham Mote). I’m going to try and make the next book a bit more ‘me’. It’s been a huge strain working outside my comfort range for the last six years, so hopefully I will get the courage to be a bit more expressive and push the visuals in a darker direction. I think it would suit the text.
I’d forgotten just how rough a time Harry has in the Order, not a happy year by any stretch. It’s a bleak story to match our bleak times, perhaps. I’ll be glad to throw myself into this book, anything to avoid the news right now. Louise and I are on Instagram don’t forget, get on there and make recommendations about what you want to see in the forthcoming Order of the Phoenix book @creepyscrawlers
Looks like we might be moving to the South Coast soon, by the way... fingers crossed.
The full dust jacket cover for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. This was done in a week, which was a tad stressful. We tried so many different covers, the one I was most fond of was the Beauxbatons carriage, but it didn’t feature Harry, which was a bit of a problem. Painted using watercolour and wall paint tester pots. I would have loved another week on it ideally. You never finish an illustration, you just run out of time.
For the last few years award-winning illustrator Jim Kay has spent his time working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week to reimagine the wizarding world in illustrated form. His work is the star of Bloomsbury’s new illustrated editions of the Harry Potter books, which have earned him recognition from all over the world.
With books 1 to 3 published, Jim is currently hard at work on the 4th, The Goblet of Fire. The detail and passion that sits within the pages becomes fully realized when talking to Jim, who is dedicated to finishing all 7 books. He has inspired a new generation of readers through his work, and reminded original fans how truly magical the world J.K. Rowling created 20 years ago still is.
The trickiest cover is the one I’m working on now. Amazing things happen in the three tasks Harry is set in Goblet of Fire, but it’s how they sit on the cover. How do you physically compose them? It’s going to take a few cover meetings to get there.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
I know – it’s super late coming out. It looks like it might emerge in 2022 now. As I’m writing this the owl is hooting outside, it’s deep midwinter and the ground is locked in ice. I’m currently working flat out trying to get this finished. It’s a whopping book, and the scale of it will probably limit the number of illustrations that can appear. The text, as I understand it, will be very slightly reduced in size, but there’s no way of avoiding the fact this will be a heavy book. One of the problems is that there’s SO MUCH I wasn’t to illustrate in this book, I’m spoilt for choice, but it’s great that this is a slightly darker book, and the children are getting older. This is getting more into my comfort zone now. I really struggled with the first two books.
It’s strange that when I started illustrating Phoenix I was living 160 miles away in Northamptonshire, and the world had never heard of Covid19. I’ve received messages from a number of illustrators and particularly illustration students that are struggling right now with the isolation. I really feel for those in education as this is not the way you imagine spending your college/university life. One of the most frequently asked questions from students is ‘how do you get motivated to work?’. All I can say is that for myself, I had to go back to what made me want to draw, what made me itching to get down to scribbling ideas. It was seeing people actually in the act of creating something I found inspiring. As a student working in a studio with others – that was easy, but once I was freelance and sat on my own at home, I turned to various ‘making of’ books, blogs, and DVD extras. It’s the closest I can get in lockdown to that ‘studio’ feel, watching people muddle through the creative process. The internet has proven really helpful for this too. I’m desperately trying to improve my skills all the time, there’s so much to learn. I still haven’t a clue how to go about using watercolour or apply colour theory, but i’m trying to learn during this weird period of lockdown
Publishing has, in general, been ticking along ok during the pandemic, and people have found escape through reading, which is one positive we can cling to. Meanwhile I will do my best to get this book wrapped up, and I am very grateful for your patience, and for the patience of the publisher Bloomsbury, who always support me when I have a wobble. J
Jim Kay says: ‘Illustrating Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was always going to be a challenge; the scale of the book meant for a huge variety of characters and locations to choose from. It was a great privilege to have Neil Packer helping with this daunting task. As a fan of his work it was wonderful to see his illustrations appear in the text, and so nice to be working with him in the team. He is perfect for Potter.’
HP5: Here we go, here we go, here we go! This is a BIG book. Here’s hoping this year will be a little bit less eventful than last. I want to send a special hello to anyone out there with bipolar disorder. In particular to their friends and loved ones, where would we be without your patience. Difficult to put into words what it puts you through on a daily basis. Anyway, looking forward to this. Been waiting SO long to get to do the Thestrals. Any key moments you are expecting to see folks? I love Potter
Harry Potter
‘Harry was the last one I found, actually. I spotted him on the London Underground. He was hanging from the tube bars like a monkey and he had his mum with him, so I said, “This might be a bit strange, but your son has a fantastic character.”’
It wasn’t until much later, Jim tells me, that he could tell this little boy and his mother that he was the inspiration for Harry Potter. This book was a highly confidential project at the time, so any strangers Jim used for models had to come on board without knowing who they were playing. A similar thing happened with the real-life man Jim chose to be Hagrid.
I was looking at all these photographs of evacuee children from the 1940s — in England, you’d call them “blitz kids” — who have been taken away from their home during the blitz. They had sort of thick, scruffy hair, and round glasses, and looked sort of underfed and malnourished, from really tough East End parts of London as well. I wanted that real character coming through, some adversity. But also slightly fragile, because he’s thin, and he’s smaller than usual.
