Thijs Desmet

Fairytale time

2012-02-03T22:07:00.001+01:00

Another college assignment. We were asked to do a series of illustrations based based on the Hansel and Gretel fairytale. It was meant to be a personal interpretation of the story so in my hands it once again turned into something grim ans spooky:

I also did some experimenting with coloured prints and then combined them with the original black and white images in photoshop. This is what came out of it:

I'm not entirely sure which series I like best. The colours definitely give another dimension to it but I still very much like the roughness and "purity" of the original black and white series.

iLiKETRAiNS

2011-12-21T20:37:00.000+01:00

So again it's been a while since my last update, not because I haven't been working on anything lately, because I've actually been rather busy. That and I keep forgetting to update. These sketches for example were made during a concert by iLiKETRAiNS, back in October. If you don't know them, they are an indie-rock band from England. Their sound is comparable to that of bands like Mogwai or Godspeed You! Black Emperor but rockier (especially on their latest album) and with vocals. Good vocals too, and a lot of their lyrics are about historical events so their music is both epic and educational.

They also signed my sketches which was cool:

They played in the Charlatan in Ghent

James Ensor short comic strip

2011-11-11T00:58:00.000+01:00

Drypoint illustration: a short three-panel story, based on this painting by James Ensor

The Ascent of Everest

2011-10-15T14:14:00.000+02:00

Last Wednesday I got to see The Ascent of Everest live and they were great. I brought my trustworthy moleskine sketchbook with me and made these:

(this first one was made during soundcheck)

As you can see they also signed my drawings which was really cool of them.

Here I drew them with gasmasks for some reason:

Near the end of the concert they asked someone from the audience to sit in front of the bassdrum because it was kept moving or something. The guy looked pretty pleased with his new job.

About an astronaut

2011-09-21T15:02:00.002+02:00

So I like science fiction, especially the kind sprinkled with a hint of metaphysics like 2001 A Space Odyssey, Moon or Solaris. This comic was kind of an attempt own at creating something like that. It's about 30 pages long, was done entirely in ink, is completely wordless and much like the movies it was inspired by, nothing ever seems to be happening in it and when something does, no one is really sure what it is.

The comic was actually done somewhere between May and June but I never got round to scanning it in its entirety until today.

Every file is 2 pages so first you have to read the column on the left and then the one on the right, but I think it's pretty obvious.

Enjoy!

No more skeletons

2011-09-02T11:05:00.000+02:00

I told myself I wasn't going to draw any more skeletons but then I did:

I haven't made any updates in a while, mostly because I haven't been very productive lately. I still have some stuff lying around that I still need to scan and upload, including a short comic. I'm hoping I'll be able to put it on here some time soon.

Artwork for Dictionary of Ghosts & Dark Class Split on Heat Death Records

2011-06-26T22:17:00.000+02:00

I was asked to do the cover art for a split between ambient/drone artists Dictionary of Ghosts & Dark Class that is coming out on Heat Death Records. You can stream both tracks and pre-order the CDr here. I believe there should be about 75 available, every one of them with an original linocut print of mine on the cover.

A short charcoal animation

2011-06-22T23:29:00.000+02:00

A short, simple charcoal animation. It was made over the course of four days. Every day I would draw a sight outside one of my windows and would try to capture the changing light by erasing parts of the drawing or adding new ones about every 5 to 10 minutes. I didn’t have any decent equipment or software for making stop motion so the image is kind of shaky but I don’t think it’s really that bothersome. The video was actually part of an installation where it was constantly looped and was meant to appear as if it was an actual moving drawing instead of a movie. (Which is also why the drawings are all in a vertical position)

The technique was inspired by William Kentridge, who is one of my favourite contemporary artists. Be sure to check out his work if you don’t know him yet.

Earthmover

2011-06-10T11:47:00.000+02:00

I like to have music on while drawing, not just as background noise but as an actual important part of the creative process. Sometimes I’ll have just one song on repeat the entire time because I feel it serves as the perfect soundtrack to whatever image or story I’m trying to create.

So when, as part of a college assignment, we got asked to pick a song and make a series of images based on it, this was right up my alley.

The song I ended up picking was ‘Earthmover’ from the album 'Deathconsciousness' by the band Have a Nice Life. As you may remember I already mentioned using some of their lyrics for this woodcut.

