Palette knife painting lends an intuitive freshness to your paintings. In this workshop you can learn to create unique and stunning effects in your paintings, and to develop an impressionistic and expressionist style with paintings that convey the spirit of the scene.  Using a palette knife is a great way to build up thick texture and create broken color effects.  We will teach you to  block in the values in your scene with a brush, then to make bold strokes with the palette knife, to use the edge of the knife to create sharp lines, and to use a variety of knife shapes and sizes to create lost and found edges.  You will learn how to paint on top of wet layers without lifting the paint below.  We will encourage you to make multicolored palette knife strokes by loading multiple colors on your knife without over blending.

This workshop will cover techniques of knife painting using knives of different sizes and shapes, how to incorporate the key elements of land and seascapes including sky, clouds, water, rocks and grass, and how to paint lines for fences, tree branches and sharp edges.  We will incorporate the use of brush work throughout the workshop.

Materials will include your favorite paints, brushes and painting surface, 3 flexible painting knives of different sizes (including larger sizes), and a mixing knife. Bring as large a mixing palette as possible, and try to avoid a paper palette or a palette with edges if possible.  You can use a painting panel, 11×14” or larger as your palette. 

Any level of student welcome.