Tag Archives: weird art

The Dark (Folk) Arts of Paul Watson

January 23, 2016 greydogtales 2 Comments

Meet the Badb Catha and her friends. Yes, out of the cold, sodden North we have managed to produce another of our weird art interviews. We had intended to ring the vet for more of Twiglet’s medicine, but then an artist called. Next time we’ll probably interview the vet and pump the artist full of anti-rheumatics syrup. That might be quite interesting.

We’re back in the UK today, and are delighted to introduce Paul Watson, a contemporary artist with a number of strings to his brooding bow. We met Paul through the Folk Horror Revival, and here he is in the e-flesh to talk to us.

(As usual, all work is copyright of the artist, and if you click on a piece of work, you should get a much better view.)

greydog: Many thanks for joining us today, Paul. As you know, last year we became interested in the Folk Horror Revival because our idea of ‘weird’ includes both fictional strangenesses and deep-rooted myths or beliefs. Before we talk about your work, what drew you personally to the folk-horror scene?

paul: It’s a combination of things, I think. I’ve always been interested in myths, and folk horror frequently draws inspiration from myth and folklore. I also have a deep interest in what Robert Macfarlane called “The English Eerie” (robert macfarlane article link), what he called “the skull beneath the skin of the countryside”.

I grew up in the 1970s and early 80s watching Children of the Stones, Sapphire and Steel, The Tomorrow People, and Tom Baker’s Doctor Who, all of which have varying degrees of what we now call folk-horror, so my childhood was steeped in it.

I like the weird, unsettling, atmosphere in folk-horror – it’s far more interesting to me than straight-out shock-and-gore horror.

greydog: Folk-horror does infiltrate and unsettle, an aspect we like as well. On to your own art. Perhaps you could tell us a little about the concept of the Lazarus Corporation, which you started in 1996.

paul: When I first put together a website for my artwork back in 1996 I decided to give it a name other than my own. Part of the thinking behind it was that Andy Warhol had “The Factory” (the name the artist gave to his New York studio), so I’d take that idea into the 1990s and have “The Corporation”.

The “Lazarus” element was a reference to both of the biblical characters of that name, and also to Dennis Potter’s TV drama “Cold Lazarus” which had been shown for the first time that same year, and an earlier comic strip by Warren Ellis called “Lazarus Churchyard”.

The very earliest version of the website was simply an online gallery for my own artwork, but over the years I added a few other artists and writers to it. Now I’m using it to sell artwork as well, and by the time you read this it will have also become a publishing company of sorts as my self-published book of my artwork will bear the “Lazarus Corporation” imprint.

Forest Figure Linoprint, by Paul Watson — forest figure linoprint, paul watson

greydog: You work in a number of media, including linocut printing, photography and charcoal or pencil drawing. Do you find any one of these more satisfying than the others, or do you use them to express different ideas?

paul: I find them all satisfying in different ways. Drawing is the most personal medium for me, perhaps because it doesn’t have the mechanical aspects of either printmaking or photography.

That said, I really enjoy the mechanical aspects of printmaking, especially the way you only see the image at the very end of the creative process, after you pull it out of the press and peel the paper off the linocut.

Photography is useful for making people look twice – we’re still used to trusting photographs, so if you see something strange in a photograph it grabs your attention.

greydog: Whichever medium you employ, you seem to concentrate on the human form. Have you ever considered working in other areas, such as interpreting landscapes or structures?

paul: I’ve tried other subjects in the past, but I’m always drawn back to the human.

Copyright Paul Watson, 2014 — blind seeress, paul watson

greydog: Your photography reflects many aspects of European mythology, particularly the dark, prophetic or even vengeful aspects of women. What led you to go down this route?

paul: The main reason for concentrating on female characters was a purely practical one: the only models available were women. I’m glad to say that’s changed now, and I started some artwork with a male model last week.

I recently had the idea of doing two versions of each character in my photography—one modelled by a man, one by a woman—and somehow blending them together, either by displaying the photographs them side by side or digitally manipulating the photographs so that both male and female were combined in the same image. I’m hoping to pursue this in the future, making the characters a flickering mix of both male and female.

