Gaucher adroit, illustrateur passionné le jour (pêcheur inlassable la nuit), Reno dessine depuis qu’il est en âge d’avoir des cahiers scolaires à noircir de croquis.
Une passion dont ses parents ne se réjouiront que bien plus tard.
Renaud ou Reno ? C'est le même bonhomme! Le premier c'est sur le passeport, le second sur les dessins.
Après des études d’Architecture Intérieure et Design à Paris, il décide de vivre de sa passion : le dessin. Lancé en 1998 grâce à son premier ouvrage Esprit de Provence (Ed. Hachette), il enchaîne ensuite les travaux d’illustrations pour diverses maisons d’éditions et magazines (Minerva, La Martinière Jeunesse, Nathan, Le Lou du Lac, Michelin, Actes Sud…).

Mais en bon breton, même s’il aime le beurre natal plus que de raison, l’appel du large est plus fort...
Son besoin de voyage fusionne avec celui de Claire.

Claire à la bougeotte sans être bretonne puisqu’elle est lyonnaise (mais ne mange ni boudin ni gras double !). Elevée assez tôt aux horizons lointains comme la volaille en plein air, faute de dessiner sur ses cahiers, elle y colle des pages découpées de catalogues de voyages.

Après avoir découvert quelques capitales européennes et un peu de l’ouest africain à l’adolescence, elle part seule, à 20 ans, travailler dans une matérnité de Bangui, en République Centrafricaine, avant, un an plus tard, de passer l'été en Inde avec les missionnaires de la Charité à Calcutta, l’ordre de Mère Térésa.

Right from his earliest years, left-handed Reno has devoted his hours of daylight to sketching on every scrap of paper available, while indulging his other pastime, sea fishing, at night.
After studying at the School of Interior Architecture and Design in Paris, he decided to make a career of drawing and sketching. His first work “Esprit de Provence” published by Hachette in 1988, preceded a whole series of illustrations executed for a number of publishing houses and magazines.

But Reno is a native of Brittany, for whom the call of the sea cannot be ignored.  When he encountered Claire, a co-student at the Paris School of Architecture, the pair of them discovered a mutual passion for adventure beyond the shores of France.

Born in the land-locked city of Lyons in south-east France, Claire had set out early in her in her teens to discover a number of European cities before leaving to work in a maternity home in Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic. One summer later found her in India working with Mother Teresa’s mission in Calcutta. Claire and Reno decided to launch out on a great adventure, the sort of adventure that may well be undertaken only once in a lifetime.

We started off quite simply, with a little money that we had patiently saved; at the age of 26 we shut the door behind us, and set off to grasp the world with both hands.
Once en route, we soon became eager to share our daily experiences with others. We realised that a book, which Reno would illustrate, was the obvious way of telling the many stories and experiences lived through from Africa to the Pacific.  Much more than just a personal adventure, it gradually became clear that our trip reflected a world which was very different from that which we had imagined.  Old clichés were discarded, and we discovered a world of greater simplicity, greater generosity and greater brotherhood.  It was frequently a world of misery and pain, yet joyful and unendingly optimistic. 

On our return after a period of three years of non-stop adventure, we published a first illustrated account “Trois ans de  voyage,” : (“Three years on the road”) published by Editions de La Martinière, which has won several awards. We then continued travelling and writing in various other places : Madagascar, Algeria and, more recently, the Yemen and India. (See our books published)

Our mutual passion, devoted to books and far-off horizons, has become a way of life. We work together in publishing and the travel press, always bearing in mind the poetry and humanity of a world which are all too often held in scorn.