I started work on a series of drypoint prints that further explore the imagery of flying whale skeletons used in the aforementioned woodcut. Somewhere along the way these images began to evolve into a sort of short story that, in the end, doesn’t have all that much to do with the song anymore. In fact, while some of the song’s lyrics definitely had an influence on the imagery, it was never my intention to do a literal interpretation of them. These are simply the images that pop up in my head when listening to the song, I have no idea why. It is interesting to note though, that Have a Nice Life are from Connecticut and, as I recently found out, Connecticut’s state animal is the sperm whale. Perhaps some sperm whale ghost juice somehow ended up getting caught on the band’s record and is send out into the ether every time the record is played. Sometimes I don’t know what the hell I’m saying which is why I should just shut up and let the images do the talking:

As you can see I ended up binding all prints together as a little book. I used Japanese stab binding technique for this which is the most badass bookbinding technique because it has the word 'stab' in it. Before binding them together , I made a scan of every print:

Fin!

Also (because this post isn't huge enough as it is), as a final part of the assignment we were also asked to make a poster based on the song we picked.

This one was done in a simple monoprinting technique. For size comparison: here's me standing next to it looking like a tool:

If anyone is interested in hearing the song, it can be streamed in its entirety on the band's last.fm page. The song is the album closer though, and while it definitely stands on its own, it's even more powerful within the context of the album. You can get a digital copy of the album for only 5 US dollars here. It might seem as if I'm shamelessly promoting the band which is entirely true because 1) It's a great band and 2) hopefully it will get them to not sue me.

A profound meditation on Death and the Afterlife

2011-05-23T23:39:00.000+02:00

And we continue with skeleton literature. This comic was done in linocuts and is based on an epic folk tale that has been passed on for many generations ever since I came up with it a few weeks ago.

Greg

2011-05-13T22:01:00.000+02:00

Not a piece of artwork of mine this time. Instead, here's a short story a friend of mine wrote about the skeleton that has been making appearances in some of my more recent work (and whose name, according to the caption on my flickr page is Greg.) I thought it was quite lovely and felt like sharing it.

Greg.

His name is Greg. Although you wouldn’t think he’s a guy at first

sight. Quite feminine, our Greg. But he compensates by hanging

out in dreary landscapes with scattered pylons, an oversized coat

covering his slender posture.

He’s got the most beautiful S-shaped spine you’ll ever see, and he

knows it. His ribcage is like a translucent sea organism. He has no

left arm or hand. His right arm, on the other hand, is quite long.

(Yes, his right arm is on his other hand. That’s what I said. Go on read, we’re going to talk about what Greg likes.)

He likes dark, confined spaces. It doesn’t have to be real clean and

neat. He just wants to hang around comfortably. He does want an

ecologically responsible living environment though. It’s not

because he’s dead that he doesn’t care. That’s just Greg! He’s

always sticking up for others. So he has chosen a minimalistic

lifestyle, void of luxury and gadgets, stripped down to the bare

essentials he needs: linoleum. Used lino, mind you!

This sobriety also reflects in Greg’s personal tastes. Not much of a

traveller, Greg has forgotten about his legs. No legs mean no pants,

no shoes, no sport preferences to worry about. It leaves Greg

floating around peacefully, his mind free to explore other

thoughts.

One wonders naturally about Greg’s love life. So does he.

He was a simple man, with simple desires. He wondered if he

should buy a Prius, but he concluded it was too much of a fuzz. He

thought of his mother every time he passed a Baskin & Robbins.

He had a Twitter account, but he only posted twice.

Greg used to be a doctor.

In San Francisco.

He hated teeth, but loved toothpicks.

Here rests Greg, may he hang in peace.

Vicky Colin

May 2011

Look at Banner, Michael!

2011-05-08T23:29:00.000+02:00

An ink drawing. I decided to make it into a new banner. Not sure if I will keep it like this.

Skeleton Linocut

2011-05-04T15:53:00.000+02:00

I draw a lot of skeletons

What else are you going to do with pieces of leftover linoleum?

We could rule the world you and I

2011-04-29T20:19:00.000+02:00

I bet they could

Roadburn 2011

2011-04-28T14:06:00.001+02:00

A bunch of sketches I made at the Roadburn 2011 festival in Tilburg. Hooray for moleskine pocket sketchbooks!

Sabbath Assembly

Scorn

Candlemass

Shrinebuilder (unfortunately their sound was shit)

And last but definitely not least:
Swans!

Unlike most of the other sketches, which were made from the balcony, these were actually made while standing fairly close to the stage.

Towards the end of the show, we did move back to the balcony and I made one last sketch, probably my favourite of them all:

Michael Gira seems like a pretty scary guy although he's quite friendly in person. He did sign my sketchbook:

I'm not really into the whole idolizing artists thing, but signatures are always a nice souvenir.

Obviously I saw a lot more bands than just these five, but I didn't always take my sketchbook with and I wasn't always in a comfortable enough position to draw.

Sketchbook time

2011-04-13T11:09:00.000+02:00

Skeleton

2011-04-13T10:52:00.005+02:00

Reduction linocut of a sad skeleton. He is sad because he is lonely and a skeleton. I think I used way too much ink on this one.