The dark/vengeful aspect is simply because I find dark characters more interesting – there’s probably a lot of folk-horror influence in that! To some extent the characters are all manifestations of some aspect of nature-as-uncontrolled-wilderness, so they’re not vengeful as such, just indifferent to humans.

Forest Priestess (3) — bark mask, paul watson

greydog: We feel like that some days. You also used to produce complex collages – is this an approach that you’ve left behind?

paul: Yes, I made collages for many years, but towards the end the creative process started to feel a bit stale and formulaic – I wasn’t surprising myself any more or learning anything. Taking a lesson from David Bowie, I made a sudden and complete stylistic change (and change of medium), and moved into printmaking and photography.

untitled-figure — untitled figure, paul watson

greydog: Give us some idea of other artists who you admire. Do you look mostly to contemporaries, or do you feel influenced by what we might call ‘classical’ artists?

paul: A whole mixture, really, from Caravaggio to Francis Bacon, via William Blake, Francisco Goya, Edvard Munch, and Joseph Cornell. Robert Rauschenberg was a definite influence when I was making collages.

I’ve also always liked Expressionist artwork from the first half of the 20th Century: artists such as Käthe Kollwitz, Emil Nolde, and Oskar Kokoschka. I think they’re one influence on my lino prints. I also like some of the surrealist painters, particularly Leonora Carrington and Max Ernst.

As to contemporary artists I admire, there are two photographers whose artwork I really like: Ellen Rogers (ellen rogers link) is absolutely brilliant and I’ve bought prints of several of her photographs, and both of her books, and Caryn Drexl (caryn drexl link) is also very good indeed, and I’ve got a large print by her as well.

greydog: We’ve always been into Munch, and we know some of the Expressionist print-work, but not in any depth. Kollwitz is striking but very bleak (actually some of it is so bleak it’s hard to look at). We do like Kokoschka‘s bold prints.

Now, we ought to ask, as greydogtales covers a lot of weird tales, do you find any of your inspiration in fiction?

paul: Yes, I think a lot of my inspiration comes from fiction. I tend to read quite a bit of science/speculative fiction: Mary Gentle, Catherynne Valente, Gene Wolfe, David Mitchell, Ursula LeGuin, Lauren Beukes, Jeff VanderMeer, Paolo Bacigalupi, Karen Joy Fowler, M. John Harrison, Ann Leckie, Robert Holdstock, Hannu Rajaniemi, Jo Walton, Nicola Griffith, Steph Swainston, China Miéville…

badb-catha-drawing-01 — badb-catha, paul watson

greydog: That’s one high-powered list. We had a critique group of writing friends which included Nicola Griffith many years ago – very talented woman. Finally, give us a hint as to what we might see from you in 2016.

paul: I’m currently working on a new series of artwork based around a corn mask that I made, provisionally titled “Come unto the corn” – that should appear towards the end of January if all goes well. And at the same time my book of artwork “Myth and Masks” should be published.

I’d like to do more printmaking in 2016, but I can never really predict what direction my artwork will take. I’d like to try out some different things in 2016, but I don’t know whether it’ll be a new medium or a new style. Or both.

greydog: We look forward to following your work this year, and many thanks again for coming on greydogtales, Paul Watson.

all-that-you-think-you-know — paul watson

For others interested in Paul’s art, you can find a range of his pieces on display at the Lazarus Corporation website, linked below. Note that the site includes occasional elements which are NSFW:

lazarus corporation

Another day, another fake dollar. We shall close, gentle listener, and plan more ~~stuff~~ intriguing delights for next time…

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Hellboy, Santiago Caruso & the Three Sir Edward Greys

January 15, 2016 greydogtales 4 Comments

We like history. We like real history (if there is such a beast), and we like weird, invented history as well. So today’s broadcast starts with Santiago Caruso, the talented Argentinian illustrator mentioned on here before. Why? Because of Sir Edward Grey. We are greydogtales, our first new Carnacki story was Grey Dog and we’ve just completed the novella A Study in Grey. We couldn’t resist this one.