So I was on the London Underground, and I saw a young boy hanging from the bars in the tube train. His mom was with him, and I just said, “This might sound really odd, but I think your boy’s got a great look to him, and I illustrate children’s books. I’m looking for a young male character to work from.” Luckily, his mum was very good with this sort of thing because her son, Clay, is a stage performer. He’s very used to acting and performing and things like that, which has been great.
Which character was the most difficult to draw? (Harry Potter’s Page) Harry, without a doubt. Children are difficult to draw because you can’t use too many lines around the eyes and face, otherwise they look old. One misplaced pencil line can age a child by years, so you have to get it just right. Also Harry’s glasses are supposed to look repaired and bent out of shape, which I’ve found tricky to get right.
I still don’t think I’ve got Harry right. Everyone has their own idea of what Harry should look like. For me, it was a Blitz kid during World War II. There are photographs of these lost-looking, scruffy young children with thick glasses being put on trains to safer parts of Britain while the Blitz was falling on London. The model I use for Harry is a young boy I saw travelling with his mum on the London underground one day. He just looked different—he has very large eyes and is quite striking. I didn’t want a stereotypical handsome young child. I was searching for someone a bit more charismatic and strange-looking, because Harry is sort of caught between two worlds.
Harry is by far the most difficult character to draw, frustratingly. Partly because of the glasses, which tend to cut through his eyes at certain angles and rob him of expression. Children are the hardest thing to draw. You put a line out of place and you’ve aged a child by about ten years. In that portrait, Harry looks quite vulnerable, whereas now that he’s older I’m hoping to give him more purpose and a stronger stare because he’s been through a bit more.
Hermione Granger
‘Hermione is completely based on my niece. She’s ever so sweet,’ he says, moving his hands around like they’re a little bit lost without a pencil.
‘To me she is Hermione: studious and slightly, well, not quite aloof, but she tends to tell me off a lot when she sees me. She’s constantly saying I’m not behaving properly, so the character’s exactly right.’
First, squint a little at the intricate etchings on the wall and door behind Hermione. Jim has snuck his friends’ names in there amongst others. Every detail is something Jim has seen and collected in sketch books over the years. That’s what fascinates me most; he spends his life plucking images out of what he sees and stores them up for the right illustration.
‘The graffiti was partly inspired by the Tower of London, where prisoners were held in these tiny, dank, miserable cells,’ he says.
‘The one thing they had was time, so they made these beautiful, poignant carvings in the walls. So there’s that, but also I used to live in Harrow and I used to walk past this one wall at a famous boys’ school there every day. The boys had carved their names into the wooden panels over the years, including Lord Byron and Winston Churchill. It was literally just two weeks ago that I found out they actually filmed some of Harry Potter there. I had no idea – to me it was just a wall I liked back in 1992.
‘The door itself is from a lovely old church that I visited once in Suffolk. When you’re travelling around, you make quick notes and think, “I want to use that one day.” It might sit in that sketch book for 10 or 20 years before you use it. Finally, I got the chance to use that door and the graffiti.’
I read that your niece inspired Hermione. Yeah — she’s smart, but she’s also slightly bossy. She’s wonderful. She’s more of an adult than I am. I’m always messing about, and she’s always correcting me. I think she’s perfect for Hermione, very sensible, and very embarrassed on my behalf all the time. Even walking down the street with her, I think I embarrass her.
You have to admire Hermione, because she puts the hours in at the library, she’s the cement really that holds it all together, well, it would be a different story without her
Ron Weasley
Ron Weasley: Study of Duncan, prep work for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. His face wasn’t quite right, but looking back I enjoyed working on these little studies.
His mum was a librarian at a school where I was giving a talk, so I met his mum, and I saw her son come in, and I just knew straightaway. He’s got great character, and he’s a really nice lad as well. He doesn’t have red hair, but it’s not so much that that I’m after, it’s just the way they walk about, the way they chat, you know. He’s got a very good sense of humor.
Ginny Weasley
Ginny Weasley, from Goblet of Fire. The model I use for Ginny is the sister of the model I use for Ron, and their mum is the model for Molly Weasley. So it’s a real family behind the Weasley paintings. I’m sorry I haven’t posted much, I’ve been battered by depression these last few months, and despite working non stop have produced practically nothing for The Order of the Phoenix. A minor miracle is now required to get this book done. Never mind, chin up, you keep going. X
I based her on my niece. It gets even funnier with the Weasley family: Molly, the mother, is based on an acquaintance. And two of Molly’s seven children look like the woman’s two real children. For me, illustrating based on real models has two decisive advantages: I have a real model, and I can observe the characters aging in reality. That’s important, because the seven Potter books cover a long period of time. I still have three to go.
Neville Longbottom
I have a soft spot for Neville, particularly because of his awkwardness,
Albus Dumbledore
I flick to a picture of Albus Dumbledore wearing purple robes and ask Jim to pick apart the inspiration for me.
