Technique of the Week: Palette Knife

Palette Knives

Palette knives are an amazing addition to your paint brush collection. While they are not a brush they can be used to add texture and fine lines to your art.

Palette knives can be made of metal or plastic and come in a variety of shapes and sizes. These tools can be used to mix paint on a palette or transfer it to a canvas.

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Oil Painting

Palette knives can be used with oil and acrylic paints. Oil paint takes a much longer time to dry than acrylic paint. You have to allow each layer to fully dry, or dry your painting for a few days to ensure the oil paint is dry all the way through.

A palette knife can be used to create sharp lines and to transfer pure paint onto the canvas without mixing or blending the previous layer.

Famous artist Bob Ross often uses palette knives to create sharp ridges and snow on mountains in his scenery paintings.

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Acrylic Paint

When using acrylic paint, palette knives can be used to add texture to a painting. Acrylic paint dries quickly and is able to be layered. A palette knife can be used to transfer a thick line or a large amount of paint to a painting to create height and different textures. These techniques add a three dimensional factor to paintings.

These techniques can be used more traditionally or more dramatically. The more paint you layer, the more three dimensional your painting will look.

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Palette knives are a great tool and they can also be used to create some very unique art. These tools are not expensive, and with so many different shapes and sizes you can experiment and practice easily on your own. This technique takes practice to master but with so many options you could easily create your own style or sub-technique.