This post will go backwards. It may make more sense than our forward ones. The other day our enormous South American intelligence network (OK, mostly Diego Arandojo and Sebastian Cabrol) alerted us that Santiago Caruso had illustrated an edition of the comic Abe Sapien from Dark Horse. Abe Sapien #30 – Witchcraft and Demonology, to be precise.

As far as we know this is Caruso’s first major comics project, and it looks fabulous. Much of his main body of work is dark, even surreal, and his style really suits the comic.

12509139_1030057697051317_2211863691818495829_n — santiago caruso

But who or what is Abe Sapien? Comics enthusiasts will know the character from Mike Mignola‘s various series concerning Hellboy, who first appeared in 1993 in a promotional short produced with John Byrne. Abe Sapien himself had his own first spin-off comics outing in 1998, in Drums of the Dead.

11046893_10153997229838475_2006749943077170731_n — santiago caruso

Film fans will know him, in a slightly different version, from the original 2004 Hellboy film and the sequel, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army (2008).

Abraham Sapien was born as Langdon Everett Caul, became a scientist in Victorian times, and ended up the way he is because of experiments performed on him after an encounter with an aquatic deity/monster. These occult experiments were conducted by the Oannes Society. There are two great things about this information.

The first is the old sailor’s legend that people born with a caul around their faces will never drown (the caul is part of the birth membrane, and occasionally has to be removed from the new-born). These were once prized by mariners, who thought they brought good luck and protected them from death at sea. Given that Abe Sapien is amphibious and potentially immortal, the surname Caul was well chosen.

The second is that Oannes is, of course, another name for Dagon, beloved of H P Lovecraft and those who wrote after him – and a Middle-Eastern deity who had the form of both fish and man. Dagon is also the God of the Philistines in the Hebrew Bible. Oannes was supposed to rise from the waters and bring artistic and scientific gifts to mankind.

As part of Mignola’s Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defence, Abe, Hellboy and others protect America from paranormal and supernatural threats. And in that role they encounter, yes, you guessed it, Sir Edward Grey, Witchfinder. You knew it would make sense, didn’t you? No? Oh well.

We have a declared interest in characters who survive beyond their natural years through one method or another. We always loved Adam Adamant, the TV series where an Edwardian adventurer was frozen in a block of ice and thawed out in the 1960s. It had a great theme tune, too, sung by Kathy Kirby – and Juliet Harmer as Georgina Jones was gorgeous, too.

Our own Last Edwardian and erstwhile friend of Carnacki the Ghost Finder, Henry Dodgson, is still around today, but without the intervention of occultism, paranormal experiments, aliens, genetics or involuntary refrigeration.

Anyway, Sir Edward Grey. Another Victorian, like Abe, and more commonly known as the Witchfinder, Sir Edward is not only an occult detective but gifted with supernatural powers of his own. The Witchfinder comics began with the five part In the Service of Angels, written by Mike Mignola and drawn by Ben Stenbeck, published in 2009. If you don’t know this, Kim Newman, that well-known critic and author of the weird, took hold of some of the writing reins in 2014 for another five-parter, The Mysteries of Unland, written with Maura McHugh.

In short, after some occult detecting of his own, Sir Edward is asked by Queen Victoria to become a special agent of the crown, looking into the paranormal, supernatural and downright icky. He is knighted after foiling an assassination attempt on the queen, and goes on to investigate the foul activities of various warlocks, witches and vampires, becoming increasingly concerned about the plans of certain occult brotherhoods.

After leaving the queen’s service, he has his own occult detective practice in London, and is active there during the Edwardian period. We have a sneaking feeling that Sir Edward should have (and may have) met Carnacki, although their techniques would have probably had them at odds.

Unlike Carnacki, who definitively disappeared after “the incident” on Roulston Scar (that’s our story, and we’re sticking with it), the Sir Edward Grey of the comics reappears a century later. This time he seems more of a supernatural figure himself, masked, robed and mysterious with some cracking warlockian powers. In this incarnation he can be found in Hellboy in Hell, an ongoing series scripted again by Mike Mignola, with art by Dave Stewart.

