Art by Vaelyane

@vaelyane.bsky.social

1360 Followers 387 Following

🇫🇷 | Kael | 35 | He/They Genderqueer illustrator based near Strasbourg, France. 🎨 Watercolours & digital paintings. 🖌 Currently focusing on personal art & zines. No Gen•A•I. ⭐ https://vaelyane.carrd.co/ ✨ #art #watercolor

A subtle sage-coloured fountain pen doodle of a handsome merperson with a faint smile and long flowy hair. A sage-coloured fountain pen is covering the face of yet another merperson doodle. (That one didn't go well. Let us not talk about it). The artist was, coincidentally, wearing a sage-coloured shirt while drawing and typing this entire thing.
Some calligraphy tests on a sketchbook page next to the artist's hand resting on a weirdly-shaped fountain pen with a wide steel nib. The tests are small and simple with little flourishes.
A fountain pen sketch portrait in desaturated teal depicting a merperson looking very shy and hesitant. They have a fin on their back and long flowy hair. The picture doesn't show the silent struggle between the artist and this fountain pen as the sketch took form on the page. Why, this nib was too stiff and too dry, and the ink didn't flow all that well! How uncomfortable!
Dusty pink fountain pen doodle of a floating merperson in elegant lines dropping little stars from their hands. The artist had a resurgence of chronic pain in their left arm and shoulder before doodling this, but it didn't stop them from drawing. At least not this time. When illness hits, you never really know when you'll be forced to take a break.
Picture of a sketchbook page with a fountain pen portrait of a merperson with somewhat alien features, ear-fins fanning wide on each side of their face. Their gaze is intense, black scleras with two glowing dots staring your way. Their hair is long and floating behind them as if underwater. This ink is very strange to use, a faded delicate pink with a sort of bloodiness to it. The pen used to sketch it was set next to the drawing.
A flowy sketch in somewhat scratchy yet fine pink fountain pen lines. It is of a young woman with wavy hair and a billowy gown looking back at you. There is something languid and seductive about her gaze. A bit of ink has pooled on one side of her faint smile, and you cannot tell if it was a clumsy stroke from the artist's pen, or the suggestion of a smear of blood on her lips.
A pen with a silver cap and a clear body filled with delicious blood-red ink.
Ink swatches of Carmilla, by Wearingeul, which is a lovely red-pink. Despite showing a degree of colour-separation, the ink looks like it is the same in both washes and writing sample. There is no drastic colour-shift between the two.
Some ink swatches of Ferris Wheel Press "Shadows of Mordor", a very heavy and moody colour with a subtle shimmer, on watercolour paper. These are all purple, save for one singular sample: the dry swatch is a dark bloody red.
Cropped close-up of an unfinished watercolour piece with a couple of tools next to it, for scale. The character portrayed is a slim-faced white-haired knight of undetermined gender with intense dark eyes, in front of a gothic background. They might have wings, but you can't see them well. The rest is off-screen or obscured.
Picture of two stamped pieces of paper and the stamp itself displayed next to each other. The stamp's design, custom-made for the occasion, depicts a merperson with elegant curves under a line of text stating "Art by Vaelyane", surrounded by little stars. The artist scattered paper stars around the result for the purpose of staging this picture. These were the product of a weeks long star-making spree from at least eight years ago, and there is a jar full of them just off-screen, which isn't visible in-frame. I remember making so many of those stars, out of used envelopes, that my fingers hurt. I completely forgot how to make them today.
Cropped digital painting of a man's torso. His skin is grey, his ears are pointed and his hair leans towards an orange-brown. Two pairs of extra eyes adorn the sides of his forehead. He seems suspended in an ominous void, looking down below in horror. Something is wrong with whatever is off-screen, but a peek at the full painting might tell you more.
A grey-skinned half-drow with tawny brown hair is wearing an ostentatious costume unfolding into butterfly wings attached to the arms. A feathered half-mask sits on his face. He wears the ruffles oddly well. You can't even tell how self-conscious he is. The man spent that entire evening wishing he could hide behind an article of furniture.