‘Dumbledore is based on a friend who lives on the other side of the world,’ he says. ‘He was extremely kind. He’d seen my original sketches and posed in the same positions as those and sent me these wonderful photographs. Then I would wear this sort-of purple, reflective outfit and sit in front of a mirror to get the lighting and shade right.’
Just imagine it. Imagine Jim sitting in a room on his own, dressed as a wizard, trying to fuse his own reflection with photographs of a bearded friend to get Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore just right. Then we’ll get to the significance of that praying mantis on the right.
‘I like symbolism in paintings,’ Jim says, and a rogue piece of trivia I didn’t know I knew comes to the front of my mind. The word ‘mantis’ means ‘prophet’ and it’s traditionally supposed to be a symbol of patience, intuition and wisdom.
‘There’s a praying mantis in there because to me Dumbledore is honesty. He’s honest and wise, but there’s always a catch to his honesty because he holds information back, too. Then there are Sherbet Lemons, but that’s just because he likes Sherbet Lemons. He wrote a book on dragon’s blood, so that’s in there too. The vase is a real vase that I saw at the Metropolitan Museum in New York many, many years ago. There’s no real connection there, I’d just seen it and liked it.’
So a series of old images showing the process of making dumbledore, including the rough, an embarrassing picture of me modelling, also the old art college trick of covering your board with the worst colour you can find in order to make you work quickly and cover it up! Plus the honesty plant I used. I always felt the final image lacked the ‘twinkle in the eye’ of the rough.
There’s a painter that was active in England in Henry the Eighth’s court called Holbein, and he’d do these beautiful oil portraits of very wealthy members of the court. What I like about early portrait painting is that you often have images, objects that are representative of that person’s trade or character.
So in Dumbledore’s portrait, the dried plant there is honesty, but on the honesty is also a little camouflaged praying mantis insect. It’s saying there is honesty, but with a catch, with Dumbledore. There’s also a little bottle of dragon’s blood, because he wrote a book on dragon’s blood when he was younger. There’s knitting, of course, because he likes to knit.
He’s based on an illustrator I know, who I absolutely idolize. He’s been an inspiration for years for me, so it’s a huge big deal for me that he’s lent his face to Dumbledore.
Dumbledore is one of the richest and most complex characters in the series. What do you see in the headmaster that you try to put into your drawings of him? I haven’t shown Dumbledore much, which is frustrating because the gentleman I use as a model for him is wonderful. I’m looking forward to the later books, which have a lot more Dumbledore action. There’s a bit of symbolism in his portrait from The Philosopher’s Stone. The plant in the jar is called honesty in Britain because it’s transparent, but in Denmark it’s called The Coins of Judas, which is about dishonesty.
For me, there are two things going on with Dumbledore. I’m interested in his dynamic of being an extremely powerful wizard who has the possibility of doing dangerous things, but also this very humble, idiosyncratic, kindly old man figure. He has familiar echoes of stories like The Silver Sword, and there’s a bit of Gandalf and Merlin in him. Dumbledore is both familiar and difficult to read, and that’s why I like him. He sits perfectly in the Potter world.
Rubeus Hagrid
‘When I first saw Hagrid, or I should say a guy like Hagrid, walking through town, he was this big, old guy with a beard wearing a heavy metal t-shirt. He looked terrifying but he was actually so sweet. A real gentle giant, like Hagrid. Actually, giants are my favourite thing to draw.’
He swivels the book on the table slightly towards him, finds this image of Hagrid, and swivels it back to me. ‘I love illustrating giants because it makes you as an adult feel like a child again, looking up at someone. When you’re a boy, you spend so much of your life looking up at people. As an adult, I’m looking up at Hagrid in the same sort of way, you’re thinking of Hagrid as a child would think of an adult. I like that.’
Like the other pictures, this one of Hagrid is a pastiche of things Jim has seen before.
‘There’s a band called the Weird Sisters who play at Hogwarts, so they’re the initials on the scarf he’s wearing. J.K. Rowling said once that Hagrid is almost like a biker and so I thought he might like rock music. There was a caretaker at my school who had on his belt things that children had given him. So I thought it’d be nice for Hagrid to have that. He’s got badges students gave him and that little space monkey on his belt buckle. That buckle, you’ll notice, is as big as his head. That’s the forced perspective I work with for giants. I like the sense of scale and the mass.’
Jim doesn’t just guess at scale, though. He’s more meticulous with his craft than that. Jim builds little models of every character with Plasticine and places them gently in his cardboard Hogwarts so he can test out the way the light hits each one at different times of day. To get Hagrid right, he lined up a set of those little plastic army solider toys to represent the kids at Hogwarts and then built his own Hagrid figurine to the right scale.
‘I arrange them all like they’re in a tiny toy theatre. That helps me,’ he says. ‘You imagine if you were filming it, where you would put the camera. It’s different for every illustrator but I need something tangible in front of me.’
This is the original pencil drawing of the final version of Hagrid for Harry Potter. I think this dates from 2014. I kept the asymmetric smile and alcoholic gaze (based on the eyes of Churchill). Hagrid was a pleasure to draw but tiring on the hand - all that hair! I guess this is the last Harry Potter image I will post. All good things must come to an end. I wish my successor the very best. It’s a privilege to work on Potter with Bloomsbury, and I can’t wait to see what they do, I know it will be wonderful!