But Edwardian is our game for the moment, which links to our next, slightly more real Sir Edward Grey (1862 – 1933), who was the UK’s Foreign Secretary from 1905 to 1916, – and thus in Government at the time when William Hope Hodgson was writing. He was also there when Henry Dodgson, Abigail Jessop and our other characters were carrying on the work of Cheyne Walk, of course.

Rather excitingly, our novella A Study in Grey completely fails to mention that the background of the Balkans crisis (discussed therein) would have been coloured by Sir Edward Grey’s negotiations with Russia. Sir Edward hoped that Britain, France and Russia would provide a brake to the ambitions of the Germans and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Had we dwelt on this aspect, of course, much snoring and bored muttering would have occurred. So we left it out.

There is a chance you already know him, but probably not by name. This is the chap who stood looking out over a London evening at the outbreak of World War One and uttered the famous words:

“The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our time.”

A Liberal politician and, we think, the longest serving Foreign Secretary in British history. Thrilling, eh? Nothing like a bit of period detail.

So who is the third Sir Edward Grey? That’s the easiest of the lot. As you will have been taught in school, Sir Edward Grey (c. 1415–1457) was the father of Sir John Grey of Groby, whose wife Elizabeth Woodville later married King Edward IV of England. Got that? There will be a test next week.

800px-Streathamladyjayne — lady jane grey

Such a lineage makes Sir Edward, yes, the great-great-great-grandfather of Lady Anne Grey, who at the age of sixteen or seventeen managed to be Queen of England for nine days.

Rather unfortunately she was executed in 1554, having done nothing wrong except being a Protestant and in the way of the Catholic “Bloody Mary”. Mary’s nickname came from her rather unpleasant habit of burning Protestant dissenters at the stake – almost 300 of them. Luckily for some, Elizabeth I came along not long after, which was extremely handy given that this was the Elizabethan Age. What are the chances, eh?

We have kept our promise. Three Sir Edward Greys, and another record for the greydogtales archives. Thank you for listening, and goodnight.

On this channel next week – a dead author or two, and lurchers. Must have lurchers…

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Naked Lurchers & Quique Alcatena: End of the Year Part 1

December 27, 2015 greydogtales Leave a comment

Quite amazingly, greydogtales is FIVE. Months, of course, not years. Who would have thought that a penniless match-girl from the cholera-stricken slums of Yorkshire could rise to command such an empire of weird pleasure? No-one, of course. Instead, dear listeners, we married her…

Gosh, those tablets were hard to swallow. Much like greydogtales. But we feel better now, so for the last few posts of 2015, we’re going to wrap up our first calendar year of lurchers, literature and life by providing a miscellany of updates and oddities.

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pups2 — ‘christmas nude lurcher scandal’, the batley herald and gazette

The great controversy of the year, of course, has been the cutting-edge debate on whether or not Django should be wearing pants, given his shameless habit of lying upside down with his legs apart. So far the consensus is that as he doesn’t have his family jewels, he should get away with it.

pups1 — django’s teddy removes his pants in protest

We had two unexpected successes during 2015, both of which started as mere whimsies. The Lurcher for Beginners series, which began in early September, took off rather dramatically. We can still tell when we’ve published one of these by looking at the huge spike in readership for days afterwards. And if we don’t write about longdogs and lurchers often enough, we get sent huge spikes. So that series may have to continue in the New Year.

The other series which went down surprisingly well was our extended tribute to William Hope Hodgson, The Writer on the Borderland, throughout October. We didn’t think we could get more niche and limited, but enthusiasts of the ‘grandfather of weird fiction’ emerged in great numbers from their protective pentacles to take part. We shall have to celebrate someone far more obscure and less popular next time.

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Later in the year we discovered South America, which must have been a surprise to the South Americans, who thought they already knew who and where they were. So our first end-of-year link is to a documentary by our friend Diego Arandojo, who came on greydogtales along with the illustrator Sebastian Cabrol in November. Diego has just produced Alcatena, which looks at the life and work of the famous Argentinan cartoonist Enrique ‘Quique’ Alcatena, the creator of worlds and fantastic creatures, with contributions from colleagues, friends and family.

