BBC News 20th April 2009: Rare Potter drawings go on sale
The front cover sketch shows the Hippogriff, an eagle-horse hybrid Original Harry Potter book illustrations are to go on sale at the 14th annual Glasgow Art Fair. One drawing depicting Harry and his friend Hermione astride a "Hippogriff" - a hybrid of an eagle and a horse - will be on sale at just under £13,000. The other sketch shows "the Grim" - a dog-like omen of doom. It is priced at just under £11,000.
Magical creatures
Drawn in pen and pencil on paper, the sketches will be on sale at the Art Fair in Glasgow's George Square from Thursday until Sunday. Discussing the front cover, illustrator Cliff Wright said: "The image is one of a series of 10 which were sent to the publisher Bloomsbury as rough ideas for character development and composition."
The Hippogriff creature became a recurring feature of the Harry Potter series. Mr Wright added: "The designs were also passed on to JK Rowling for her approval and any comments passed back to me. Thus, for example, the Hippogriff was based on a design that was sent through to me from Jo. "Along with griffins and dragons, Hippogriffs can be found in medieval bestiaries."
Published in 1999, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was the third in the series of seven books and told the story of Harry's encounters with his mysterious godfather, a convict named Sirius Black.
In addition to his Harry Potter work, Cliff has also produced many successful children’s books titles - inspired by his love of animals and the countryside - as well as high profile work for advertising and design clients. He also enjoys introducing everyone, including school children and business clients, to new ways of seeing. His latest publication “The Magic of Drawing” is reviewed below and will be on sale.
He will be running an exclusive Nature of Seeing workshop at the Art Trail and places are limited!
Recently Cliff has been experimenting with sculpture, as pictures below of The Hippogriff and his collaborative piece with Kathryn Jordan “In Our Hands” demonstrate.
info@cliffwright.co.uk
This is a rare treat, because it’s not often you get a book on drawing by someone who is
themselves a successful published illustrator. Cliff Wright’s biggest claim to fame is a couple of Harry Potter covers (and you can bet the competition for those is pretty stiff), but he has also written some delightful children’s books himself such as Bear and Kite and The Star That Fell that are characterised by beautiful and sensitive watercolours that stop well short of being cutesy.
What this almost modest-looking paperback offers is a positive master-class in drawing animals, people and natural history subjects, albeit slightly dressed-up as fantasy art. Cliff conveys more in a few words and drawings than many books don’t even manage in a whole chapter and this is a thoroughly practical guide as well as an absolute eye-opener to the many possibilities available to you. There’s also a good degree of humour - I just love the drawing of a Hippogriff wrapped in a blanket against the snow - and the spread where a self portrait turns into a horse eating a cake (yes, really) is in fact a masterpiece of character development and the use of line.
If you’re an aspiring illustrator, this has to be compulsory reading, but there’s so much more to it as well. It’ll show you how to develop characters, how to draw with absolute economy and how to work from life to art.
Creating the magical Hippogriff sculptures