We continue our new segment ‘In Their Own Words’ with French illustrator Steeven Salvat who shares the inspiration behind his modern etchings.

I’m a French, self-taught artist, passionate about drawing and channelling my creative ideas. I come from a city called Menton, in the south of France and I now live in Paris. I’ve been drawing since I was a child – it’s my passion. So I’m not new in the illustration game, but I never took it too seriously to make a living before. However, this is changing as I currently dedicate more time to it and have begun to take part in some projects and commissions.

My work is inspired by old black and white etching but with a modern twist. I love to draw with Rotring pen and China ink and started using this technique four years ago, when I met Théo Jan. We also draw in collaboration under the name: Steev & Jan.

I love detailed artworks and I really like to draw textures with the most accurate render. I work with Rotring pen 0,13 mm so it allows me to be as precise as I want to.

At the moment, my favourite project is ‘Mechanical/Biological | Crustacean study‘. It’s a personal project inspired by old biological studies. It’s composed of 10 original crustacean drawings, half shells, half mechanics. I grew up by the sea and I’ve always been fascinated by the ocean and marine creatures. I came up with the idea to mix machines with crustaceans when I first drew mechanics and gears for a previous project called ‘Rouages‘. I loved the render and the feeling of it, so I decided to mix these subjects in a new project inspired by old biological studies.

When I created this project, I really wanted to create a result similar to the old biological studies that you can come across in a museum, for instance. So I decided to handwrite the names of the species. But instead of doing it on the drawings, I thought it would be fun to create a full font. I’ve drawn each letter and symbol, then scanned it. I used Glyph software to convert the vectorised file to .otf & .ttf. You can download it for free and use it with no limits.

I’m actually experimenting with a new technique for my next project and plan to add some colour to my work.

You can find more of Steeven Salvat’s work on his website, Instagram, Facebook and Behance.