Visually, though, it has to be Hagrid; he’s got a wonderful heart, clothed in an enormous, shabby body.
While designing Hagrid I looked at the eyes of different alcoholics, both locally and through history. I was fascinated with Luke Kelly’s face, from The Dubliners, but eventually settled on the eyes of Winston Churchill, and the nose of somebody I saw in my local town.
I like giants, especially Hagrid. He’s heavy and covered in hair so you just scribble and it looks good. Also the proportions of Hagrid to a human is almost like being a child again because you’re looking up at him.
Severus Snape
Portrait of Severus Snape from the illustrated Potters. Based on our lovely friend David, who has really striking features. I looked at a lot of Elizabethan portraits regarding the arrangement of fingers and hands. Very hard to find the meaning behind the symbolism in Elizabethan portraiture, I’m sure it overlaps to some degree with that commonly used in Judeo-Christian works.
I want to know more about Severus, there’s so much depth there.
By a remarkable stroke of luck his [Lockhart’s] partner is perfect for Snape, and I mean perfect, even the voice. I think of all the images I’ve worked on, painting Snape for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban has been my favourite so far.”
The wizard Severus Snape in my illustrations is based on my good friend David. I thought he was a perfect visual fit for the character of Snape, especially because of his deeply sad eyes. Now I always see David when I see Snape, and no longer Alan Rickman, who played him in the film adaptations.
His portrait of Severus Snape is loaded with symbolism, including scissors representing the spell Sectumsempra, a mole inside a jar representing Snape’s tragic narrative trajectory, and a lily of the valley representing, of course, James. Just kidding, it represents Lily.
Remus Lupin
Prof. Lupin from Prisoner of Azkaban, illustration by Jim Kay. The Moon was a recurring motif throughout the book.
Lupin is only covered briefly in book three, but he’s a really great, tricky character. There’s a sort of sadness in him that hopefully comes across in his portrait. Sirius is more rock ‘n’ roll, edgy, and dangerous. He’s an outsider, partly because of his character, but also because he spends so much time as an animal to stay hidden. I used to own a very large dog, and I just love drawing dogs, full stop, so that’s been handy. It’s people that are difficult to draw.
Gilderoy Lockhart
I have a friend who’s quite dishy with a winning smile, and so he was the obvious choice for Lockhart.
Nearly-Headless Nick
An old illustration from Book 1, Nearly Headless Nick. Executed in red watercolour in negative (so highlights painted dark, shadows left white), then digitally reversed. Look forward to doing him again in the future. Sorry I’ve been quiet, this latest book has broken me somewhat.
Dudley Dursley
My Dudley Dursley, actually, he was a lovely rotund boy when I met him,” said Kay. “He’s now lost loads of weight.
Hogwarts
It certainly didn’t occur to me that someone like Jim might build a replica model of Hogwarts castle out of cardboard and Plasticine, but we’ll get to that.
Jim is ‘full-time Harry Potter’ as he puts it – and that’s why he’s been hoarding cardboard tubes and toilet rolls for years. He’s cleared out his attic so he can build a bigger scale Hogwarts there, not that he has the time. He’s got six of the Harry Potter books left to illustrate and each one is all-consuming. Just think of all the characters left for Jim to find among his family, on trains, in the street and in friends’ faces across the world.
Forgot I did this, was this in one of the books? This was the final Hogwarts design with the Astronomy tower in the shape of a perched dragon, in my designs the wings of the spire opened flat to reveal the telescope.
Another early concept drawing, this time of the Astronomy Tower. The idea was the mechanism below the floor would allow the rings to track individual stars. We realised however the design resembled Wembley Stadium!
Chastleton House is an endless source of inspiration for Hogwarts illustrations. I must find a way of using this ceiling!
Where did you get the idea for the deeply atmospheric illustration of the quidditch rings? That one was not intended to be in the book! I was trying this watercolor technique at the time, and I did it as a preparatory sketch for what was supposed to be the final illustration, but [Bloomsbury] liked the looseness of it. Where I lived in Edinburgh, you call them ‘murmurations of starlings’ when the birds form these beautiful swirling patterns, so I thought it would be nice to have starlings on the quidditch hoops.
At the moment my favourite task is creating Hogwarts - it’s the first time I’ve thought about building something supported by magic - it’s harder than you’d think.
I really enjoyed doing this. You have to go through all seven books looking for mentions of the individual rooms, turrets, doors and walls of the castle, and make lots of notes. Then you check for mentions of its position, for example if you can see the sun set from a certain window, to find out which way the castle is facing. I then built a small model out of scrap card and Plasticine and tried lighting it from different directions. It was important to see how it would look in full light, or as a silhouette. Then it was a long process of designing the Great Hall, and individual towers. I have a huge number of drawings just experimenting with different doorways, roofs. Some early compositions were quite radical, then I hit upon the idea of trees growing under, through and over the whole castle, as if the castle had grown out of the landscape. This also gives me the opportunity to show trees growing through the inside of some rooms in future illustrations.
