the first 20 years of my life dancing to the rhythm of the ocean. I only need to look into my practical work books from my primary school to find my first drawings of the prehistoric era. Throughout my childhood, I constantly drew antedilluvian monsters, putting aside schooling obligations and indulging myself in the famous King Kong's dinosaurs or the art of Zdenek Burian forever engraved in my mind.
At the age of 20, I decided to move to Paris after having failed dreadfully at school. Surfing the magnificent waves of the west coast was quite incompatible, from my point of view, with the demands of education. After a couple of work tribulations that made me bitterly regret the thougtlessness of my earlier years, I became a graphic designer and illustrator in the field of publishing in 1992 and specialized in scientific and educational works. This aspiring profession gave me inspiration for my paleo artistic achievements which was until then "dormant".
In 1997, I published a comic strip on dinosaurs " L'empreinte des géants " (Tracks of the Giants), a vague reflection of the first comic strip I created when I was 7. I distributed this work to a wide range of individuals which in turn opened doors to scientific publications. Ever since that time I have been very much in demand.
Also, I have illustrated a book, ' Les requins sont-ils des fossiles vivants? ' By Gilles Cuny, EDP Sciences, 2002. A unique book on the evolution of sharks and cartilaginous species which I was able to create 50 reconstitutions in close collaboration with the author Gilles Cuny, "Curator" of the Copenhagen Museum of Geology.
I have multiple artistic influences; I have read a great deal of comic strips and was highly influenced by Moebius, Druillet, Bilal, Gimenez , Wrightson, John Buscema, Corben and many other artists of the golden comic strip age. However, artists such as Zdenek Burian, Douglas Henderson, Gregory S. Paul, Karen Carr, Mark Halett and Michael Skrepnick are my main references. I principally use pencils, numeric (particularly for colouring traditional digitalised drawings), water colours and painting.
I have just been awarded 3rd prize in the second International contest of Dinosaur illustration of Lourinha
This exhibition gave me the opportunity to spend time with children for whom I was able to draw dinosaurs. They were so eager and curious that ever since that time I have tried to meet with them regularly by visiting schools in order to draw and talk to them.
My passion would not have been intact without their enthusiasm and spontaneity and my unique motivation is to try to share this and hence contribute, I hope, to an increased knowledge of Nature and human responsibility in this domain.
I am working on new articles that will be published at the end of the year and have a project to illustrate a book for next year. I essentially work in the publishing field but am open to all paleo-graphic proposals.
I would like to extend my thanks to Dave Friend for having given me the opportunity to display my artworks alongside this gallery's talented artists.
Alain Bénéteau
Thanks Alain! I'm glad to have such a fine
paleo artist here at Prehistorics Illustrated.
Don't miss Alain Bénéteau's new website
Paleospot
at
http://www.paleospot.com
