Jim Kay's Blog

A while ago I was contacted by Kate Bush to provide some visuals for an idea she had beautifully storyboarded, an animated video to accompany her song ‘Snowflake’. Difficult to convey how surreal and exciting that moment was, pure happiness crystallised. Like many others I have grown up in a world interwoven with her creative output, to say she is an inspiration for millions is an understatement. You cannot exist in the arts without feeling the pull of her influence, like a bright star in th...

I’ll be honest, life since leaving Harry Potter has been extremely difficult. I’m in the very privileged position of never having to work again, but I didn’t realise just how bad my health was until I pulled out of the series. I tend to work to avoid problems, and for 10 years I worked insanely hard, pretty much seven days a week to the neglect of everything around me. Since then I’ve hardly drawn in three years (the exception being work for Kate Bush). I really want to get going again, and so s...

It’s been a long time coming, but Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is finally out. I could never have completed the book without the help of the fantastic illustrator Neil Packer. An extra special thank you to him and to Bloomsbury for getting this book finished when times were very hard. Sadly, my mental health has been problematic over the last few years, and I’ve had to step away from Harry Potter in order to take a break and fix things. I’ll still carry on with my own work and the o...

This is Dottie, wearing a jumper Louise knitted. Just a quick post to wish everyone a happy Easter. On that theme our garden is full of baby rabbits, which is both very cute and extremely frustrating – watching them eat everything I’ve spent months growing :). Hope you are all staying safe and healthy.

I know – it’s super late coming out. It looks like it might emerge in 2022 now. As I’m writing this the owl is hooting outside, it’s deep midwinter and the ground is locked in ice. I’m currently working flat out trying to get this finished. It’s a whopping book, and the scale of it will probably limit the number of illustrations that can appear. The text, as I understand it, will be very slightly reduced in size, but there’s no way of avoiding the fact this will be a heavy book. One of the probl...

We have been in East Sussex for a little while now, and I’m in love with the place. We are trying to make the garden more biodiverse, and have added two large ponds in the last 17 months. We have already seen regular visits to the ponds from grass snakes, and there is a very healthy population of dragonfly larvae in the water. We have created large compost heaps (We discovered over 70 hatched grass-snake eggs in one!) and a wildflower meadow. Slow worms regularly turn up while we garden here. I’...

A while ago we travelled around Argentina, and in particular, Patagonia, which is one of the most beautiful and extraordinary places on earth. The light and the colours are not like anything I’ve experienced before, and the blues in particular, are exceptional. I have never had a journey like it, and we want to thank Clive, David and Tim for being such wonderful friends and company. The people of Argentina are extremely welcoming and kind, and effortlessly cool too. Here’s just a few pictures fr...

So this is the new studio Louise and I work in (Louise is camera shy by the way……blimey look at my hair), which gives us a bit more space, and it’s separate from the house – so no more messy kitchen. I’ve already started on the Order of the Phoenix, but we have lost around 6 months to all the problems with moving and fixing up a new place, and Louise is tied up with renovations for the next couple of months. As soon as I’m back after the promo tour, I will really have to get cracking.

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Louise and Jim have relocated to the South Coast of England, just outside Rye in East Sussex. We have been bowled over by the wildlife here already, we have badgers, foxes, rabbits, stoats, even ravens passing through our garden. Gardening is a key part of our work, as it informs Louise’s millinery, and Jim’s illustrations. Our aim over the next five years is to create a garden that offers diverse habitats for invertebrates, amphibians and birds, and record what we find.

We will keep you u...

The charity Booktrust have asked 26 illustrators to draw/paint/scribble something on a postcard to raise money for their ongoing work to help children develop their love of reading all across the UK. Here is my effort! If you’d like to see the wonderful works by illustrators such as Levi Pinfold and Alex T. Smith, or indeed if you’d like to bid on these works of art then click here after 6pm today. It’s for a good cause!

I also painted on the reverse of my postcard, just in case you wanted to...