The book is packed with detail and things of personal resonance to Kay. The endpaper images of Professor Sprout’s Herbology greenhouse are inspired by London’s Kew Gardens. “I miss Kew,” Kay tells me. “The herbarium was the most wonderful environment, and walking through the Palm House early morning is a memory I’m extremely lucky to have. The endpaper in this book shows Greenhouse no.1. It was the last illustration I did on Chamber of Secrets, and sadly my dog Leroy passed away the day before I completed the book. This is why he appears on the endpaper. It kills me to look at this picture – I still miss him.”
“The preparatory stage, visualising the ‘architecture’ of Hogwarts, took a huge amount of time. I drew a floor plan of what I imagined Hogwarts was like, referring across all seven books. But when I started stacking different floors on top of each other, I found it difficult to understand how they fitted together. So the only way I could work out how to draw it was to build a model of it. It’s the same thing I did as a child – building things in Lego so I could then draw them. So I made quick models out of paper and Plasticine, and used these to draw from. Models are great also to work out the lighting and how the buildings relate to each other.”
Dumbledore’s Office
In Dumbledore’s office. I guess I can talk openly about things now. I was in a terrible place when I did this, and it kind of shows. Looking back at it now the round room is all over the place, the figures too. I was having monumental problems concentrating during the day, and psychotic breaks during the night. It seems a strange painting now. There’s a quotation hidden in there by Terence the Roman playwright which I’ve thought about a lot over the years. Bill Hickok’s final poker hand is just visible. The painting on the left features a friend of the family, a lovely guy. Too much stuff in there to talk about here. It should have been a giant desk but I lost sight of that somewhere along the way. I get very frustrated when people try and imply that having mental health problems somehow helps you as an artist. It doesn’t. It impacts your work, your life, it estranges you from people you love, and you are left constantly thinking what you could have achieved were it not for your illness. And therein lies the worst part; it makes you a self pitying, and ultimately selfish horror to be around. Then you get a blank sheet of paper and think ‘maybe this time, things will be better’. The blank page is hope, the chance that maybe next time, I’ll get it right. And hey, its only colouring-in!
Hagrid’s Hut
Hagrid’s Hut. I figured if you lived near a lake you might upturn a wooden boat for a home.
Hagrid’s hut is, for me, like an extension of his physique: it makes him a part of Hogwarts, but keeps him at a distance too.
Diagon Alley
Diagon Alley is basically a diary of lots of different things I was listening to at the time (it took about 3 months to do each one of those street scenes).
Diagon Alley was unusual in that I digitally coloured the whole illustration in order to preserve the pencil line drawing
In Diagon Alley in particular, some of the shop names are personal to me. As a child we had a toad in the garden called Bufo (from the latin Bufo bufo), Noltie’s Botanical Novelties is named after a very clever friend of mine who works at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh. The shop called ‘Tut’s Nuts’ is a little joke from my days working at Kew Gardens; they had in their collections some seeds from the tomb of Tutankhamun, which were affectionately known as ‘Tut’s Nuts’. The imprisoned boy reaching for an apple in Brigg’s Brooms is from a drawing my friend did when we were about 9 years old –that’s thirty two years ago!
There are, but they are little things that relate to my life, so I’m not sure how much sense they’d make to other people. I like to include my dog in illustrations if I can (he’s in Diagon Alley).
But one place where imagination has taken over for Kay is in the continually extending scene of Diagon Alley.
“Diagon Alley has become something of a diary for me (a bit cheeky, I know, inventing new shops). So after reading about Victorian medicine, I gave the tooth magician the name of ‘Mr. Trismus’ – trismus being the affliction known as ‘lockjaw’. ‘Caput Mortuum’ (the Articulator of Bones shop) is actually one of the predominant colours used in painting Diagon Alley, but the name is also associated with Alchemy, it means ‘dead head’ or ‘worthless remains’.
“My favourite bird is the Red Kite (Milvus milvus), of which there are many where I live. The idea of the kite shop came to me while working on Diagon Alley, and the familiar squealing of a kite could be heard outside. There was a huge kite reintroduction scheme started in Grizedale, (an area of the Lake District in the UK) and so it made sense to have the kite shop being called ‘Milvus Grizedale, Kite Maker’.
“Other names or slogans are little jokes that tickle me; the booth that sells leeches, if you look carefully it says ‘We’ll bite them on the features’ – a pun on Churchill’s famous speech. The facade of the Myomancer’s shop is based on the Marvellous Mechanical Mouse Organ – I am a huge Bagpuss fan. ‘What Larks’ is of course from Dickens. Ultimately though, my illustration of the whole street is simply my response to the cartoon I loved the most as a child, Mr. Benn, This is my ‘Festive Road’.”
There are lots of things in the illustrations that are very personal to me, particularly Diagon Alley, which has references to books I read as a child and television programs from my infancy, like Mr. Benn, which is very popular in the UK, and Bagpuss, which probably no one’s heard of in North America.
Knockturn Alley
Harry Potter in Knockturn Alley. This is kind of an exercise in how not to compose an illustration; character dead centre, cropped through the face, but I wanted to do something different. I had fun with the objects in the shop, and the carved surround is from a Saxon piece of wood design. Can’t wait to show Knockturn Alley in full!
