The Artwork of Skye Gentle

Tuesday, September 12, 2023

Phases of the 12" x 24" Painting Called "Night Movers" and Three More!

Hello and welcome (back) to another blog post showing the evolution of several different paintings

Recently I made many additions to "Deep Forest Light". Shown below is the new version "Deep Forest Life", with its many fine line drawings of insects and animals:

"Deep Forest Life" colored pencil with acrylic varnish on canvas 40 x 24

This painting is on display and for sale at the Oliver Art Center in Frankfort, Michigan from December 8 until the first week in January 2024. It's much easier to see the intricate drawings in real life.

Now on we go to see the changes made to another older painting:

In this iteration the painting is called "Turbulence" and is a mixed media painting of acrylic, oil, pastel and marble dust.

Working with oil paints I just had fun painting pretty blues, clouds and some light lines. At first this was going to be a moonscape with a silhouette of conifers along the bottom. But then I did the last painting, "We're All In This . . . . ", featured in the previous blogpost. It was so much fun and so rewarding to use oil paints precisely and carefully and have all the entities in the painting that I decided to make this painting in the same style.

Here is the somewhat planned moonscape painted with oils and then colored more using pastels and casein fixative. I added new lines, curves, etc. with white pastel and sealed it again. Next will be the drawing of animals, plants and whatever else happens to appear. It's at this point that I began calling the painting "Night Movers". We'll see if that name stays.

We begin with a larger than life-size Little Brown Bat and and two moths. The moth drawing is from a photo taken of sleeping moth on our door. Every evening if you look to the east between our two huge Norway Spruce trees you will see tiny little bats flying from tree to tree. Adult size is a body about 4" long and wingspan of 8 to 9".

The progression of the drawings. The images are drawn with pastel pencil, sealed, then painted with a mixture of acrylic and water soluble oil paint and sealed again with casein fixative. The painting is now ready for the intricate oil painting of colors and light/dark.

The oil painting has begun!

Below are the three other paintings I am working on at the same time:

"Intelligent Light"

Many details have been added with graphite and pastel.

I love the details but this is a small painting - 10" x 16" and it seemed too busy. So I started blocking in areas with translucent color. We'll see how it goes, as always.

More color was added and it darkened the painting overall, which is not what I want. So I started painting the "details I love" back in with light lines. Love always finds a way. :)

"Intelligent Light" 10 x 16 acrylic and pastel on canvas with casein fixative and acrylic varnish

I do believe it's done!

I added more details - a figure for one - and subtle color changes. And now it is done.

Or so I thought. Below is the final version for now. I wanted to make it more colorful, beautiful, sparkly. Also, the name has been changed to: "Soul Lights".

Also working on "Watchers" which used to be "Winged Watchers":

14 x 24

The old painting.

After a thin layer of marble dust applied to the surface.

Color added with pastel in a new design. More entities and lines added, too.
Everything sealed with casein fixative.

Brightening, balancing and keeping the white line images.

This layer of color was done with colored pencil.

I added many more animals, insects and other beings. The entire painting was then painted

over using thin layers of oil paint. It is finished. Maybe.

And, the third one: "Star Castle Home" 32 x 22

This one has been done entirely with water soluble oil paint.

At this stage of the painting it looks dark and messy. The image I am working from has a

lot of dark in it and I like the brighter, more purple painting that I started with.
I'll work those aspects back in with the next round.

After a few months of working on other paintings and doing lots of other things I started working on this painting again. Today is May 23, 2024 and this is what it looks like now:

It's still called, "Star Castle Home" but it's now a mixed media painting on canvas.

Sunday, August 20, 2023

The Evolution of a New Painting

I’ve been working on a painting I'll call, "We're All In This . . . ", for quite some time. Most of the work has been drawing the animals and the line designs and also some tentative explorations into color using pastels. Today (August 19th) I began the oil paint layer.
I will post new images as the painting evolves.

Here is the way the painting looked when I started working on it again on August 19, 2023:

Then here is the painting as the new layer of color begins to be added:

The line designs are being covered more or less by the blended colors but I’m keeping the animal drawings visible. My goal is mystery, beauty and the fun of trying to find all the animals.

