'I went from uni to working on Harry Potter films'

An artist from North Yorkshire has said she would be "forever grateful" to the Harry Potter franchise for helping launch her career in the film and TV industry.

Straight out of Teesside University and the Northern School of Art, Anna Tennant, from Whitby, spent eight starstruck years in film and TV departments in London.

Those years saw her making Mandrakes and Hippogriff feathers for the Harry Potter movies, among many other fantastical creations.

She went on to work on other productions, including tying corsets on the set of Downton Abbey and weathering caps for Peaky Blinders.

But Ms Tennant, who is now 45, said there was a point when she realised she was a "true northerner at heart" and decided to move back to Yorkshire, where she has since worked on top TV shows such as Vera and Toxic Town.

Ms Tennant said: "I'll be forever grateful about my first job, as who comes straight out of university and straight into the Harry Potter franchise?

"I studied costume and prop making, and then when I finished I was really lucky as I kept in touch with Nick Dudman, one of my absolute heroes who had done a lecture at my university.

"He helped with creating make-up effects and animatronic creatures, and he offered me the opportunity to work in the creature effects department on Harry Potter.

"So I helped make the Mandrakes and Hippogriff feathers for the films. I was really lucky and was able to work my way up for a few years in that department."

However, Ms Tennant said the gravitational pull of her home in the North eventually proved too much.

"Being a Yorkshire person, the thought of home kind of tugged on my heartstrings a little bit.

"After seven or eight years in London, I decided I wanted to move back up North."

Having once again lived in Whitby for some years, Ms Tennant said being based back in Yorkshire had proved no hindrance to continuing in her chosen profession.

"Since coming back, I've done a lot of northern detective dramas such as Vera or A Gentleman in Moscow," she said.

"My role can be anything from making a believable pregnancy bump out of padding, or looking at the character's story and then seeing how the clothing would look to go with that."

Ms Tennant said one of her latest favourite projects was working on the Netflix show Toxic Town, which told the true story of babies born with disabilities due to breathing in toxic dust.

"The show is all about this toxic red dust and I was behind the scenes making this dust, but obviously I had to make sure it was completely safe for the actors and for me to be around as well.

"But I enjoy all those challenges. Some days the dust needed to look really dry or it needed to look really wet, and then I had to figure out how to layer it on a costume, as just throwing it would mean it ended up with there being fingermarks.

"I've never done a job that's the same yet, but that's nice in a way."

Ms Tennant said she was now working on a new TV show called The House of Guinness with actor James Norton and the writers of Peaky Blinders.

But she said she had also found the time to create an exhibition showing her skills at North Yorkshire Open Studios' Spring Exhibition at Craven Arts House in Skipton.

"With the exhibition, I looked back on my career with pride," she said.

"I got to the point where I wanted to do something really indulgent for myself, and take the skills I've learned along the way and kind of do a bit more of what I want to do."

Ms Tennant said she "wanted to make more creatures and write more poetry", and these were all featured in her exhibition which runs until June.

"It's why we watch all those programmes and dramas in the first place - for escapism," she explained.

"So designing them is my version of escapism, creating something for me that will make someone else feel good."

Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.