The Ministry of Magic
Had fun doing the graffiti outside the Ministry of Magic. The word ‘Uhtceare’ is an Old English one describing the worry one feels in the hours before dawn, quite appropriate for the night Harry must have had. I enjoyed putting the outside light at the top of the witch’s wand, also hiding the ‘Weird Sisters’ among the tattered posters. You can also see a nod to The Cure in here, among other things.
Azkaban
Study of the prison Azkaban. I cant remember doing this! I think it was a study that ended up in the book. The design for Azkaban was based on the letter ‘A’, then carved out of bits of polystyrene. Looking back, I prefer the loose studies more I think.
Aragog
I’m really looking forward to painting Aragog in book two. I’m really fond of spiders – there are lots in my studio – so it’s great having reference close to hand! I’m hoping that by the Deathly Hallows we will be fully into a darker and more adult style of illustration, to reflect the perils facing Potter!
Buckbeak
Buckbeak, from The Prisoner of Azkaban. The background is based on the wonderful Gardener’s House at Calke Abbey. A good number of my future illustrations will take something from Calke Abbey, one of my favourite places to visit.
Speaking on the issue of scale, he said that he had particular trouble with Hagrid’s Hut, and making the image of Buckbeak on his bed – attempting to fix the issue by adding in a chicken to the image to show Buckbeak’s size compared to Hagrid, it ended up looking like “a miniature chicken next to a small hypgriff on a normal person’s bed”! He’s being harsh on himself – the miniature chicken is adorable
You can take up as much space as you want. Yes, but everything around Hagrid has to be put into the right proportions. In one of my paintings, an enormous hippogriff is lounging on the bed in Hagrid’s hut, and while I was drawing it, I asked myself: How can I illustrate this incredible size? The solution: I placed two completely normal chickens in the picture - but they now look as if they have shrunk because Hagrid’s hut and the hippogriff are gigantic.
Dobby
This is the model Jim made of Dobby to help him paint his illustrations. He has since been recycled and is now inside a hippogriff’s bottom. Such is life.
“I had no idea just how popular Dobby was until working on Chamber of Secrets,” admits Kay. “From my point of view he has been really challenging. The text describes him very carefully, so I tried to adhere to that as closely as possible, but the problem has been the eyes. They are supposed to be the size of tennis-balls, which can so easily look cartoonish. I made a body out of plasticine, and a variety of Dobby heads containing false-eyes. One of them, with bat-like ears, just seemed to click for me. Like most of my models I recycled him (he’s now a hippogryph’s bottom), which I now regret. I’d grown fond of the little chap. But now I will need to rebuild him for later books!”
Kreacher
Concept model for Kreacher. Not right, so I’ll give him another go. Bought a revolving cake stand for about a tenner which is useful for modelling on.
More fun with Kreacher. I chopped his nose off, and made him@look a little bit more serious.
Fang
Fang from The Philosopher’s Stone. I liked the idea of Hagrid’s dog being a big softie, the eyes were in honour of David Bowie.
Fawkes
The phoenix, for example, was based on several birds, in particular the wonderful Hoatzin.”
On the A History of Magic exhibition poster: Senior designer at the British Library John Overeem said that the poster artwork is a combination of ‘the old – positively ancient – and the new’.
‘It was a long and very rewarding selection process,’ said Overeem. ‘We have a host of magical creatures to choose from but the phoenix seemed symbolically the most hopeful and dynamic; the Jim Kay version is in such vivid colours it soars right off the page.’
Here, the phoenix is flying across some ancient writing in the background, and eagle-eyed readers will notice a recognisable name: ‘Flamel’.
Nicolas Flamel was the creator of the Philosopher’s Stone in the first Harry Potter story, and was a real-life historical figure reputed to be an alchemist.
Fluffy
Fluffy, the three headed monster, from the Philosopher’s Stone. Actually inspired by a scene from the Al Pacino film ‘Serpico’. (Remember the puppies in a box?). The original drawing for this is on show at the British Library Harry Potter exhibition which has just opened.
Dragons
Dragon illustration from The Goblet of Fire. Painted using Japanese Sumi ink, if you haven’t already, try it! It’s beautiful stuff and a favourite of some manga artists.
I’m also really chuffed to have 4 dragons to draw in this latest book – I’ve spent ages designing them.
Giants
Packing up artwork. These are the drawings for the giants. Unusually I just went ‘straight in’ on these drawings without any planning, which is why they aren’t quite anatomically right, but what you lose in one aspect you sometimes gain in other areas - the lack of preparation meant they felt quite fresh while working on them.
Ghosts
I paint in reverse. So for example, if you’re painting a ghost’s face, where there are shadows, I leave it white, but where there are highlights, I paint it black. So I paint the ghost in red, and then digitally invert it, so that it becomes blue. All the dark colors become light colors, and all the light colors are shadows.
It’s a funny thing to do, but I’ve found if you do that on wet paper, when you reverse it, you get this sort of glow effect where the paint has spread through the wet paper. It was by accident, really. I discovered it and I thought, “Well, that could be quite good for the ghosts.” And I’ve used it on a few other things as well: Some lighting and cloud effects, things like that.
