Creating Characters: An Illustrative Evening, A Discussion with Mary GrandPre

The new Harry Potter movie comes out next week, but before you go see it, revisit the books with a talk by illustrator Mary GrandPre. She’ll be at the Corcoran Gallery of Art Monday night to talk about her career (she’s done more than just Harry). We chatted earlier this week about how she got into illustration, her favorite character to draw, and why she never met J.K. Rowling until after the third book was completed.

How did you get into illustration?

About 25 years ago I was trying to figure out how to make a living and make art at the same time. I went to school at Minneapolis College of Art and Design where I really learned about illustration. I started freelancing while waiting tables after college and little by little I started building up a portfolio of editorial work and ad work and books, and then I got into children’s books. I had been doing illustrations for about 15 years before Harry came along and so I had a few children’s books out there by the time that David Saylor called me about doing the first book.

Describe your process for illustrating a book.

For a picture book, I get the manuscript then just start breaking it down into 32 pages or 48 pages, whatever the count is that the publisher wants to work with. I start doing character development and think about the style and color palate and all that stuff that makes a book have its own personality. Then I start sketching it out and go through an approval process with the art directors and work on characters more and make changes here and there.

How about for the Harry Potter books?

I get the manuscript delivered to me by hand and I need to put it in a safe. I can’t talk to anyone about what I’m doing or what I’m reading. I take a couple weeks to read it and highlight descriptions. The books are so packed full of visual descriptions that I need to mark different things with different color highlighters. I have my own system down when searching for what a character or a cover idea might be. Then I call David Saylor at Scholastic and talk about concepts, cover ideas and chapter spots. After that I go to the drawing board and do some sketches and send those to David and Arthur Levine and those are also passed to J.K Rowling at that point.

The Potter books are quite rushed and the whole process takes two to two and a half months. Everything is put on the backburner — holidays, personal life, everything — when Harry comes to town.


Your illustrations seem to glow, and you use color so wonderfully. What materials do you work with?

Oh, thank you! I work with pastels and sometimes I combine them with acrylic paint underneath. And I work on paper.

What's your favorite character that you've drawn?

In Potter, I’d say Sirius or Hagrid. They’re opposite in who they are and their demeanor, but they have so much personality. Harry’s also a fun one. For other books, I like doing animals and folk tale things.

How closely do you work with the author?

There’s always a disconnect, and the publisher is the bridge between us. I think they like to keep us separate as the author has her own vision and the illustrator has her own vision, and I think its just easier for everyone to have the publisher or art director or editor be the contact person.

I did meet J.K. Rowling after the third book had come out and she was touring the U.S. I met her in Chicago and we had dinner with a big group of people. She was really nice about the work that I was doing and she said that the way I drew Harry was much like the way she saw him.

Is there a dream book that you would want to illustrate?

I would like to do a book that’s more adult or for all ages, maybe not so much a story but more a collection of paintings and images. Right now I’m doing some personal work, and a series of angels.

What are you working on next?

I’m working on three books right now, for three different publishers, but I can’t give any more details on those yet.

Mary GrandPre is speaking at the Corcoran Gallery of Art on July 13 at 7 p.m. It costs $15 for members and $20 for the public. For more information, visit www.corcoran.org.

Barbie Convention

Today I went to the Barbie Convention. I somehow convinced my editor to let me do an article about it, so that comes out tomorrow, and it was one of the most fun articles I've ever done, since I got to talk to someone who actually designs Barbies. And then I met up with him today and we talked about how much we love vintage Skipper and Midge.

Here are some pics of the convention, from a VW designed for Barbie (you can't see the compact in back in lieu of a trunk) to shots of vintage dolls.

This is the original Barbie design, but this one is made with tons of tiny diamonds. So pretty.

Lots of doll accessories — I recognize some of the hats and purses.

Skipper is so cute, and my mother has this PJ set and stuffed cat.

I love Midge (Barbie's best friend), and my mother also has this dress. It was always one of my favorites.

The Generation of Dreams dress. It has pictures of lots of old Barbies.

Big Barbie cases that you could get your picture taken in.

The VW car designed for Barbie.

Parked outside the hotel.

If you want to go to the convention, public day is Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. It's at the Marriott Wardman Park and admission is $7.

