Travel brings at least two pleasures: the pleasure of doing it and the pleasure of telling about it.
Everyone, in their own way, chooses according to their tastes, possibilities, and talents if they have any.
Some write, others prefer stills or cinema, but the majority are content to chatter away at happy hour or after a meal.
There is also another, less common, category that favors charcoal, pencil, brush, or marker that draw on Canson paper. These are carnetists.
If the word is unknown, or nearly so, to dictionaries and spelling checkers, it takes on full meaning in Clermont-Ferrand in mid‑November. Since the turn of the century, it is in the Auvergne capital that the International Travel Sketchbook Rendezvous takes place.
It brings together about 120 carnetists who present and comment on their drawings to more than 15,000 visitors expected in 2026.
Everyone, in their own way, chooses according to their tastes, possibilities, and talents if they have any.
Some write, others prefer stills or cinema, but the majority are content to chatter away at happy hour or after a meal.
There is also another, less common, category that favors charcoal, pencil, brush, or marker that draw on Canson paper. These are carnetists.
If the word is unknown, or nearly so, to dictionaries and spelling checkers, it takes on full meaning in Clermont-Ferrand in mid‑November. Since the turn of the century, it is in the Auvergne capital that the International Travel Sketchbook Rendezvous takes place.
It brings together about 120 carnetists who present and comment on their drawings to more than 15,000 visitors expected in 2026.
Clermont by the Sea
The organizers have unveiled the poster. It is the work of a comic book author, Joël Alessandra, himself a carnetist.
He has turned the Auvergne capital into a seaside city. “Clermont-Ferrand has no sea – and that is precisely the starting point of this poster,” the author notes.
From his boat, the carnetist approaches the city by an impossible path: a sea crossing toward an inland volcanic city. This unlikely image embodies the very essence of carnet practice—the ability to reinvent reality, to bring forth the unexpected from the familiar (…) Clermont, with its ochre roofs and the black spires of its cathedral, appears as a dreamed‑of stopover, an inner port that every carnetist joins in their own way. »
All that remains is to wish the Travel Sketchbook a smooth voyage and a lovely port of call for thousands of cruise passengers!
Also read : Travel Sketchbook Rendezvous Clermont-Ferrand: the 2025 winners are…
He has turned the Auvergne capital into a seaside city. “Clermont-Ferrand has no sea – and that is precisely the starting point of this poster,” the author notes.
From his boat, the carnetist approaches the city by an impossible path: a sea crossing toward an inland volcanic city. This unlikely image embodies the very essence of carnet practice—the ability to reinvent reality, to bring forth the unexpected from the familiar (…) Clermont, with its ochre roofs and the black spires of its cathedral, appears as a dreamed‑of stopover, an inner port that every carnetist joins in their own way. »
All that remains is to wish the Travel Sketchbook a smooth voyage and a lovely port of call for thousands of cruise passengers!
Also read : Travel Sketchbook Rendezvous Clermont-Ferrand: the 2025 winners are…