Batman alas - Quique — batman, quique alcatena

The documentary is predominantly in Spanish, but well worth a view even if you don’t speak the language. For one thing, Diego has captured numerous pieces of Quique’s artwork, from space opera to the Metal Men comic, and these are a joy to behold. Additionally, if you hover around after 1hr10m, you will see and hear US comics writer Chuck Dixon talking (in English) about his projects with Quique. Dixon is known for his work on Marvel’s Alien Legion, The Punisher and DC’s Batman (amongst many other things), and here he discusses the Leatherwing comic featuring ‘Pirate Batman’, and other projects he has done with Quique.

Alcatena (2015, Diego Arandojo)

Vida y obra del historietista argentino Enrique “Quique Alcatena”. Una mirada profunda sobre este creador de mundos y seres fantásticos, con el aporte testimonial de compañeros de trabajo, amigos y familia.

As we’re on Diego anyway, we might as well mention that his site lafarium now includes a new piece, available in English or in Spanish, dedicated to an interview with Edward Packard. In 1969, Packard came up with the idea of writing multi-path second-person adventures, in which the reader makes choices that affects how a story unfolds and thus how it ends. “The Adventures of You” were eventually picked up by Bantam Books and published as a popular series of children’s books. The English version should be found here:

lafarium – edward packard interview

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Towards the end of the year we chose a weird art theme, and as part of this we interviewed the creative Richard Mansfield of Mansfield Dark, looking at their work on bizarro fun films, cunning cut-outs and shadow puppetry.

Their adaptation of E F Benson‘s famous horror story The Room on the Tower, which we mentioned as forthcoming in that article, is now available on Vimeo. Follow the link below to watch it:

the room in the tower

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In August (we don’t like to be too linear), we introduced the stories of Henry S Whitehead, set for the most part in the Caribbean. Tales of jumbees and strange spirits, curses and hauntings, these stories are well worth a read. This next bit gets complicated, so do keep up.

In that article we mentioned that Whitehead was a friend of H P Lovecraft. Recently, whilst putting together an introduction to the writer H Russell Wakefield we asked the scholarly Bobby Derie about Lovecraft’s opinion of Wakefield’s work. He kindly opened up his library on this matter, and we got talking. Whitehead’s name came up, and Mr Derie pointed us to facsimiles of some of Whitehead’s few surviving letters. There are many interesting little tid-bits therein, but we particularly liked this passage:

Obeah and voodoo should be carefully distinguished. Obeah is the “White” magic; Voodoo “Black”. “Obi” (or some similar, local rendition of the first word,) is the current term for BOTH throughout the Islands. This has deluded many writers into supposing that the term PROPERLY covers all kinds of West Indian and even African magic. Such is, emphatically, not the case. Obeah is concerned with safeguarding people from natural and supernatural bad influences. Voodoo invokes such influences. To the former belong: A. Herbal medicaments. B. Fortune-telling. C. “Song-making”. To the latter belong the Worship of the Snake; “Le Chevre sans Cornes” (The Goat Without Horns) i.e child sacrifice; and “Long-Pig” i.e. , cannibalism.

November 18, 1925, to Farnsworth Wright, editor of Weird Tales.

This letter’s especial relevance is that it was written from St Croix in the Virgin Islands. The Virgin Islands, formerly the Danish West Indies, are the setting for some of Whitehead’s best supernatural tales.

NB. Some quotes from Lovecraft’s letters, again courtesy of the helpful Mr Derie, will feature in the H R Wakefield article in January.

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Finally for today, there have been many ghostly stories bandied about over Christmas, it being something of a tradition at this time of year. As an antidote to the troubling supernatural reverberations of those stories, we suggest the following, by the rather talented writer, broadcaster and performer John Finnemore:

Terrifying stuff, eh?