My grandson encouraged me to keep working on this piece when he said, “Grama, did you know there’s a hummingbird in this painting?!” And then he stood looking at the painting for some time trying to find all the other things. Most of the critters depicted live nearby in the woods on and around our property.

Now there's a little more of the new layer of blended color. It's a bit uncomfortable for me to show a painting in public before it's finished. But it's very good encouragement for me to continue, get it done and really focus to make it as good as it can be during the process.
I'm very curious to see how it all turns out!

Later that same day I was able to paint a little more:

In the image below you can see that I did a little more painting across the middle and on the left side. At some point I'll probably have to balance out the yellow color but first I need to finish painting this new layer over the whole painting.

It's been a few days since the last update but the painting is now done. It was finished on September 8, 2023. Below is the final version. The overall blueness of the painting did change somewhat but it is accentuated by the photograph being taken outside on a cloudy day. All the previous photos were taken in the studio. This is a good example of how different a painting can look in different light; not just in photographs but in real life, too.

"We're All In This . . . . " 38 x 24

oil painting with a bit of pastel on canvas, casein fixative and varnish

$1800.00

I counted more than 25 mammals, birds, insects and humans in the painting. I'm sure you can find as many or more, although it may be a challenge to see details like that onscreen.

While I was working on this painting I was reading about A.I. ("Life 3.0" by Max Tegmark), climate change problems ("The Heat Will Kill You First" by Jeff Goodell) and alien technology ("The Dual Soul Connection: The Alien Agenda for Human Advancement" by Suzy Hansen) - all very interesting books. So, besides my own intuitive ideas and feelings I was getting lots of conscious and subconscious ideas from the books.

I don't usually talk about my ideas behind my paintings because I like viewers to form their own ideas, but I'll make an exception for this blog. :) The painting feels like we're all in this world together, trying to do our best - living, working, mending, weaving, melding together nature and technology but things are unraveling. There's still a lot of beauty and magic. We all need to be positive, optimistic and hopeful for the present and the future. (Try not to listen to the regular news.)

Thank you for spending time with my artwork!

Love and Light to you all.

And, as always, if you have any questions about the artwork please email me:

skyegentle@gmail.com

Epilogue

It's Monday, September 11th, and yesterday evening I found out that this painting was accepted into the juried show at the Oliver Art Center and that it has won an award - which award I do not yet know.

Thursday, March 9, 2023

2023 - New Paintings

"At the Museum of Planets - the Jovian Room" oil on canvas 18 x 22

This is a birthday/wedding/house warming gift for Dominique and Jesse

and all their beautiful kids!

SOLD! from Synchronicity Gallery

"Lake Lights" oil on wood panel 27 x 29

This used to be "Seagulls and Sundogs", but after a few changes and

additions it became a new painting!

"Dragon Prism" oil on canvas 20 x 16

This is a transformation of "Blue Prism" from 2022. Not only have the colors

and brightness changed but it's now an oil painting instead of being mixed media.

"Late November Sunset" oil on wood panel 9 x 12

"Last Shadows", a 2022 pastel on wood has been transformed into this more detailed and

colorful oil painting.

"Star Child" oil on wood panel 8 x 10

This image was created from a photograph of our grandson walking through

the woods when he was about two years old. Using photoshop, I blended

his image with an image of the milky way.

Below is a time lapse showing the progress of the painting. The piano music is

composed and performed by Joe A. Gentle.

"Flying Through Stars" oil on canvas 24 x 36

This is a re-work of the older painting, "Come Back to Me". I added another face in

profile and changed the colors a bit. And added more stars. :)

Saturday, March 26, 2022

Newest Paintings - 2022

The Skye Gentle artwork of 2022!

Most of the artwork shown here is for sale (unless sold)- through a gallery, from the studio or from Pixels.com (for prints and more). If you are interested in purchasing an original contact me at: skyegentle@gmail.com.

Thank you for visiting the blog!