Painting with a Palette Knife
I am currently working on a painting of a small owl statue (shown here) made out of twigs and tree bark. The owl statue is covered in different textures from head to toe. Since this is very different from anything that I have painted before, I decided to test some different techniques for painting the area around the eyes on an old canvas board before starting on the actual painting. After a few attempts, it was still looked a bit flat and boring. It was then that I tried using a plastic palette knife to apply the paint. A metal one would probably give you better control but I didn’t have one handy at the time. With the palette knife, I was finally able to get the area around the eyes up to a sufficient level of awesomeness. I also found that the same technique should be able to work for most of the owl. So far, I have completed the area around the eyes and the owl’s feet using the same basic technique for both areas.
First, I will go over how I did the feet. I started with two lines of paint on my palette, side by side, one of burnt sienna and one of cadmium red. I scratched a narrow, round tipped palette knife across the two lines to get a small amount of each color on the knife without getting them too mixed together. Then I applied a fairly thick coating of paint to the feet of the owl. Here is a picture of this in progress.
Once the feet were completely filled in, I added the texture of the small twigs coiled around the feet of the owl statue. For this, I used a different palette knife that had a pointed tip. Before each time that I touched the knife to the painting, I dipped it in a very small amount of black paint.
After dipping the knife in the black paint, I carved curved lines across the feet. The knife tends to build up some access paint, so keep a paper towel or cloth handy to wipe it on. Also, when carving into the paint, be sure to do it lightly if you are painting on a white canvas like I was. The knife can completely scrape the paint away and allow the surface below to show through. If a flat color were first applied to the canvas, it could be used to either reduce the impact of carving too deep, or you could use it to your advantage and have a color show through intentionally. Here are the finished feet.
The area around the eyes was painted in a similar way. I mixed white with very small amounts of yellow ochre and burnt sienna. Then I laid the paint onto the canvas like I was frosting a cupcake – which I have done about as many times as I have painted owl statue eyes. Check ‘em out:
Then, just like the feet, I carved in the individual bristles. In a few areas, I gave the palette knife a quick dip into some burnt sienna for a little extra spice. The centers of the eyes along with the remainder of the owl will come in once all of this is dry.
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Leave a Comment November 8, 2009