National Book Festival Lineup

I've been to the National Book Festival twice. The first time I went late, with friends and didn't see anyone talk. Last year I prepared — I got down to the mall early, went alone, made a plan and saw a bunch of readings, including Kay Ryan, Jon Scieszka and Salman Rushdie. So this September 26, I will take a similar tack, because the lineup is excellent.Highlights:

- Kate DiCamillo (I love everything she's written, from The Tale of Desperaux to The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.)
- Junot Diaz (I read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao recently. So good.)
- Assorted historian idols: Simon Schama & Annette Gordon-Reed
- Julia Alvarez (who I met once, but this was before I read and loved In the Time of the Butterflies.)
- And Jon Scieszka and Kay Ryan are back again. She is delightful, and he is so funny he made me in tears at his reading.

Go here for a full listing of authors.

Kodachrome Culture at the National Geographic Museum

I haven't seen this show at the National Geographic Museum yet, but Kodachrome Culture, The American Tourist in Europe, a new photography exhibit, seems to have some of the coolest photos that have been on display here in awhile. The over 100 photos were taken in the '50s and '60s across Europe.

Summer Yoga Challenge

Besides taking part in Infinite Summer, (which is going smashingly so far), my other summer project is doing the summer yoga challenge at my yoga studio, Quiet Mind Yoga.

I've signed up to practice three times a week, and my goal (besides eliminating back and neck pain) is to be able to do a bound lotus at the end of the summer, since I've never been able to do one.

Since I always like friends to do things with me, you can get a summer pass of unlimited classes for $150.

Links, links, links

Some ways to waste time before the long weekend (finally) begins. Happy Fourth, everyone!

• A chat with National Geographic Explorers-in-Residence Dereck and Beverly Joubert.

• Profile of the Copper Pot Food Company, which has been keeping me in great pasta for the last month or so.

• Where to find interesting concoctions made with Pimm's, the object of my obsession.

• Review of The Country Teacher. Inexplicably, there are going to be a lot more film articles from me this summer.

William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1961–2008

The newest show at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1961–2008, is my favorite of theirs in quite awhile. Eggleston, a pioneer in color photography, shot a wide swath of American culture, from portraits to every day objects. But the Memphis-born artist is at his best with his Southern-tinged snapshots.

The largest exhibition of his work to be staged in the U.S., the show features over 150 photographs. These include some of his early black and white photos, and work from his series Troubled Waters, Graceland, Los Alamos and Election Eve.

I love his work because I have a particular interest in photography that documents the South, and especially old buildings. That's one reason I admire William Christenberry, who just so happens to make an appearance in this show, in portrait form.

Paint Made Flesh at The Phillips Collection

The Phillips Collection recently opened Paint Made Flesh, a show that looks at post-World War II American and British painting, and the way painters depicted flesh. For more, you can go read my interview with artist John Currin, (who spoke there last night).

Above, a portrait of Henrietta Moraes by Francis Bacon.

Not From Concentrate: A Juicy Art Exhibit

Beach Buddies

Sunday's Washington Post asked authors what literary character they would like to go to the beach with. There are some wonderful answers, including Arthur Phillips (who I am reading right now) on Captain Ahab — I am a terrible beach-o-phobe, tiptoeing into the surf clenched with certainty that I will soon be ray-stung or jelly-scorched. How reassuring then, if I must go to the beach, to be protected by an unwavering maniac, ready to kill anything that swims too close to me. — and Philippa Gregory on Jake Barnes — Jake is tremendously laid back and cool with an inner sorrow… He is a virtuoso drinker, so I anticipate some chilled white to start and a strong red for the later evening.

My choice would be Dick and Nicole Diver, of Tender is the Night, from the very beginning of the book, before their lives fell apart.

Nearest her, on the other side, a young woman lay under a roof of umbrellas making out a list of things from a book open on the sand. Her bathing suit was pulled off her shoulders and her back, a ruddy, orange brown, set off by a string of creamy pearls, shone in the sun. Her face was hard and lovely and pitiful. Her eyes met Rosemary’s but did not see her. Beyond her was a fine man in a jockey cap and red-striped tights; then the woman Rosemary had seen on the raft, and who looked back at her, seeing her; then a man with a long face and a golden, leonine head, with blue tights and no hat, talking very seriously to an unmistakably Latin young man in black tights, both of them picking at little pieces of seaweed in the sand. She thought they were mostly Americans, but something made them unlike the Americans she had known of late.

After a while she realized that the man in the jockey cap was giving a quiet little performance for this group; he moved gravely about with a rake, ostensibly removing gravel and meanwhile developing some esoteric burlesque held in suspension by his grave face. Its faintest ramification had become hilarious, until whatever he said released a burst of laughter. Even those who, like herself, were too far away to hear, sent out antennæ of attention until the only person on the beach not caught up in it was the young woman with the string of pearls. Perhaps from modesty of possession she responded to each salvo of amusement by bending closer over her list.