The difficult thing is painting someone’s face back to front. It’s like looking at a negative of a photograph. In the old days, when you used to get film photographs, you’d look at the negative and see they’ve got sort of white eyes and black teeth. It took a lot of attempts to get it right. I think I filled two drawers with attempts to get Nearly Headless Nick to work.
Hippogriffs
Last Hippogriff today. So this was a watercolour I did just to get my head around the proportions of the animal, but it ended up in the book, with a minor bit of digital shading. When you don’t plan on something being seen it makes the image so much fresher and more relaxed. When you know you are working on an image that will be published, I really tighten up and loose that fluidity.
Hippogriff: This is the original sketch for the double spread in Prisoner of Azkaban. I love the friezes of Mesopotamian empires, some great ones in the British Museum.
Thestrals
Made a maquette out of a coat hanger, toilet roll, kebab sticks and clay to provide shading references for Thestral illustrations. Might make some wings out of silk to get the folds too. Sorry I’ve been quiet, been a difficult couple of weeks.
Doxys
Detail of the Doxy illustration from Phoenix. Fans of the author Lucy Boston may have recognised her incredible house being the address on the label. There was a TV adaptation made of ‘The Children of Green Knowe’ made back in the 80’s, filmed in the actual house Boston based the book on. I’d be interested to know if Rowling was influenced by Boston in any way. It’s on youtube now I believe.
Garden Gnomes
Garden Gnome, from A Chamber of Secrets. One of the few magical creatures that the author had drawn, which made the design process much easier!
Grindylows
In case anyone is interested, this is an early version of The Grindylow from Jim Kay’s illustrated Azkaban version. The difference from the published illustration is the eggs implanted on the back of the creature, and the spawn emerging. Exactly the same as the Surinam Toad, which is a bizarre creature.
Spiders
“I love spiders, we have a huge variety in my studio. This week a cellar spider’s egg sack hatched, and so we have at least sixty baby spiders. We have spitting spiders on my windowsill, jumping spiders, house spiders, missing-sector spiders, and for the illustration I would bring in the big pregnant garden spiders and drop them on my desk. In the morning you’d come down to a beautiful orb web, usually above my drawing board. Perfect!”
Leaving the Harry Potter series, and mental health
In case you don’t already know, I have had to pull out of illustrating the Harry Potter illustrated series. It’s difficult to convey how crushing this feels, and in particular how I feel I’ve let down Bloomsbury, Jo, the models who have so kindly helped me realise the book, and the wonderful readers who have already invested in the series. I have to thank Bloomsbury who have been extraordinary, and done so much to get me through these last few years, and the incredible illustrator Neil Packer, without whom Phoenix would never have been completed. I am extremely lucky to have had this opportunity, and luckier still to have such supportive friends, family and publisher who, lets face it, have had to deal with me and my problems for years. Knowing the brilliant staff at Bloomsbury, the last two books will be beautiful, and I wish everyone involved a creative and happy completion of the journey. It is a dream commission for any illustrator. If you know someone with mental health problems, be patient. For sufferers it is a colossal effort to wear a mask of ‘normality’ when out and about in the real world, and sadly it is usually around the ones we love and trust the most that the mask slips. For this reason I am indebted to Alison and Louise, for patiently picking up the pieces, again and again. I’ll try and keep working, bits and pieces. Love and best wishes. Jim
Jim Kay, the award-winning illustrator of the Harry Potter Illustrated Editions (Bloomsbury), will be stepping down from his role to focus on his mental health.
After almost 10 years of working on J K Rowling’s series, Kay will be retiring from his role to address the mental illness he has been “struggling with for some time”.
He will depart after the publication of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on 11th October. The new full-colour gift book sees the Kate Greenaway Medal winner joined by guest artist Neil Packer, winner of the Bologna Ragazzi Award 2021.
Kay said: “When I received a phone call back in 2013 with an offer of an illustration job, I could never have anticipated the impact it would have upon my life. I am extremely lucky to have been involved in a franchise that has meant so much to so many people across the world. After 10 years of working with Bloomsbury, it is with great sadness that I have to step down from illustrating Harry Potter. I have been struggling with mental health illness for some time, and it would be wrong to try and continue when I can no longer give the fans and the series the full commitment and energy it deserves.
“What comforts me is the knowledge that Bloomsbury will continue working with and supporting other artists to make the remaining books both beautiful and inspiring for a new generation of young readers. I would never have travelled this far through Harry’s journey without the constant support and patience of Bloomsbury and J K Rowling. I must thank them both for giving me 10 years of happy scribbling, and for the opportunity to meet so many Potter fans from all walks of life. We’ve all found inspiration between the pages of Jo’s books; for myself, it’s that intangible moment between reading words and creating pictures that I enjoyed, and shall miss, so much.”
A spokesperson for Bloomsbury Children’s Books said: “Working with Jim on these wonderful books has been a magical experience. Readers feel a deep, emotional connection to his work, appreciating the stories in new ways as they marvel at the richness and artistry of each piece.
