Interview with Paul Chevallier


My illustration is directly linked to my childhood memories. The ski start. I wanted to express both the excitement and the stress of the preparations. This drawing is like a large part of tetris except that the players are inexperienced.
  • Clouée: Can you tell us about yourself and your background?
Paul Chevallier: After my literary baccalaureate, I did a preparatory course at the Ateliers de Sèvres in animation, a preparatory course at the EPSAA and finally a DMA in illustration at Renoir.
  • How did you get oriented towards this profession of author illustrator? What was the trigger?
I started drawing a lot during my college classes. But it's the game Machinarium and its beautiful drawings that made me say to myself "I can make drawing my job"
  • Where do your artistic influences come from? 
I am very attached to Claude Ponti who rocked my youth. Today I have many diverse influences: primitive sculptures, Inca art, Juan Miro, the Ceraphinianus codex. I'm also interested in how some video games approach storytelling. For example Dark soul or Riven.
  • What techniques do you use? Tell us about your style?
Having a lot of gaps in traditional techniques, I tinker a lot with my drawings in colored pencil or pastel. Lots of digital retouching. My graphic style is quite synthetic and symbolic. My characters don't really have personalities or stories, they often embody an idea, they have a unique function.
Illustration by Claude Ponti
  • What are your next artistic projects? 
I'm currently working on a collection of short comic stories, about characters who meet wacky deities.
  • What emotions do you feel when your drawing is finished? 
I have a lot of trouble finishing a drawing. As I do a lot of Photoshop retouching, there is always something to add, to transform. When I do an illustration I become obsessive, I consider it finished when I feel the need to move on to another. 
  • What are your work routines?
Lots of coffee and cigarettes. I'm currently trying to quit while working so I bite the palm of my hand. 
  • We are delighted with this collaboration for our 3rd "Extreme Cold" theme. Tell us the story of your illustration? 
Thank you, I'm glad to have worked with you! 
The Great Cold is a theme that I find quite far from my universe. It reminds me of snow and I can't draw snow. That's what I thought to myself at first. What I liked was playing with the theme, making it my own.
My illustration is directly linked to my childhood memories. The ski start. I wanted to express both the excitement and the stress of the preparations. This drawing is like a large part of tetris except that the players are inexperienced.
Return of the Great Turtle, 2017, oil on canvas, 200 x150, courtesy of Luigi Serafini
  • What is the artist who nails your beak?
Luigi Serafini
  • The oeuvres qui te clouent au lit?
A book and a movie: The Lord of the RingsTolkien
A series: True detective directed by Cary Fukunaga
A comic strip: The horde of the shutter by Alain Damasio
 
  • What is the feeling you get when imagining your artwork hanging on the wall at our customers?
I want it displayed in the kitchen. I love kitchens.
Thanks Paul :)