Mentoring Mondays - All Knife and Nothing But A Knife!

8"x8" oil on archival panel

Mondays during May I'm hosting lessons in my studio for those who are interested in learning how to use a palette knife in their work.  I think it's a great exercise to begin with 'total immersion'. Painting knife, no medium, and painting from life. 

I did remember to photo some of the parts along the way through! 

Here's our set-up:

First, you'll take that blank canvas and make some marks indicating where your objects will lay. Perhaps you want certain pieces to run off the edge. Think of your shadow shapes as part of your composition. Where will you place these? Once you've thought about your placement, start 'massing' in the shapes in a midtone of that local color. 

Then you'll want to start indicating those shadow shapes after you objects are laid in. If you've misplaced some of your objects on the canvas, scrape back the paint and moving it where you need it to be.  You are not "filling in the lines" like a 'coloring book', you are laying in masses of color, and those edges can be moved about as need be. Think of it as a 'push/pull' process. 

 And yes, I've left this photo uncropped so that you can see how I like to place my painting panel on a larger surface (in this case a larger piece of heavy corrugated cardboard) so that each knife stroke of paint has plenty of clearance. It can be very annoying to feel cramped when placing a stroke of paint and your hand/knife gets jammed into the ridge on your easel that holds the bottom edge! Same goes for the top. I attach it to the cardboard with blue painters tape. It does hold well enough to keep it staying put while I work on the painting! 

Once I get the darks laid in, I start adjusting. I'm interested in exciting color comparisons, & value contrasts.  Then finally working the lighter areas last, looking for reflected light in my subjects.

 

 

 

Fiery Flair Tulips

 

12"x12" oil on gessobord

For more information, or to purchase, click here. 

I am continuing to will it to be warmer weather up here lately (with these hot colors I've been painting with!).  I think it's working. I actually went outside without a jacket on and didn't freeze! I'm guessing it must have been in the upper 40s? Our own tulips are about 4 or 5 inches out of the ground so far! I'm hoping they'll come up in a beautiful display like they have the last several years! It's such an incredible sight to see! Don't you just love it when Spring really starts to show her face? It'll be time to start digging in the dirt once again! 

Fuchsia and Fiery Tulips, Hot Colors Floral

20"x16" oil on canvas mounted on archival board

To purchase or for more information, click here.

 

Fuchsia and fiery...bring on the hot wild colors of summer....we've waited long enough for Spring, and Mother Nature has sure been refusing to cooperate! Lots been going on since I last blogged. I've still been painting, but time has been tight. It all started with a mid-winter vacation ...a visit to see my mom in Florida (where she lives) in mid-February. One of my daughters joined me, and we took mom to the beach, and to the opening day of Spring Training...a baseball game with the Atlanta Braves! We filled the week with fun things to do...I even got in some nice little memorable sketches at the beach! I returned home on a Friday, (Feb. 28th to be exact). You won't believe what was on my answering machine the minute I came home from the air port?! Yes, you'll have to read tomorrow's post to find out!