Mary GrandPre is an American illustrator who is famous for her illustrations on the infamous Harry Potter novel series. Mary GrandPre had started drawing at the age of 5, imitating the works of Walt Disney, and started imitating the surrealist artist, Salvador Dali and his experimentation with stretching and distorting subjects. She studied fine arts at Pamona College and later graduated from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 1981.

She describes her illustration style as “soft geometry” in which she mainly uses pastels. She created illustrations for advertisements and magazines including The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly and The Wall Street Journal. I personally really like the quality of her work, and how dynamic the compositions of each piece is. She mentions that she was influenced by stained glass windows and even though it might be a stretch from the soft nature of her work, it really does reflect through the unique colour choices in each piece. Pastels have always been a medium I had been enchanted by, most especially because of Mary GrandPre’s work.

Nowadays, she works heavily in a mixed media route. She collages photographs and illustrations into more abstract and cubist-like pieces.