Carolynburger’s Blog

By: www.carolynburger.com

Jan 02 2011

Category: Acrylic Paints, Artist, artwork, painting, Painting sunsets, Uncategorized

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For the past two weeks, I have been working on a painting with a palette knife.  I wanted to paint a scene at the walkway onto our Residents’ Beach which is a very popular place on our island.  Recently I took a photo of the walkway at a time where the sun had almost set and it was quite dark.  I liked this photo and it made me want to make this painting different by creating it with a palette knife.  The photo above was the one I used to inspire me in painting this piece.

My first step was to brush on an underpainting of  a purple/blue on the top half of the canvas and a red on the bottom half. Then I chose the following colors to use: alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue,  cerulean blue, dioxizine purple, hookers green, lemon yellow and titanium white.  I put away my brushes and pulled out my knives including different sized palette knives.  The large knives were very handy in painting the sky and the walkway.  Otherwise, I used the standard sizes and at times, wiped off paint not needed with a wet paper towel.

One thing I found was that painting with knives takes a lot more paint than brushes.  The palette knife spreads the paint on the canvas much thicker than a brush.  Frequently I would dip the knife in water to keep the paint moist and to help the paint spread on the canvas, but I must have used 10 times the acrylic paint that I would have used if I had painted it with brushes.  The palette knife gives the painting a more impressionistic look, with a lot of uneven edges.  The painting also has more texture due to the application with a knife, especially with the trees and bushes in the forefront.

See the finished painting in the next blog:  Finished Acrylic Painting With Palette Knife Application