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daenafae.bsky.social
Daena
@daenafae.bsky.social
99 followers 62 following 290 posts
Illustrating fantasy and nature with whatever materials I can get my hands on. Usually watercolour, but a little digital every now and then. 🧚🏻‍♀️✨

Website: www.daenafae.com
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daenafae.bsky.social
Back to the dark months

#sketching #cuppa
My desk with my open sketchbook and a cup of tea. On the sketchbook is a blue ballpoint pen, which I used to draw the sketches of a hand and portrait on the open page.
December 4, 2025 at 6:05 PM
daenafae.bsky.social
A recent commission from a lovely friend ✨🐦‍⬛✨

#fantasyart #fantasyillustration #dnd #dungeonsanddragons
An original digital illustration that I painted by hand because humans have those to do things with. The fantasy illustration features a cute magical bird wearing a witch hat adorned with a star and moon, and is perched on roleplaying dice.
November 26, 2025 at 2:35 PM
daenafae.bsky.social
Museum sketching with the crystal exhibit. Of course I picked a hard one for myself and ended up frying my brain halfway through!

#sketchbook #amethyst
My sketchbook while I was at the museum gallery. You can see some of the crystals and stones displayed behind the glass in the background. On the page in my sketchbook is a pencil drawing of an amethyst crystal slice.
October 22, 2025 at 10:10 AM
daenafae.bsky.social
Wandered around a botanical garden to fuel up on inspiration for a dryad illustration series. Came across this wonder of a tree.

#botanicalgarden #creativeinspiration #artist
A photograph of a beautiful tree in the Sheffield Botanical gardens.
October 21, 2025 at 8:41 AM
daenafae.bsky.social
Filming for the next video. I think this is gonna be a favourite layout for colour mixing for me now.

#watercolor #painting
A close up of my watercolour sketchbook, showing two circles of paint mixes. Each circle contains two pigments in each to produce a secondary colour. The top circle features green mixes, and the bottom circle purple mixes.
October 20, 2025 at 2:05 PM
daenafae.bsky.social
The hand sketching session will be up tomorrow (alas, tech issues did occur today after all 🥲) but here's another peek at the spread!

#pencilsketch #handdrawing #sketchbook #artist
One sketchbook page in a spread of hand studies. The sketches were drawn with HB pencil. This page features a smaller hand closed in a loose fist (top-right) and a larger hand gently grasping a sword hilt.
October 7, 2025 at 4:24 PM
daenafae.bsky.social
Close up of the tiger on the fallen tree. I really want to explore this way of painting trees more, and I have some dryad-filled plans to potentially do so 👀

#watercolour #traditionalart #illustration #artist
A close up crop of one of my traditional wildlife illustrations, featuring a tiger stood on top of a fallen tree. The illustration was drawn with graphite pencil line work and then painted with watercolours.
October 6, 2025 at 4:51 PM
daenafae.bsky.social
It's a good day to draw 🙂‍↕️

#sketchbook #drawing #pencil
An open sketchbook with two Mitsubishi 9850 HB pencils and an open container with a kneaded eraser inside.
October 5, 2025 at 10:03 AM
daenafae.bsky.social
Studying hands 🖐️

#drawing #sketchbook #pencilsketch
A pencil drawing in my sketchbook of a hand holding a pen.
October 4, 2025 at 1:50 PM
daenafae.bsky.social
I love the yew trees this time of year ❤️
A photograph of yew tree evergreen foliage peppered with green and red berries.
October 4, 2025 at 10:51 AM
daenafae.bsky.social
Finally got around to scanning this boyo 🐅 I still love this method of painting trees and I will be making use of it again for an upcoming project 👀
🦋🦋🦋
Graphite pencil and watercolour on cotton paper
🦋🦋🦋
#wildlife #watercolor #tigers #lineandcolor #traditionalartist
A traditional watercolour illustration in a line and colour style. The line work was drawn with 2B graphite pencil, and shows a tiger standing on a fallen tree trunk nestled in the grass.
September 30, 2025 at 3:49 PM
daenafae.bsky.social
WIP line-art for my upcoming tiefling bard character Klara and her chameleon companion. I've joined a new group, which is exciting! Besides the DM and I, most of the other players are new to D&D. It should be fun guiding them through their first experience ☺️
#dndcharacter #lineart #wip #illustration
A work in progress fantasy illustration of my tiefling bard player character for an upcoming D&D group. She has her companion chameleon on her arm who judges her singing and poetry. The illustration is being drawn and rendered digitally in clip studio.
September 11, 2025 at 3:55 PM
daenafae.bsky.social
Can you guess the two watercolour pigments that made this mix?

