Mary
GrandPré

When GrandPré was asked to illustrate the Potter books, she was a freelance illustrator who had illustrated “a few children’s books.” She admitted that she “didn’t immediately jump for joy” when David Saylor from Scholastic Publishing called her and asked whether she would illustrate the first three Potter books.

The first consideration of author Mary GrandPré was, perhaps unexcitingly, based on a simple pluck through an alphabetized filing cabinet, but being reminded of the illustrator’s work caused “this lightbulb to go off” for Saylor: “She had this beautiful luster to her artwork, soft beautiful pastels but also jewel tones that she brought to her artwork, that we really loved.” Levine added that the experiment in cover art that GrandPré, Levine, and Saylor embarked on back in 1998 was, in some ways, uncharted. “When you think back to 21 years ago, a lot of the things we were talking about in terms of conceiving what that book would look like were really unusual for children’s book hardcover,” Levine pointed out. “To have uncoded stock and matte lamination and gold foil? People weren’t really doing that, and those were all these extra things we were doing to make this book special.”

I told him I was super-busy; [‘]I don’t think I’ll have the time.[‘] He asked me to please just look at the story and then decide. I said OK, and he sent me the manuscript. I liked the story – and related to the vulnerable, mistreated boy living under the stairs. So I called him back and said, ‘Yes, I’ll find space in my schedule and take the job.’ I had no idea the ‘Harry Potter’ series would blow up to the global phenomenon it would become.

It was just like any other job at the time. I got a phone call from Scholastic. They wanted to know if I had time to do a cover illustration for a book about this boy who had magical powers. At that point I was really busy with other work, and I said I didn’t have time. [My contact, David Saylor] really wanted me to do it, and asked if I would reconsider if he sent me the story. I read it, and I really liked it, so I made sure to make room for it in my schedule. The rest is history. I’m glad I did it.

GrandPré eventually decided to take the job, and so began the process of creating the illustrations, which she describes as “very hush-hush and secretive”; due to the nature of the job, GrandPré had to “lock the manuscripts in safes and sign confidentiality agreements.”

This process involved reading the book’s manuscript and highlighting “visually descriptive passages that offered good material for illustrations.”

I go through the manuscript at least 2 or 3 times, I read it with a fine-toothed comb. I actually have this system where I highlight characters in one color descriptions and events in another color, I’ll highlight little descriptions that are important — anything thats a clue for me to making a complete cover.

Once my concepts were approved, I’d sketch out various ideas for the book cover and chapter art. I’d send my favorite sketches to the editors, who’d narrow it down to a final selection, which I’d then turn into finished art for publication.

As she creates Harry’s world, GrandPre first does “pencil roughs” (drawings on tracing paper) and then her medium of choice, pastels on paper.

I’ll give them three or four cover ideas and the art director and editor kind of put their heads together and I think J.K. Rowling looks at them too, but I’ve never been in contact with her. Most of the time goes into reading the book a couple of times and pulling out the information and pulling out a concept and the final execution isn’t as time heavy as the other parts.

I see it as my responsibility to stay really close in the way that I portray things to the way the author is describing it. Tha’s my goal, to be true to the writing but to bring my own insight and my own vision to it and there’s always that hope, anytime that we bring a character to life in a visual sense, that the viewer will embrace it as part of their vision too.

When I do the Harry Potter books it’s so highly scrutinized and its put under the magnifying glass by every kid and adult who is a fan — and understandably so.

When I read the books I try to pay attention to every detail, I’ve learned that lesson.  I was speaking at a school once, and I had a magazine cover I’d done of Harry, with Harry flying a broomstick, one of the kids asked me “why did you give Harry blue eyes? Harry’s eyes are green.” It was one of those details that just slipped.  It’s a strong fanbase you probably have a little less freedom because of that and you probably need to be more in tune with the exact writing.

Every new Harry Potter fan has probably spent at least a few moments scrutinizing where the action of the Sorcerer’s Stone cover might take place... before realizing that it doesn’t actually exist anywhere specific at Hogwarts (or does it?). “I see it as a walkway,” says GrandPré. “I drew the flooring, and because you see the castle to the right and the forest in the background, I guess I see it as an open corridor where things can happen in and out of the columns and Harry can fly through.” Of course, Hogwarts architectural purists have taken issue with where this abstract corridor would supposedly be located. Then again, it’s a magic castle, so... that’s something to consider.

