Travel Sketchbooks

Teaching English in Kunming, Yunnan, between September 2006 and August 2009, I had occasions to be daily amazed at the surrounding life, and sometimes to draw it. This implied to face a crowd of onlookers, intrigued that one could spend time sketching in the dust...

In the summer of 2007, a trip across four Chinese provinces, Sichuan, Gansu, Qinghai, and Yunnan, bordering the Tibet province: lands of high pasturage, yaks and flags, covered by cow-boys on motorcycles in long dresses and fur boots… At the meeting point between Himalayan plateaux and Eastern plains, these areas are populated by Hans, Huis and Tibetans.

In February 2008, to change from Kunming's winter, I went to Thailand and Laos. Added to this sketchbook, some drawings done in 2006 in Luang Prabang during the Pi Mai lao festival, a week where everyone throws buckets of water at each other. And a few drawings done in Vietnam in 2007.

The old town is a permanent festival, a crazy activity spreads along the alleyways and souks. In some ways, it reminded me of Yunnan.The street stalls and the trade corporations. The art of wood work and the caravanserais. The micro-tagines that are simmered at a client's request, and the tiny restaurants improvised in a shadowy corner. The abounding markets, and the perilous traffic…

A sketchbook a bit more experimental than the others, made in 2011 in this Tuscan town fascinating through its urbanism, its colors, its art of living. See "Painting" for another series of drawings of the city.

During a short stay in Sevilla (Spain) in 2016, I used a brush pen and watercolor. In the cold and dry weather, making colors vibrant under the blue sky, the orange trees were full of fruit.

A few days in Brittany in September 2005. Saint-Malo inspired me through its mixture of harbor life and architecture.

These few drawings were done during the travel sketchbook workshops I taught in 2016 and 2021. A lake town in the French Alps, Annecy is also called "the Venice of the Alps". Whatever the weather, the lake shows beautiful colors, and the city is full of life.

A year off to travel, from September 2003 to July 2004, with the idea of leaving towards the East to come back from the West, and to go slowly, with a minimum equipment. Six months in Asia, three months in Australia and New-Zealand, and a few weeks in South-America.