...and the billboards are all leering.

2011-04-13T10:51:00.000+02:00

They are.

Drypoint.

2011-04-13T10:46:00.000+02:00

Oh look more whales, or whale skeletons at least. This one's a woodcut made on very cheap wood. It was actually the bottom of one of those round boxes that are used to store cheese. It's very soft material and the texture of the wood shows up nicely in the print but the drawback is that you can't add a lot of detail.

The text is taken from the song The Icon and the Axe by Have A Nice Life. They're an indie rock band from Connecticut with a unique sound that combines elements from shoegaze, post-punk, drone, post-rock, industrial rock and even black metal. Be sure to check out their album Deathconciousness.
The lyrics for The Icon and the Axe seemed fitting for this piece and I've always found the song itself to be strangely inspiring, maybe even uplifting.

Another book

2011-04-12T14:54:00.000+02:00

Another book I made a few months ago. It was the first time I tried to make a book with multiple sections and a hardcover.
I think it turned out quite alright, if you ignore the massive gaps in between some sections. Like this one:

The image on the cover is a linocut print. Inside the book are mostly self-portraits and a few short autobiographical comics.

That last one is probably the weakest of the three. You can tell that I was actually getting fed up with it after about 2 pages and the drawings and storytelling become kind of sloppy towards the end.

You may have also noticed I kind of have a thing for whales. Whales are awesome.

God's Pee

2011-04-03T13:53:00.000+02:00

Back in January I had the opportunity to see one of my favourite bands live, post-rock legends Godspeed You! Black Emperor. I tried to make a few sketches of the band performing and despite it being pitch-black in the venue and I was being assaulted with a barrage of epic post-rock crescendos, the drawings turned out quite alright.

A Book

2011-04-03T13:01:00.000+02:00

This was a book I made around Christmas, intended to record all the exiting things that happened to me during holidays. Nothing even remotely exiting happened during that period though so I made half of it up. If anyone asks, it was all meant to be symbolic.

Most of these are either linocuts or drypoints. The book itself was made using Japanese stab binding.

This one's actually a combination of linocut and drypoint.

You might be wondering if I actually do ever record black metal. Not really, but I do play guitar and occasionally I'll come up with these riffs, which will occasionally be black metal influenced and which I'll occasionally record so that I won't forget them the next day. I have a bunch of recordings like these floating around on my computer, some of them even partially edited into songs (not necessarily bm, but also occasionally folk-, post-rock- , altrock- , doom-,... influenced stuff). None of these are really meant to be published in any way. Seeing as I don't have any decent recording equipment, the quality is extremely poor, and as I have said, they're just intended as a sort of memory crutch, or whatever you'd call it, anyway.

Next to occasionally writing songs on my own, I'll also occasionally try to write songs together with a friend of mine who also plays guitar. These so-called jam sessions tend to end with us getting drunk and not playing any guitar at all.

Black metal means corpse paint.

I have this recurring dream where I'm in a zombie invasion. I believe it is part of a psychological condition known as "being a massive geek". It's actually more common than you think.

Got a bit of a James Ensor thing going on in this one.

I met a cat that was stuck in a tree. She had been up there all night in the freezing cold, she was very weakend, could barely lift her head anymore and there were already bits of ice forming in her fur. I had no way of getting her out of there because I couldn't reach her and had to catch my train to work. We ended notifying the police because it's not like they have anything better to do) and I guess they must have rescued her because when I passed the tree again that evening she was gone. I then made a shitty wood/linocut about it.

I occasionally find myself being stalked by flying sperm whale skeletons while wandering desolate post-apocalyptic wastelands.

I actually had an interesting variation on the zombie dream I mentioned before. This time the zombies were actually narwhals, not just any narwhals but motherfucking FLYING narwhals. It was one of the most amazing dreams I ever had. Narwhal actually means "corpse whale" because apparently their colour resembles that of a corpse that has been in the water for some time. Maybe that's how my subconscious figured that they would make a great replacement for those zombies, who were starting to get a bit old anyway.

The Collector pt2

2011-04-02T23:22:00.000+02:00

A few paintings I did, based on the The Collector comic I posted earlier. I mostly like the top middle one.

The Collector

2011-04-02T23:06:00.001+02:00

This I a little comic I made a few months back called “The Collector” (not related to the John Fowles novel). It's mostly improvised, meaning that I hardly made any presketches at all. As a result some drawings are kind of vague and there's a few mistakes here and there but these imperfections make it feel more honest and spontaneous to me.

This is where the magic happens.

2011-04-02T22:48:00.000+02:00

Here I worship the Outer God Yog-Sothoth. Also, it is where I occasionally try to make art.