Results for a colour memory test online. The artist scored 47.24 points out of 50. Beneath the score is a selection of four purple shades they were served during the test, with a fifth grey-ish pink shade sandwiched in the middle.
Animated image of a low-poly CGI render of a rat spinning clockwise, with the caption "Horizontally Spinning Rat".
Photo of a an artists' painting station, showing a selection of palettes. I've had this rectangular ceramic palette for many years now, likely bought in an art store in town. It is thick and heavy, with two rows of wells and a manufacturing flaw in the shape of a a crack in the enamel of the leftmost bottom well. This flaw isn't visible under layers of dried paint.
Digital sketch of a distinguished young man in a historical shirt with a black waistcoat, wearing an expression of wistful innocence on his face. Escaped strands of wavy hair brush over his eyes. A frog sits on his left shoulder with judging eyes, ignoring the squirming of a few worms around it. The frog and the lad are both looking at you. Your gaze wanders down to his hand, desperately grasping at the clothes covering his own chest in a stark contrast to the calm of his face. A couple of earthworms barely wriggle out of his grip. The worms. They curl around like his beautiful hair. You can't bring yourself to find them disgusting. In the background, unfinished floral elements are left to wrap around him in a weave of splotchy scribbles.
The photographer is mostly off-screen with fingers holding a minuscule book of fables in front of a green, black and white plush frog, made by Bark's Bog. The frog looks as if it is highly focused on reading a page announcing a fable from Jean de la Fontaine: The Frog and the Ox. The fable is in French. The photographer did not make the book. This is a real miniature book of fables with an ISBN code, unearthed anew while doing an inventory.
Watercolour painting of a kightly rabbit fiercely riding a passably distracted snail in front of an explosion of leaves. The snail's shell looks a bit wrong, and this mistake has been haunting the artist for years despite a lingering fondness for the piece.
Pencil sketch of a woman with curly hair, thin limbs and clawed hands lovingly hugging another who looks trapped in her arms, apprehensive and unsure of herself. The artist is sleep-deprived and can't type much more for want of a functioning brain. Does this sketch look good? I can't tell. My mind fell out of my ear twenty hours ago and hasn't crawled back in in under the storm of headaches I've suffered all day.
An open book on a wrinkled bedsheet, featuring a full-page illustration of two 19-century women gazing at each other and holding arms in front of an ominous tapestry of Cleopatra handling the snake that would be fatal to her. It was drawn by Rosemary Valero-O'Connel (Bluesky @hirosemary) for Beehive Books. The light silhouette of the two young women starkly contrasts with the mostly blood-red backdrop.
Screenshot of the digital painting from the quoted post on a light grey-ish green background.
Digital fan-painting of an arcanine gracefully floating in front of a yellow squiggly line, bathed in warm light. The pokémon's fluffy fur was very lovingly rendered in a variety of shades of beige. For an older piece painted in bed on a laptop ten years ago as a gift to a friend, it holds up surprisingly well in its shapes and flow compared to the artist's current work, although the anatomy appears less confident, and the rendering style is somewhat different. For authenticity's sake, the artist posted this piece as it was, tumblr link included. Arcanine and Pokémon are the intellectual property of Nintendo.
Watercolour painting of a merperson in various shades of blue and peachy pinks. Their hair, tail and tentacles curl delicately throughout the composition. The artist will paint on the back of that watercolour paper again, despite the cold sweats.
Three different swatchcards of deep red inks aligned on a desk, each dramatic in its own right. One of them looks like a brown-ish sample of dried blood, one of them looks like a colourful splash of fresh blood, and one of them is a deep berry shade, too pink to be bloody compared to the other two. All three swatches look highly satisfying to the artist hidden behind the camera. All three inks were meant for pens instead of painting. Used with a dip pen, they look rather similar to each other, only revealing their unique complexity when mixed with water in a wash. They were, in order from left to right: Private Reserve Ink - Vampire Red Diamine - Copper Red Diamine - Oxblood
Art supplies arranged on a table. A wet-on-wet inkwash swatch card rests on a closed watercolour box in an effusion of sanguine reds. Thankfully, this isn't a crime scene. The brushes in-frame look clean and ordinary... at first glance. No red ink stains the ferrule of the green-leaning one. Wet it, however, and you will be greeted with a stubborn red leak, haunting whatever surface it touches. The little stinker has been dipped in clear water and rinced over a hundred times, to no avail.
