Déborah Schmitt
- Anna Lilli Garai
- Nov 11
- 4 min read
Déborah Schmitt is an artist and illustrator based in Paris. She uses colored pencils to build her own unique world where memory and imagination meet. She develops her drawings gradually, adding color in layers until her vibrant shapes come to life. Schmitt often focuses on themes like houses, plants, and open landscapes. She draws inspiration from her personal experiences, walks, and photographs. Many of her pieces come from moments she recalls and things she observes in her environment.
Q: How did watching your grandmother paint influence the way you work today?
A: My grandmother was one of the most creative people I’ve known. She could draw with anything she found, but I think painting was her favorite medium. She used to paint plant ornaments on everyday wooden objects (often boxes that would then be used all around the house). Her work was very meticulous as painting on objects requires a lot of precision and patience. She had this unique way of loading several colors directly onto the brush, letting them blend naturally on the wood. With a single brushstroke, she could paint a petal with all the necessary shades and details. I believe her legacy lives on in everything I draw, both in my choice of subjects and technique.
Q: What made you stick with colored pencils instead of moving to paint or digital work?
A: Over time, I’ve experimented with various drawing tools like oil paint, acrylics, and a bit of watercolor. At the beginning, I turned to colored pencils for practical reasons: I was living in a space too small to paint in, and I often travel by train.
It’s easy to take my pencils and paper anywhere, and little by little, they’ve become my favorite drawing tool. I enjoy the texture of the pencils on paper, the blending and layering of colors, and I’m always searching for new color harmonies in my sketchbook I always carry with me. More recently, I started drawing on a tablet, but only for preparatory sketches when working on commissions. I’m deeply attached to working by hand on paper, I also like the small accidents that can happen along the way, I think they’re a mark of authenticity.
Q: In “La maison de vacances” and “L’Allée de Cyprès,” nature feels calm but also a bit mysterious. What kind of atmosphere were you chasing there?
A: These scenes are calm and contemplative because they stand apart from any human activity. They suggest it through the presence of a house, but one that can only be imagined. The viewer becomes a passerby, encountering this place in the course of a walk.
What makes these scenes mysterious is the urge to locate them. They could very well exist somewhere, yet they spring entirely from imagination, and that imagined world differs for every viewer who interprets it through their own perspective. I don’t aim for a specific atmosphere when I begin a drawing. I put my feelings in the moment in it, but I want to leave space for the viewer to have their own experience.
Q: Your drawings often start from photos you take on walks. Do you ever let imagination take over completely?
A: My drawings, when they’re not commissions, are like puzzles made up of scattered ideas and random references like everyday photos, film scenes, paintings, old illustrated books… The colors are more or less realistic depending on the atmosphere I’m searching for. The treatment of shapes sometimes leans toward abstraction, especially in the vegetation elements, which are my favorite and where I allow myself the most freedom. I often start from one specific element that sparks the impulse for a new drawing, but I quickly move away from it to free myself completely. I usually have a general composition in mind, but I build the drawing gradually, I never know exactly what it will become. I give myself complete freedom with personal drawings.
Q: You studied graphic design before coming back to illustration. What from that training still shows up in your work today?
A: I completed my graphic design studies in 2023, and since then I’ve been working as a designer employee at a communication agency (KIBLIND Agency in Paris).
This work is characterized by the use of illustration within graphic design projects so it really enriches my personal practice. For me, graphic design and drawing are always connected, the two practices continuously feed into each other.
Graphic design requires a great knowledge of composition rules and color matches, both of which I also find in drawing. And sometimes it works the other way around, I discover new color combinations in my drawings that I hadn’t yet imagined using in a poster, for instance. It’s like a constant ping pong game between the two disciplines.
Q: You’ve called your drawings like postcards from unknown places. What makes you return to those in-between worlds again and again?
A: To me, drawing is the medium that offers the greatest freedom of expression and exploration. It allows me to put on paper anything I can imagine, to shape it, alter it, and expand it at will. I love inventing places that I could never have photographed. As a child, I was fascinated by picture books and Disney animated films, because I was always captivated by the hand-drawn backgrounds. Letting the imagination flow freely during the drawing process, rather than trying to reproduce reality, is also what makes the practice almost meditative. When I draw, I let my mind escape and practically let the pencil guide itself.