#watercolor #colortheory #colormixing #paints
Two swatches of the same watercolour mix. The bottom swatch is diluted with more water. The mix was made by combining two watercolour paints together to create a chromatic black/grey. Can you guess what they are?
September 5, 2025 at 3:11 PM
daenafae.bsky.social
My big project for this week is to make a mixing chart for my main palette after making changes to its line-up. Here's a completed section of it so far:

#watercolor #paint #pigments
A completed section of a colour mixing chart for watercolour pigments on my main palette. Running diagonally from the top left to bottom right are the pigments on their own. Below them are mixes in high saturation, and above them are the same mixes watered down into tints.
August 28, 2025 at 10:10 AM
daenafae.bsky.social
A little sketchbook portrait ✏️

#pencildrawing #sketch #portrait
A pencil sketch of a profile-view portrait, featuring an older man with a moustache. Drawn in mechanical pencils with 0.7 and 0.9 mm thicknesses for line variation.
August 24, 2025 at 2:59 PM
daenafae.bsky.social
Moved paints around on my now-main palette. A lovely way to start the day 💜✨

I'll do an updated palette tour video, but I'll leave it for the end of the year :D

#watercolor #artist #paintpalette
My newly rearranged watercolour palette. It's a Holbein RP-24 palette with slanted wells that can be moved around. I arrange my paints starting with yellow, orange, red, pink, purple, blue, teal, green, yellow earth tones, orange/red earth tones, dark earth tones, then neutrals.
August 24, 2025 at 9:10 AM
daenafae.bsky.social
All-Natural Chew Stick, watercolour and white gouache

I'm editing the process of this together for a video at the moment. Aiming to schedule it for next week, so I don't rush it. The heatwaves have been kicking my 🍑 and energy.

#animalart #watercolor #gouache #mountainlion
An original traditional watercolour painting of a mountain lion chewing on a large stick or small branch. The dark bark is cracked and peeling, revealing the green interior of the wood. The cat is mid-chew, because I wanted to challenge myself with an awkward mid-motion pose of the jaw. I painted this primarily with transparent watercolours, then finished it with white gouache details for the whiskers and final highlights.
August 17, 2025 at 10:27 AM
daenafae.bsky.social
Floof close-up

#watercolor #painting #art
A close up of fluffy fur textures for a watercolour painting of a mountain lion I've painted. Featuring a chewed up branch near the top.
August 16, 2025 at 10:25 AM
daenafae.bsky.social
Sketchbook torso warm ups🧍‍♀️Blue ballpoint pen + lilac marker is becoming a favourite 💙💜

#sketch #artstudy #ballpointpen
A page in my sketchbook featuring studies of human anatomy, focusing on the torso and shoulder block. The drawings were sketched with a blue BIC ballpoint pen and lilac Tombow marker. There are three torsos in total. The one at the top has a single arm raised, while the two on the bottom of the page have both arms raised.
August 7, 2025 at 12:59 PM
daenafae.bsky.social
Mixing charts mixing charts mixing charts mixing charts mixing chartsixingsmsj
A watercolour paint colour mixing chart for Transparent Orange DDP PO107, mixed with various primary and secondary colours.
August 6, 2025 at 1:39 PM
daenafae.bsky.social
"No, I didn't want that last cake slice anyway..."

#sketchbook #pencildrawing #art #sketch #leopard
A pencil sketch of a leopard judging you silently, drawn in my sketchbook with a copic marker background.
August 3, 2025 at 1:59 PM
daenafae.bsky.social
Reminder to self to paint this later
Fallen apples in the grass, intermingled with fallen rose petals.
July 29, 2025 at 4:25 PM
daenafae.bsky.social
Good guy, bad guy, just a guy? He won't tell you, he will just keep smirking.

Watercolour, colour pencil, and white gouache (9 by 12 inches).

#watercolorillustration #fantasyart #mixedmedia
A traditional mixed media fantasy illustration made with watercolour, gouache, and colour pencil. The subject is a male elf character holding a golden hourglass with white sand turning into black sand.
July 27, 2025 at 7:15 PM
daenafae.bsky.social
We have so many blackberries growing in this year! Some jam may be in order 👀
A photograph of wild blackberries just starting to turn from green to red to their deep ripe colour.
July 25, 2025 at 1:59 PM
daenafae.bsky.social
Sneak peek of the colour mixing chart with Transparent Orange PO107

#watercolor #paint
A close up preview of a colour mixing and pigment properties chart with the watercolour Transparent Orange PO107. I gradually mixed it with other pigments to create a range of hues to test its mixing range.
July 23, 2025 at 2:30 PM