Next time, End of the Year Part Two – more updates on those sundry weirdnesses we covered during the year, and perhaos some utterly misguided plans for 2016…

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The Art of Nordic Folklore: Jørgen Bech Pedersen

December 21, 2015 greydogtales 2 Comments

After our recent South American adventure, we lurch surprisingly north. Come with us now to Scandinavia and see the work of Danish artist, Jørgen Bech Pedersen, who produces terrific interpretations of those dark creatures which skulk in Nordic folk-lore.

greydog’s own introduction to Nordic folklore, decades ago, was through many un-related sources: the Marvel Thor comics (not always accurate, funnily enough), bits of Alan Garner‘s Weirdstone of Brisingamen, and Jacqueline Simpson‘s marvellous book Icelandic Folktales and Legends.

Living in a small community by the North Sea, we had a natural feel for those stories. Seal rocks at the bottom of the cliffs – were those really only seals down there? And what actually came in with the sea-frets which washed over the fields? Our ruined chalk farmhouses weren’t so far from those of folklore books, after all.

When we moved inland, years later, other Yorkshire folk would say that our accent was half Danish. So it was a pleasure to discover the work of ‘Bech‘, who agreed to be interviewed for this very programme (all paintings/drawings should be clickable for a larger version, by the way)…

greydog: Welcome to greydogtales, Jørgen – you are our first Scandinavian guest! We initially noticed your work on-line through your bestiary of troldfolk. Is your involvement in folklore a recent thing, or something from your youth?

jørgen: My fascination with folklore is a recent thing that started about 8 years ago. But I guess it really began in my childhood as a fascination for fantasy and fairy tales. At some point I discovered Dungeons & Dragons which further sparked my fascination. But I was aware of the difference between the elves depicted in popular culture and the ones I’d heard about in folk tales. I remember always wondering : why do Danish elves have a hollow back? I had also heard H C Andersen’s fairy tale The Elfin Hill in which the hill opens up and the elves pour out of it. But how?

These questions stayed in my mind for a long time until, at one point, I sat down to figure out the secret behind hollow elves and elven mounds that rise up on four glowing pillars of fire. Once I started reading folk tales, I was hooked. Luckily, I work in a library that keeps a nice section on folklore. When I started digging, I found more and more literature in our archives. I noticed that the majority of literature was quite old. Furthermore I found that folklore illustration was often put together from serveral artists and therefore inconsistent in style and expression. These things gave me an idea to make a bestiary and illustrate all the creatures myself.

greydog: Is there much interest in Danish folklore in Denmark itself?

jørgen: Not in general. There’s been a handful of new fantasy books that focus on folklore and we have seen a couple of small scale Nordic movies that deal with the subject (Huldra – Lady of the Forest and Troll Hunter)

greydog: The Troll Hunter film is superb, and most unusual in its take on the subject. One of greydog‘s fiction projects for 2016/17, The Children of Angles and Corners, is about the re-emergence of huldrefolk or huldufolk. Tell us something about the nature of troldfolk, as depicted in your art.

jørgen: When I made troldfolk.dk, I set out to make a bestiary, or field guide, to all of the folklore creatures of Denmark. What that means is describing the traits and abilities of each creature – their nature, if you will. That was a hard job, because the literary sources don’t classify each type of creature very consistently. Furthermore, to visualize my bestiary, I also had to bring each creature out into the open and draw them top to bottom on a blank background. Again the sources aren´t very helpful. Details are sparse and inconsistent. So again I had to try and capture their look and draw each creature my own way. The field guide therefore, presents over two dozen Scandinavian folklore creatures, that are each cleary documented and visualized. In that way it can be useful as a tool for fiction writers or for implementing these creatures in roleplaying games or computer games.

