The Illustrated Travels of Maxwell Tilse

The 25-year-old Australian illustrator Maxwell Tilse transformed his Instagram into a real travel diary.

Art and travel are his greatest pleasures, and in the past year he has been able to finance his travels with his creations. Illustrator Maxwell Tilse documents his European journeys by creating small drawings of each city he lands in.

Despite sketching many of his drawings using only images from books or magazines, Maxwell has now chronicled his travels across the continent showing him visit the iconic locations and compare his illustrations. Since 2015, Tilse has been drawing illustrations of all the monuments he sees during his short getaways and then shares them on his Instagram account.

The artist toured Central Europe: for five weeks he spent time with his family, and then continued the adventure alone. He passed through Poland, Slovakia, Kaliningrad, Hungary, Austria and the Czech Republic. With him, he brought what he calls a “visual travel diary,” with drawings of the places where he was.

“As a little kid I would constantly draw little scenes and comics. Big battles and adventures, inspired by films I would watch or books I would read. I never dreamed that it could become a profession.”

Barcelona, Spain

maxwell tilse barcelona spain