I always have my sketchbook or travel diary on my bag during a trip. Instead of taking a photograph I choose to draw. That gives me the possibility to make a break to really look what I have in front of me. It’s really relaxing and guides my journey, looking for the special thing, moment to capture. I start to imagine everything in simple black lines, in a kind of poetic version. Sometimes I need to wait a long long time, until find the place and moment when I will decide : “this one”. It can be the architecture, an animal, the vegetation or a person. Most of the time I use a fine black pen in a kind of small Moleskine diary. I love to sketch outside, that obliges me to draw fast, to design only the essential lines and to focus in one subject. When I look at my “carnet de voyage”, I start to travel again.

I take pictures of the drawing with the “reality” in the background because its complement each other. The illustration is here to gives some magic and the background is here to brings us back to reality. Passing by the illustration first, we can see afterwards the real life in a more poetic way. I think.

In my travel diary I try to copy as well as I can what I see but sometimes I just imagine something else. The space, whether, etc, bring me in a special mood to create some characters and situations, which can be later a short story for a cartoon, a comic or an eventual artwork, in a bigger format, with colors and imaginary characters.

You can see more sketches on my Facebook page.