Rigor Mortis - Self-Portrait

My mother passed away at the beginning of February 2021 during the pandemic. A big void is in my mind since that moment. I am in grief most of the time but art makes me smile and think she’ll be happy to see what’s new… I promised her that I would never stop making art. I cannot betray her promise.

With this self-portrait, I tried the best I could to represents how I feel about the death of my mom. I tried to put all the sadness that I have in me about her final sleep … I feel like something in me has died since she passed away but time will heal as they say.

I love you mom, you left us too quickly, I miss you very much. I promised you that I would never stop doing art and I'll keep my promise until my last breath. Rest in peace XXXX

An Owl Oil painting - WORK IN PROGRESS

Final result!

For only the third oil painting, I am really happy with the result so far.

This beautiful owl is my third oil painting. It is in work in progress until an unknown time. this week I will continue the wing.

So far I have painted 28 hours on the canvas. Each time I paint something new, I want to push it to the maximum that my skills can handle.

Each picture is a 3 hours session of painting.

Hippocampus oil painting; A fast painting done for an exposition

View fullsize

For having only 3 courses for painting this hippocampus , I am really happy with the final result.

hippocampus painting first layer

hippocampus painting second layer

After my first painting finished, I had a quest to create something within 3 courses for an exposition the next week-end.

With only 9 hours, I have finished and managed exposing my hippocampus oil painting. It was hard because I take a LOT of time mixing my colors and preparing my tools... but I did it! Enjoy

This is Oolong tea, I don’t drink alcool anymore :-P

My first oil painting - A grim mountain

View fullsize

For my first oil painting, I am really happy with the final result. Off course I could correct and add a lot of tones but I signed it, so be it.

I started my first oil painting course in september 2019 with the great painter Richard Morin

Before trying the oil painting, I would sometimes draw and ink a finishing illustration in black and white in 9x12 format. Oil painting cannot be rushed if you want something beautiful; It takes time ... Lots of time!

At first, I was not happy to have to touch up part of the painting in a week. I wanted something good, quickly. After a few lessons, I discovered that this "meditation" was good for me and my art in general.

Focusing on what I do and not wanting everything to be finished quickly adds quality to my creations. I see it with drawing, 3D and even in other areas of my life.

Oil painting, i love you.

Mathieu V.

Call Of Cthulhu: When fear of blood and murderous frenzy coexist.

Mi-go, a creature from the Cthulhu Mythos

My last game of Call of Cthulhu as a keeper was really fun. I initiated two of my old friends to play this wonderful game by Chaosium Inc.

For one of them, tabletop RPGs were a new thing. We had a great time together. It was a challenge to create a story really scary with people who are accustomed to horror & gore theme since young years.

One of the strong parts of the session was when my players saw a cultist very badly mutilated in a corner of a room, they loosed enough sanity points at the same time and had a bout of madness. The first player, Trevor by his character name, exploded in a spree of uncontrolled violence and destruction directed at the cultist, butchering him with a knife.

Marc, the second character, developed a fear of blood for 8 hours... When he saw the cultist mutilated, he started to run in terror and screaming while Trevor continued stabbing the remains of the poor cultist.

Zoog, a creature from the Cthulhu Mythos

After the insane violence fury that Trevor went through, he went after his terrorized friend Marc to try to calm him down, covered in blood head to toes and ignoring that his friend had developed a phobia of seeing bloodfor 8 hours! This scene was memorable and really special. My players and I really liked it.

Will their character die or become insane next time? We will find out next session.

Thank you Howard Phillip Lovecraft for creating an amazing mythos and thank you Chaosium Inc.

New home with a studio

Since the beginning of summer, my girlfriend has moved with me and we have installed our studio in a room. We can create each of our own art and thus inspire, encourage, ask and give criticism on our works.

When the magic happen…

Being both artists, we have arranged our studio with compartments for our artistic material, a metal wire on the wall to pin references and projects in progress. There is also a tripod for the camera if we want to record when we draw and paint. We may also add decorations on walls in the futur.

Some of my art tools

Principally I am an illustrator and I use most of the time black ink but recently I brought my first kit of watercolor and I am learning to mix color. My kit is really small so I can paint everywhere I want. last week I went to a museum and I painted old human skulls, and instincted birds. It was really fun and I will do this again soon, it is a great way to improve watercolor and study the models.