Choosing this perspective for troldfolk.dk also meant that you lose some of the original mystery concering trolls and fairies the way they were traditionally perceived. Don´t forget that these creatures were very real to farmers in the 19th century. Not just children but grown ups actually believed in brownies, ghosts and elves. Traditionally, there are some general traits about their nature. They were most often perceived as dangerous and something you should avoid dealing with. Elven maids look beautiful. They dance and sing in the fields at night, but if you join their dance, you may die. Other folklore creatures are benign or even helpful if you treat them right. Some of them are mortal and they grow old and die like normal people. Other creatures are more similar to ghosts and the undead.

greydog: You told us recently that you have been looking into British folklore as well. What areas interest you?

jørgen: I want to look more into the differences and similarities between the fairy world of the British Isles and Scandinavia. When I set out to study folklore, I thought the Danish creatures would be very unique to Denmark. That wasn´t the case. Folklore is subject to cultural exchange across borders. Just look at dragons. But especially I want to learn more about the British tradition of the fairy court. One of the things that fascinate me about British fairy lore is the strong ties between the fairy realm and human souls and the afterlife. I belive that idea is far more widespread in your area.

greydog: Your fabulous illustrations are how we spotted you. Which artists do you feel have influenced your style?

jørgen: I have a lot of influences of course. I´m very fascinated by the old Nordic illustrators of the 18th century. They really conceptualized the look of the Nordic trolls and their style is carried on today. Look at Theodor Kittelsen or John Baur. Modern inspiration inclues Brian Froud, Iain Mccaig, Tony Diterlizzi, Paul Bonner and Justin Sweet. Hmm, I could go on. Must make a list on my website.

greydog: And although we know a couple of those, including Brian Froud, we must look some of the others up. Could tell us a little about your painting techniques?

jørgen: The illustations for troldfolk.dk are all hand drawn and colored digitally. Recently I chose to work in traditional media again and I use ink, watercolor, guache and acrylics. I´m really not set on a specific style. I like to try out new materials and styles. Just take a look at bechart.dk

greydog: We know that you accept commissions. Do you have serious commercial ambitions for your artwork, such as a printed bestiary, or is it mostly for your own pleasure?

jørgen: For me art is first and foremost a pleasure but I’m also dead serious about it. I accept commissions that I feel are in tune with what I want to do. Originally I wanted to make a book, but I decided to make a website to reach a broader audience. My goal has always been to inspire people to learn about Nordic folklore and to that purpose a website is more useful. However, I´m still planning to supplement the website with a printed book at some point. This will include a lot more illustrations of each creature and hopefully show them in their proper surroundings.

greydog: Folklore is a major source for fantasy literature. Do you read fantasy or weird fiction yourself?

jørgen: Even though I´m a librarian, I don’t read a lot. I use most of my spare time drawing and when I do read, it´s mostly non-fiction, folklore sources or sometimes a piece of classic literature. I read slowly, so I have to be picky. I do enjoy fantasy a lot and I´ve read Tolkien, the Dragonlance saga, Beowulf, but also a lot of Poe and I´m fascinated by Lovecraft’s dark universe.

61dce34d3f-Bech_ringwraith_sepia — ringwraith, bech

greydog: Good man! One question out of curiosity – in recent years, Scandinavia has become renowned for what many call ‘Nordic noir‘, in books and films. Denmark is often thrown in with Norway, Sweden and Iceland, as if they were similar. Is this fair?

jørgen: I’m not bothered by it. There’s a Nordic kinship that I appreciate. I dont feel Danish identity is in any way threatened by this generalization.

greydog: And finally, any plans for your art in the New Year? More bestiary entries, or something new?

jørgen: I’m hired in to do some concept art for a game production and that will probably keep me busy for a while. Can´t tell you anything about it yet, though. Besides that my plan is to do a lot of art, prepare exhibitions and try and sell some 🙂

greydog: We wish you much luck with that and thank you, Jørgen Bech Pedersen. As mentioned, you can find the Bech Bestiary here:

troldfolk

For each illustration in the bestiary, there is also a text piece which is well worth reading. Don’t be put off if you don’t speak Danske – we merely copied the text and pasted it into the google on-line Danish to English translator. It’s not perfect, but there’s lots of great information there. And Bech’s art in general is on-line here:

bech art

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That’s probably the last of our ‘Weird Art’ theme for 2015, but it will return next year. Do keep tuning in – greydogtales continues over the festive season, thought perhaps in a slightly more random “surely I didn’t drink all that brandy” manner…

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Alcatena (2015, Diego Arandojo)

Literature, lurchers and life