At the request of the Scholastic salesforce, who thought Philosopher’s Stone might be an obstacle in capturing American readers, editor Arthur Levine suggested J.K. Rowling consider changing the title to “something that brings the magic more obviously forward, maybe something that indicates the whole school experience that Harry has,” he recalls. The proposal: Harry Potter and the School of Magic, which Rowling mulled over for a time, at least long enough for GrandPré to sketch it more than once. Then-art director David Saylor recalls, “It seemed like a good idea in a meeting, but then when you see it on a sketch, you’re like, ‘Oh no, this is not right.’ To me it felt too prosaic, like School of Drama, like School of Chemistry. It didn’t feel magical to me, ironically.” And for Rowling, too, who ultimately nixed it and proposed the alternative Sorcerer’s Stone. Levine explains, “Sometimes it’s just a small change like that that makes your marketing and sales people feel a tiny bit more confident, and they took that tiny bit of extra confidence and sparked it into a real fire.” Rowling has since stated that she regretted changing the title, but Levine appears more torn between the hypothetical and the reality: “I think they would have done fine with Philosopher’s Stone. But they were on a mission to get every child in America to read this book. In the end, I feel like history proves that was not a bad decision.”

“It was a tough decision to know how much to put in and what to keep out,” says GrandPré, who threw in everything but the cauldron into the wide cover art for Sorcerer’s Stone. It’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation, but the illustrator laid out her plan for the book’s individual chapter sketches before tackling what to put on the cover. “Some of that depended on what was already showing on the inside chapters,” she says. “If we weren’t seeing enough of Dumbledore, perhaps, we’ll put him on the back cover and let him peek behind a column. I wanted the viewer to be able to go back while they were reading the story and have a closer look and find the thing you had just read about, like a little treasure hunt.” And it works: See how many people you can still flabbergast by pointing out the flying Quidditch players (not clouds) behind Harry.

In designing each chapter’s leading sketch, GrandPré’s first instinct was usually right (“There aren’t any of them, honestly, that we didn’t use,” swears Saylor). But for book covers, the illustrator would propose a trio of art options, and as it turns out, the face of Sorcerer’s Stone was almost, well, three faces. “There was one she did that had the Three-Headed Dog guarding the trapdoor, and it was a really good cover,” says Saylor. “But it just wasn’t right for a first book. We had to see Harry. It had to be him on the broom, it had to be him going after the Snitch. It’s that iconic thing that you just have to see.” Still, the sketch of Fluffy enjoyed plenty of use...

For all the Easter eggs GrandPré included in the Sorcerer’s Stone cover, Ron and Hermione are perhaps the two most significant characters who didn’t just get left off the cover — they aren’t illustrated in the book at all (Hagrid, Quirrell, and even Dudley got their own portraits). “I was actually revisiting the book this weekend and I realized, wow, those two did not make it into the chapter sketches, and it kind of surprised me,” admits GrandPré. “I think perhaps... we know they became friends, but there was so much to talk about in that first book. This boy with magical powers at this new school, and all these creatures and characters and professors in between. So maybe there was just so much juicy stuff happening in all the chapters, we just never quite made it to them visually. Maybe Ron and Hermione are just too normal!” (See them pictured here, perferctly normal, in Half-Blood Prince.)

I’d have about a week and a half 2 weeks to get back to David Saylor (the art director) with the sketches. I guess from the preliminary sketches to the final it was probably a month and a half to two months.

It’s usually rushed; it seems like the artist is usually the last one to get the assignment. I’m not a fast reader, so I usually gave myself about two weeks to read and digest and make notes on the manuscript. Then another week for cover sketches, and another week or two for all the chapter headings. So I think you’re probably looking at a couple months for reading it and creating all the artwork.

A crisis was narrowly averted when Saylor and Levine first presented Rowling with the finished artwork for the book. The author “was so in awe that she wanted to touch it,” Saylor says. But here’s why that was a problem: GrandPré notoriously uses unfixed pastels, a waxy technique that makes colors richer and brighter but also more fragile and prone to damage if the artwork is not sprayed with a fixative. Saylor laughs as he recalls the near-miss: “The artwork is so tactile that when you do see it in person, it’s stunning, but I almost had a heart attack because Jo reached out and touched it with her finger and I said, ‘Oh, be careful, it’s not fixed!’ and she pulled her forefinger away and it was just covered with pastel. It didn’t spoil the painting, just so you know, but it was a moment of panic. She was just so entranced by seeing it in person.”

Not directly. My relationship was with [art director] David Saylor and Arthur Levine [the book’s editor]. They would consult with her, and show her my sketches. She was always very agreeable, it seemed like, for the images I came up with. I think we had the same thing in mind. It’s really been a nice pairing for her and I.

“I never knew when they were talking to her and what they said. I really just heard from David what had to be changed or anything. Usually there weren’t many changes at all,” GrandPré told INSIDER. “She was always pretty agreeable to everything.”

Most of her work was sent to Scholastic over fax machines.

“Back in the day, Mary would actually fax me her chapter illustration sketches,” Saylor wrote in an email. “Arthur would then send the sketches and cover for approval. Jo was delighted to have Mary work on the books and she commented on all of Mary’s sketches, as well as occasionally offering guidance about the details.”