Palette Knife Tips

Fine Art Tips, Palette Knife:

I am a palette knife painter. I practice daily my technique which depends on certain professional palette knives. I used a palette knife to finish brush paintings for half my career then my friend Jane Smithers said I could do a painting faster using the knife from beginning to end. I resisted for a while, then it clicked. Her style of alla prima is different from mine. I blend my colors more. Alla Prima is applied directly and left alone. My technique requires some knowledge of mixing colors to blend while creating the painting. I also teach my technique to advanced students so I created some special names to teach how the palette knife moves into the canvas. I will share that language and my two types of palette knives and how I manipulate them that make a difference in how the paint is applied.


I use a Liquitex brand cake-knife shaped one that is OFFSET so your knuckles don't scrape into the paint. It has no sharp points and it is well designed with a rounded heel that meets up to the handle nicely. The rounded heel toward the back of the knife is just important to use as the sides and front rounded tip. I use ALL parts of the knife. And no sharp pointed ones. All palette knives are used to create a certain pass of paint. In the very beginning of a painting, I first use a # 6 Liquitex brand knife, perfect for skimming and certain manipulation. It also comes also in a # 13. I use both as they are similar in size. I use the #6 or #13 for what I call skimming. Skimming means applying a lean or thin layer at the very beginning to wet the canvas to begin a painting. This palette knife is stiffer and gets the job done. It makes a lot of noise to skim. Then comes the thinner knife to manipulate all layers called skimming, grabbing, scraping, stuttering and texturizing.



So, the next palette knife layers are the quiet grabbing layers, and I use a thin palette knife that is very flexible. It also is one without sharp edges, a # 11 FREESTYLE by Liquitex. In doing a painting from start to finish with a palette knife style, it is important to know exactly what you need, to do the job. So it is important to choose very creamy oil paint. The brands are vast and I choose many. Lately my choice of brand is Cobra brand water-soluable oils by Royal Talens as the clean up is great and the paint is so nice. I was introduced to Cobra at the Plein Air Convention Expo where Charlie Hunter and Lori McNee were demonstrating at the product exposition part of this annual convention. Other brands I like are Rembrandt and Gamblin. I do love the big tubes of Permalba white. I often double-load two contrasting paint colors and mix them directly onto the canvas to get a rich blended effect. It is so fun to scrape up the paint and reapply it, and often scrape up the area of paint again and again to keep mixing the paint right back on the canvas to get a rich buttery effect. Scraping it up and reappling it is very much a technique I use all through the painting process. I demo this technique often, and my students really get into the mastery of applying the paint. My classes are often wait-listed, so I offer private one-to-one days in my home studio. Practice of this technique takes time and a willingness to persevere. I honed my skills myself from trial and error. It was not easy to get skilled at it. It took some time, but I like the effect of the palette knife texture. I can also blend right on the canvas for atmosphere, soften the edges with the freestyle, and thicken the paint for texture. It is a technique that requires patience and practice. But the practice rewards you very fast.


Often I am asked if another kind of palette knife is useful. Small pointy ones with sharp edges are surely needed to mix, but not to blend. And, plastic ones that don't flex are a nuisance for this technique on canvas. I often use a long one that resembles a kitchen serving tool. I used my chef husband's baking spreader before Liquitex made a long one. He was not happy, but it works great. I do experiment with others, but these I mention in this post are so reliable and easier. Plastic ones or pointy ones may be ok for panels, but I prefer using canvas, as a canvas is able to flex and give the much needed back and forth needed with the movement of the palette knife. Sculpting the paint beautifully with the flexibility of the canvas and palette knife moving together as a unit creates a better result in manipulation. This technique and the required palette knife tools is a fun and an easier way to get going fast on a painting, but only if your tools are not limiting you. I do it all the way through and only use a brush for glazing after the painting is dry. I did make a rubber scraper out of a glass scraper by cutting rubber strips and putting it over the blades. This tool helps blend and soften areas when needed. Easy to do, just make a trip to the hardware store for these tools. When a painting is completely dry, I use the Cobra glaze with a soft watercolor brush and cut it with water. So, no medium or solvents is ever really needed with palette knife until it is dry. A medium dilutes the texture to happen. If I want a color to drip, I may do that after it is dry and use the water to dilute my Cobra brand paint to a watery consistency. The beauty is the mixed pure paint. And with palette knife being used like a sculpting tool, manipulated well, it is very rich. Try palette knife to not only mix, but to skim, grab, blend, scrape and sculpt the paint. Go big and Get grabbing!