Today, Years 5 and 6 had an amazing opportunity to visit the Frameless Gallery for a very special preview of the newly illustrated edition of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, featuring artwork by award winning illustrator Levi Pinfold.
We were incredibly lucky to hear directly from Levi about his work and his creative process. He explained how the words in the original text influenced the choices he made as an artist and how an illustration develops from an initial idea into a finished piece of artwork. We were fascinated to hear that the whole project took him over 4,000 hours!
We were able to see a range of Levi’s illustrations, including Hogwarts Castle and characters such as Professor Slughorn. We also got to see his illustration of Aragog, and were amazed to hear that he was inspired by a spider he spotted in his washing basket at home in Australia!
After hearing from Levi, we listened to a section of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince while the illustrations were projected around the gallery. Seeing the artwork brought to life across such a huge space was incredible, and lots of us were keen to see even more when the experience came to an end.
Our visit also gave us lots to think about in relation to our own English work. As Year 5 have been reading Beowulf, some of us noticed similarities between Levi’s illustrations for some of the darker scenes and the way we have imagined characters such as Grendel and the Sea Hag. We were particularly inspired to hear about Levi’s creative process, especially as so many of us enjoy drawing and creating our own artwork. Perhaps one day we might create something on this scale ourselves!
We even had the opportunity to ask Levi our own questions. We found out which illustrations he found the trickiest to create and why, as well as how long the entire project had taken him. It was a brilliant opportunity to hear directly from an illustrator about the dedication, creativity and imagination involved in bringing a story to life.
To make the day even more special, we were given a copy of the newly illustrated book to bring back to school. We will be sharing it, looking after it carefully and, of course, admiring all of the incredible illustrations. We were also lucky enough to have our copy signed by Levi himself!
A huge thank you to Rosi at the Frameless Gallery for helping to organise such a memorable experience for us. We left feeling inspired, excited and very keen to see more of Levi’s incredible artwork!