“We feel so grateful and privileged to have enjoyed Jim’s vision of the wizarding world and recognise the staggering amount of dedication and work it represents. We will miss collaborating with Jim enormously, but he will always have a very special place in our Harry Potter family of unparalleled illustration talent.”
Reflecting on the experience
I was terrified of doing Potter which is partly why I took it on. It was completely out of my comfort zone. I really struggle with drawing children, and working with colour — so I thought ‘maybe I should take on this colourful story about children in a school for wizards!’. The idea was I’d somehow miraculously overcome all my weaknesses. It’s been really hard, almost broke me a few times, but I’m so glad and grateful to be involved with this. I still struggle with drawing young people and painting in colour, but I’ve met some amazing people through this commission.
“Seeing Jim Kay’s illustration moved me profoundly. I love his interpretation of Harry Potter’s world , and I feel honoured and grateful that he continues to lend his talent to it” — J.K.ROWLING
Exhibition at Seven Stories
The magic of Jim Kay’s art is in its mischievous detail.
The illustrator sneaks tricks and jokes into his drawings so surreptitiously, you can’t possibly see them all on a first viewing. I’ve scoured this man’s work many times, flicking through the pages of his illustrated Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. I’ve squinted at his paintings of Diagon Alley, trying to spot every sign, every creature, every visual pun.
To be honest, I thought I’d seen it all, but here I am, staring at an enormous framed print of Flourish and Blotts on the wall at the opening of Jim’s exhibition at Seven Stories in Newcastle. There are owls in the architecture, owls perched in windows and owls on turrets – you almost can’t tell where nature ends and stone begins.
For the first time I notice that wherever there’s an owl, there’s a stream of white bird poo beneath it. Yep, Jim’s drawn owl poo on the roof of Flourish and Blotts because, I imagine, he found it hilarious. Which, given that he’s also painted a few naughty body parts into jars in the background of Snape’s supply closet, is a recurring theme.
The main room of Jim’s exhibition is white with little winged keys and umbrellas painted onto the wall. Framed graphite sketches on thick cream cardboard, glass cases with early Hogwarts Express models and vibrant final paintings hang on the walls. A graphite-drawn Dumbledore peers over his half-moon glasses from one corner, next to a stern-looking McGonagall, in clothes inspired by the life cycle of a frog. There’s a Harry sketch, a Hagrid painting, a Hogwarts blueprint and a delicate mugshot of Ron Weasley from three angles.
Once we’ve wandered around that room, smiling and whispering to one another as though full volume speech would be disrespectful somehow, we go upstairs to hear Jim speak. The room is laced with fairy lights and decorated wall to wall with oversized cardboard cutouts of Diagon Alley shops. It’s nothing short of magical.
‘Diagon Alley is autobiographical for me,’ Jim says, addressing a small, enchanted crowd. ‘When I was a kid, my school friend had this sense of humour. I’d draw something and then he’d go in and add something funny or silly or rude. He’s no longer with me so I have to do that myself now.’
He spots a woman with her two young daughters in the front row and beams. Ten minutes ago, he’d met the little girls at the colouring-in table and appraised their work. The littlest, who must have been just four years old and dressed in a bright floral raincoat, drew Hagrid’s hut and then sat spellbound as Jim drew her a bat on the same piece of paper.
It speaks to a rather charming sweetness of character that Jim said a quick hello to the adults in the room before sitting down and hosting an impromptu sketching lesson for the kids in the room. It also might be one of the secrets to his work.
‘You give kids a pencil and paper and they just draw. It’s instinct, they don’t think about it or worry about it, they just draw. It’s sad that we lose that. I try not to lose that,’ he says.
Think about that owl poo on the roof of Flourish and Blotts. You haven’t lost it, Jim.
The Illustrating Harry Potter exhibition is open from 14 November 2015 until 17 April 2016 in the Gillian Dickinson Gallery on Level 6 of Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children’s Books on Lime Street, Newcastle Upon Tyne. For more information visit the Seven Stories website.
Animated editions
For the first time, Jim Kay’s fully illustrated edition of Philosopher’s Stone will be available digitally through Amazon. This first look features a Gringotts goblin hard at work, and the moving front cover, which features an owl that actually flies and billowing smoke floating from the Hogwarts Express.
Since wizards in the Harry Potter books have moving newspapers, it’s only fair we get a bit of the wizarding reading experience too. Now, with the Kindle in Motion technology, Philosopher’s Stone’s illustrated pages delicately move in different ways.
Other highlights from the moving book will include a multi-page spread of the lively Diagon Alley, an animated portrait of Draco Malfoy and a handy guide to trolls.
As well as moving images, readers can still tailor their reading experience, adjusting font sizes with the newly sized words magically reflowing around the animation and images, and, if they choose, toggle the animations off or on.
The illustrated edition of Philosopher’s Stone was published back in 2015, with iconic Harry Potter moments reimagined through the eyes of award-winning illustrator, Jim Kay. So far, Jim has also worked on Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and most recently, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which will be published this October.
Jim Kay’s illustrated edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone has been brought to life. Here’s your first preview and a look inside.