The palette knife is an unexpected painting tool - its metal blade is typically used to clean paint from palettes - but bold artists have reimagined it to become a quick and versatile way to create more expressive paintings! Palette knives require a different handling than a brush, and this course will teach you how to do it.
Learn how to paint landscapes, still lives, and portraits with this new instrument. You’ll achieve a stroke that is impossible to replicate with a paint brush. There are dozens of palette knife shapes and sizes - we will just need two - the most classic shapes. If you have additional palette knives, you're invited to bring them.
The instructor will lead you through 5 palette knife painting techniques, such as sgraffito, layering, impasto, and more! Throughout the course by means of the variety of projects, you will experience creating more abstracted artworks and more realistic artworks, all with the same tool.
We’ll study a number of palette knife artists, including Manny Farber.
Painting with a palette knife can be fast - faster than a brush - you’ll create 5 paintings in all; 4 projects will explore this new approach to painting and help you get comfortable with palette knife techniques, and your final piece will give you the opportunity to take your time and apply all of the techniques into one artwork.
Course Schedule
Week 1: Introduction, paint a landscape with the special style of the palette knife
Week 2: Paint a portrait in impasto
Week 3: Paint a still life to learn how to utilize tape in your palette knife paintings
Week 4: Paint a landscape to practice sgraffito and layering
Week 5: Begin your still life painting that you’ll work on for two weeks
Week 6: Add sgraffito, texturizing layers, and finishing touches to your final painting. End the course with a student exhibition and discussion.