Photo of an artist's table easel with three different watercolour paintings haphazardly strewn over it. One is mostly red, one is mostly blue, and one is bluish-green. They all look unfinished. The leftmost painting is gothic and tall, an effusion of intricate details. There is a horse. And a gaggle of knights. No wonder that one is taking so long. The paper on the rightmost painting was sadly very torn from leaving masking fluid on too long, but you probably can't see it from afar. The artist is reluctant to give it up and believes it is possible to cover it up with acrylagouache, though this WIP has been left on hold for a couple of years already. It is a bit scary. The middle painting is much simpler than the other two. A single character, posing dramatically. Come on, finish this one, at least! You're so close!
A very short video, no more than a glorified .gif, of a few steps behind a creature painting. It features a handsome blue merman blowing through a conch. This was meant to be an Instagram reel, hence the faster pace. The artist uses both digital and traditional tools to sketch and line most of their pieces, and chose to finish this one with watercolours as a colour-study for a larger illustration. They started typing a lengthy pigment breakdown in this very description, but decided against it to spare your sanity. Oops.
Digital painting of a grey half-drow with studded armour, fiery hair and fangs. A ghostly coral snake is hovering around him.
Macro picture of a bee's behind awkwardly sticking out of a purple flower. This image isn't very crisp, but it's hilarious. The photographer was crouching with a phone in hand next to the bushes to take it. There were more bugs nearby when this image was taken, which aren't pictured here. Notably: many more bees, ladybird larvae, and a very hairy beetle.
Work in progress of a watercolour painting depicting a blue and peach merperson, in an elegant pose. It is the same merperson from a previous post. Mermay is still ongoing. At first glance, everything looks normal. The painting is visibly unfinished and needs some contrast and polish, although you wouldn't guess it was painted on the wrong side of the paper. Off-screen, the artist is cursing himself for not choosing a simpler, smaller subject for his ridiculous test.
Flowy digital linework representing a merperson with long hair and tentacles. They look down, lost in thought, like a marble statue suspended in time. What are they thinking about? The rough sketch that started this image isn't included in the post. It was a ballpoint pen doodle drawn in the waiting room of a doctor's office, a few weeks prior.
Watercolour painting of a winged cat monster reminiscent of medieval marginalia, in front of a stone frame. It is facing you, and blepping aggressively with the cheekiest expression you can picture on a ragdoll cat. Anyone familiar with gothic architecture in the general Rhine river area might recognise the peculiar colour of the stone as a local construction material. There are pretzels in the decorative frame, and the artist is still giggling to himself off-screen about adding those in.
Somewhat loose pencil sketches of two unicorns, done from memory. The biggest one is leaping, or perhaps floating. The other one stands proudly despite looking much rougher, smaller, with a strong body and a tiny head. Both unicorns feel reasonably recognisable as horses, despite any weird inaccuracies in their anatomy.
Picture of several little clusters of wild violets in a patch of sunshine, somewhere in the dirt of a garden.
Still picture of an unfinished watercolour painting depicting a fantastical cat monster with two bodies and wings framed by a stone cinquefoil. The cat's pattern resembles a ragdoll cat. The artist has painted little pretzels in the frame, and is giggling to themself off-screen.
Pencil sketches on printer paper scattered on an off-white blanket next to a graphite pencil. All sketches represent different yet similar-looking fairies, with moth-like antennae. One of them is a portait, one of them is sitting on a branch with a bug on her arm, and one of them is holding a bouquet of wood sorrel.
