Clare
Melinsky

New covers

Clare has worked as an illustrator for thirty years. Her work is seen on packaging and in magazines and newspapers. She has designed a set of special issue stamps for the Royal Mail and more recently she’s created cover illustrations for all 39 of Shakespeare’s plays for Penguin books. However, she admits that the Harry Potter covers that she illustrated for Bloomsbury were the most high-profile job she’s ever done: “It’s an extremely exciting commission, and suddenly I’m getting a lot of admiration from my young nephews and nieces.”

Clare’s lino cut prints show the strength and quality of the cut line.

She graduated in theatre design from Central St Martin’s and ever since has been working as an illustrator. She is easily diverted from her lino cutting by the distractions of the garden outside the workroom window in South West Scotland. Despite this she’s managed to illustrate the 40 covers of the Penguin Shakespeare as well as the latest edition of the entire Harry Potter canon!

Cutting the lino is a very calming and intense activity, I’m ‘in the zone’. The reward comes when you take the first print: even now, I can never truly know what the final image will actually look like until I start to print.

Where the colours merge always makes an interesting blend. When I print a second block over the first print, more subtle, interesting and unexpected things start to happen: it’s exciting! Making the drawn line into a cut line transforms the quality of the line itself. I am still always surprised by what I have created when I see the first print.

To start with, I taught myself traditional technique by looking at Thomas Bewick’s early 19th century wood engravings, and the more primitive woodcuts of 18th century popular song sheets. A seminal moment was a retrospective of the Curwen Press at the Tate Gallery in 1977. That’s where I first saw mid-20th century graphic work by Edward Bawden and Ravilious and their contemporaries.

For ten months in 2009 the illustrator worked on a complete set of new covers for the seven Harry Potter novels. 

“I was asked by the art editor at Bloomsbury, to design three sample covers while they were considering other options ” Clare explains. “Then, when they had decided that my style was what they wanted, I had to start again and complete all seven book covers. And seven back covers as well. It was top secret work. I had to cover up what was on my desk so even my friends didn’t know what I was working on.” Harry Potter is the most high-profile job Clare has ever done. “It was an extremely exciting commission, and it gets me a lot of admiration from my younger friends and neighbours.”

Clare graduated in Theatre Design at Central School of Art in London, now Central St. Martins. Having beeen introduced to lino cut in the foundation year, carried on with lino cut after graduating. A publisher friend, Richard Garnett at Macmillan, asked if he could use one of these motifs on a book cover: a first step into the world of editorial illustration. At the same time Mark Reddy, a contemporary at Central, was starting out in advertising, and he, too, commissioned a lino cut image for a client, pointing the way to illustration in the commercial world. Light bulb moment: Clare would be an illustrator.

At this point Clare moved from London with her partner to live in south-west Scotland, on a remote 12 acre small-holding in the hills. Sheep, goats, a dairy cow and calves, hens, two children, geese, a pony. It was a good lifestyle choice, because it meant they could afford to live off Clare’s very small earnings in the early years. She continued to get regular commissions from the first contacts she had made in London: Radio Times, Sunday Times, New Society, Macmillan publishing. The turning point came in 1983 when Brian Grimwood at the Central Illustration Agency invited Clare to join them.

Once Clare has studied the brief, she has a conversation with the client to make sure they both understand what they are looking for. Rough drawings are shown, changed and finally agreed upon. The image is transferred onto a piece of linoleum. Clare uses lino bought from a flooring supplier by the metre.

As it is a print, the lino cut is a mirror image of the final artwork. The image is cut into the lino using small v-shaped gouges. The areas removed won’t print. Ink is rolled on the remaining surface, and a print is taken. So the whole process calls for simplification  and clarity. Less is more.

Originally most of her work was black and white, but now most images are very colourful as they are commissioned for book covers or packaging. One block can be rolled up with different colours; where the colours merge makes an interesting blend. Or one image might be composed of two or three registered blocks, each one rolled with a different coloured ink. Where two colours overlap, it creates a third colour.

The final artwork is scanned, and a digital file supplied.

J.K. Rowling’s universally popular books have been read and enjoyed by millions of readers. The newly designed ‘Signature’ livery will appeal to the next generation of readers who did not ‘grow up’ with Harry Potter and who have not yet experienced the thrill of life at Hogwarts.

The new illustrations are by renowned linocut artist Clare Melinsky and the design has been created by Webb and Webb Design Limited. Clare Melinsky’s illustrations follow the style of traditional woodcuts and will appear on the front cover, back cover and spine for all seven titles in the Harry Potter series.

Clare Melinsky commented, ‘I was delighted and excited to be asked to illustrate the covers for such massively famous books – and seven of them! It was top secret for the best part of a year.’

Thornhill illustrator Clare Melinsky has weaved her magic on seven new book covers for the Harry Potter novels.

And places and artefacts in Dumfriesshire have been her inspiration.

The 56-year-old artist began working on the designs last October and now millions of readers across the globe will prize her work on what are being dubbed “the signature collection”.

J.K.Rowling’s Harry Potter had never had a series of co-ordinated covers until Bloomsbury asked us to redesign the series. We commissioned Clare Melinsky to create the lino-cut illustrations and created the Signature identity, which we imagined as Harry signing his name in the air with his wand.