Also, in setember to october, I will start my oil painting courses in Montreal. I have brought a French Style Easel for painting outside landscapes and tweek them with a Fantasy flavor after in my studio. I can not wait to start learning how to paint with oil!

Imagines my black & white creatures painted with oil, they will become real nightmare.

The cultist, made with watercolor.

Call of Cthulhu the RPG and some new artistic goals

In early February with my girlfriend and my friends, I played the tabletop RPG Call of Cthulhu by Chaosium for the first time. A year to flip through this amazing book of rules, to look at the illustrations, to immerse myself in this macabre and unforgivable world. This was finally the moment I waited so much, playing this amazing game with people I care. I was not deceived and I spent many hours of pleasure, horror and laughter. It tooks one year to play because of some events in my life.

some personal problems surfaced but also other old ones settled. I have known for real poverty, lack of food, fatigue and black thoughts.

Having participated in the Lovecraftuary of 2018, I continued my series of the Cthulhu Mythos. Right now I am doing since the begining of February 2019 the same challenge and I must say that after this, I want to devote myself to something else.

I really love illustrating creatures but between two filthy horrors, I practice, and I will always practice, human anatomy.

After February 28, 2019, I will drop my pencil from the H.P. Lovecraft universe to devote myself to another subject that fascinates me and inspires me more and more everyday; old European tales. I intend to interpret them in my way and immortalize these beloved tales again. I will begin with some of the tales of Charles Perrault first and then the ones by the Grimm brothers. I also have plan to touch diverse mythologies.

I will not give up forever illustrating the Cthulhu's mythos. It is still inspire me, but I need artistic beauty for a few months or even years. Only the future will tell.

P.s. I can’t wait to play my next game of Call Of Cthulhu. This game is so cruel for players!

What is my main inspiration for my style?

Once upon an engraving...

Maybe when you saw most of my art you already figured out what I am going to tell you. My main inspiration for my style, mostly  in my inking, is the old engravings. Now if you don't know what is an engraving, it's time for a little reading about it (Thanks Wikipedia!)

Everything started when I was in high school reading history books. Every chapters were full of engraving about persons, battles, scenes, etc. I found fascinating that they could achieve so much details, illustrating light and shadows and making them so realistic with only black ink. 

There is something ''magical'' that happen when I see engravings. Maybe it reminds me of old lifes I had who knows. One thing for sure it is making me dream.

One G-Pen to rule them all

My favorite artist of all time is Gustave Doré. As an artist, he is my mentor. I want to achieve his level, maybe it is an impossible task but anyway...it motivates me like nothing else can.

The second artist that I have a great admiration and inspiration for is Francisco Goya. His engravings are amazing. My favorite series by him is Los caprichos. It is a set of 80 prints in aquatint and etching created in 1797 and 1798, and published as an album in 1799.

A coexistence with black metal

The esthetic of a lot of black metal albums is inspired or use engraving for their cover arts. The black and white of the illustrations, often the subject and the minimalism of some of them fit perfectly with this kind of music.

For one of their demos, the band Emperor used the artwork "Death on the Pale Horse (Revelation)" by Gustave Doré, created in 1865.

Most of the subjects in black metal is a rejection of Christianity and a praise to paganism or satanism (often used to despise the christian beliefs). So I think taking engravings or create art inspired by it is a good choice.

For their first album, the band Dimmu Borgir used the artwork taken from Gustave Doré's illustration of for the poetry book "Idylls of the King" by Alfred Tennyson.

Also, the used of heavy contrasted black & white pictures of the band members fits perfectly.
They look like coming from the same magic world so to speak.

For their first album, the band Ossuaire used a bunch of old medieval engravings by unknown artists of that era.

 

Evolving the style with less difficulty.

In the world we live today, creating engravings cost a lot of money and it is not easy to achieve. Also, this technique of art demands a lot of skills to create something really beautiful.

A few years ago, seeing videos of how to ink manga's pages introduced me to the use of nib pen. It is hard to mastering at first and scary the first time you use it but like anything in life, with determination and practice, I can say that I am not a rookie anymore with this medium.

Anytime I ink an illustration I try as most as I can to reproduce the feeling I get when I see engravings. I am on the way to achieve it I think. Maybe in the next months or the next years who knows. But I know deeply that one day I will acomplish my goal.

...