Artist Asks - A list of questions adressed to the artist posting this image. One like on this post means the poster must reply to one question. There are 23 questions, and they read as follows: 1. Do you prefer traditional drawing, or digital? 2. How long have you been drawing? 3. How many classes have you taken? 4. What's your favourite thing to draw? 5. How often do you use references? 6. What's your least favourite thing to draw? 7. Do you draw professional, or just for fun? 8. Are you confident about your art? 9. Do you prefer to keep your art personal, or do you like drawing things for other people? 10. Do you ever collaborate with others? 11. Show a wip/sketch/something that never saw the light of day. 12. How long does an avergae piece take you to complete? 13. Do you draw more today than you did in the past, or do you draw less? 14. What are you currently trying to improve on? 15. What is most difficult for you to draw? 16. What's the easiest for you to draw? 17. Do you like to challenge yourself? 18. Are you confident you are improving steadily? 19. Do you feel jealous when you see other people's art, or inspired? 20. Do you like to draw in silence, or with music? 21. For digital art, what program(s) do you use? 22. For traditional art, what medium do you like most? (pencil, watercolour, etc) 23. What inspires you to not just make art, but be a better artist?
Art supplies scattered on the surface of a wooden table easel. In the middle, an unfinished watercolour painting represents a pink-brown cinquefoil stone frame of medieval inspiration. Inside the frame remains the light sketch of a strange winged cat creature. On the top right sits a blotchy colour study of the same painting, with swatches and notes. The artist selected a palette of mostly browns, with some teal blue.
Watercolour painting of a sphinx-centaur, with the upper body of a woman, and the lower body of a winged lion, laying on three pillows. She seems to be sleeping while holding a feather in her hand. Her hind paws and tail are curled up in her gentle slumber, and her front paws look like they're lightly moving in her sleep.
Altered black and white sreenshot from the original 1922 Nosferatu silent film. The image depicts bald vampire count Orlok with an uncanny human grin, his left hand giving a thumbs up. Both of these elements are absent from the original film. Under the screenshot, bold white letters in a retro font spell the word "Yesferatu".
A weevil-inspired fairy stands taking notes next to a stalk of hollyhocks. A hammer hangs on her belt, and the hollyhocks frames the left side of the composition. Behind her, a fairy sitting on a branch is pulling a tortoiseshell full of berries up a tree, thanks to a system of pulleys.
Pencil sketch portrait of a young man with short wavy hair and an undercut, wearing a bandana around his neck. His gaze is both intense and wary.
Picture of a tidy watercolour palette on a wooden surface. There are three rows of half-pans showing varying signs of use, as well as an extra fourth row of mini-pans laid out in an empty space meant for a brush. Intentional gaps were left between some of the pans.
Six cropped illustrations featuring various mythical creatures (merfolk, fairies, and so on) are arranged around a star-shaped photo of the artist in the center. The artist is taking a mirror selfie while partially obscured by a dramatically large and embroidered black hood.
Detailed watercolour painting of an older butch fairy with a weevil mask on her back showing leaf-blueprints to a younger fairy sitting on an flower pot. The younger fairy's design is reminiscent of hollyhocks.
Very loose digital sketch of a merman meeting a swimmer for a fleeting moment underwater. The black pen strokes are fairly gestural. Some parts of a wave in the background were scribbled in with a pencil, the one visible remnant of a first pass on paper.
Digital painting of a black unicorn wearing a red and gold outfit with a big bow. Its head is in profile, and there is a little crown around its horn.
Acrylic ink painting of an orange frog or toad sitting on a purple leaf under the rain.
Watercolour painting featuring a winged demon sitting atop a hill riddled with skulls of different sizes.
Digital painting of a festive Krampus swinging on a chain with a stolen basket of gifts on his back and a big red bow around his neck.
Detailed watercolour painting of two mice, one of them dressed in a monk's habit and the other one wearing a helmet and a gambison, seemingly lost in lush vegetation.
Digital painting of a stern vampire knight in armour wearing a red cape. He is kneeling in the grass, unbothered by the sunlight, and holding a sword in his hands.
Sketch of a cat with two bodies, wings, and a crown, standing cross-legged in front of a stone cinquefoil frame.
Photo of a MABEF field easel with a watercolour painting propped against a plank of plywood on it.
The result of a quizz I am quote-posting. This image states I create art out of reverence for the things I admire.
Crop of an unfinished watercolour painting featuring gothic arches and some bats.
Linework process video for some fanart of Deet, a character from Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance.
Crop of a digital painting representing a handsome Krampus.