How to Start Palette Knife Painting?

Sometimes painting with a brush becomes boring task. So let’s shift to something interesting without being so monotonous – A Palette knife painting.

It seems something like applying butter to bread using knife. Isn’t it seems easy. If yes? Then palette knife painting is not a rocket science with just little bit of efforts you will get extremely awesome result.

A painting with knife that produces different result as compared to brush. It is technique used to produce large effects. People use two terms interchangeably palette knife and painting knife but they are not same both have different meaning.

CHOOSE A SUBJECT
Before you start, choose a subject for your painting. It could be a portrait or a still life. If it’s your first time completing a palette knife painting, I recommend picking something easy like an animal, a building or a village scene that contains less detailing. It’s got a few colors but isn’t overly detailed. A less complex subject help you understand the basics of this acrylic knife painting technique.

MATERIALS REQUIRED
Before moving further you need to collect all the materials required for making a knife painting.

# A Canvas- A canvas surface is required to make the painting. You are free to choose the surface you want- a primed one or non-primed. By the way a primed surface is better as it will give a smooth surface with an evenly look painting.

# A knife- Choose the type of knife you want a short or long, round or sharp flat one as per your preference.

# Acrylic Paints- You can choose the colors you want for painting as per your subject and requirement. Suggestion is to choose the acrylic paints as it is fast drying and manipulation using acrylics is bit easy as compared to others.

Now, we got a step by step guide of making a knife painting.

STEP 1: CHOOSE A KNIFE
Choosing a knife is the first task for making the knife painting.

Do you know?
As we discussed above there are two terms for knife painting- palette knife and painting knife.

A painting knife has a semi-flexible metal blade and a wood handle, and plastic knifes are also available. You can recognize a painting knife by the large bend or a crank, in the handle. This design helps keep your knuckles out of any wet paint you've just applied. The blades may be pear, diamond, and trowel-shaped as well.

These knives won't cut. Although they are called knives but these tools are not designed to cut like a kitchen or craft knife. They are only used for painting purpose.

A palette knife has a flexible metal blade and a wood handle, and plastic knifes are also available. You can recognize a painting knife by the slight bend or a crank, in the handle. They are used for scraping a palette clean and for mixing paints. They are not used for applying paint on the canvas. This is flexible but the plastic ones are more flexible comparatively.

A painting or palette knife is a blunt-edged knife just like a butter knife, unless you specifically select one with a blade that has a sharp point.

STEP 2: CHOOSE THE PAINTING KNIFE TYPE

Painting knives come in different range of shapes and sizes. Different types of knives have obviously different effects. Choose one type of knife as per your requirement for the painting.

-A short blade produces angular strokes.
-A long blade makes it easy to put down sweeps of color.
-A rounded blade is great for dabbing spots of pigment and building layers.
-A sharp-pointed blade allows you to scratch into the paint.

If you are not sure that painting with knife gives a better result, then try to paint with plastic knife first then later use the metal one or wood one.

STEP 3: GET PAINTING DONE
Now the fun begins!
If you know how to apply jam on bread, then you already know how to apply paint on canvas the style for both are same. The thing to be focused is if you want the broad part to be colored then use the knife long edge full with color and put a stroke. On the other hand if you want to paint a fine area then use the tip of knife for painting. You can use any type of paint including watercolor, but try to use the color having strong consistency to it like acrylics.

Use your knife to control where the paint goes. By simply moving your knife in one direction, you can imply motion or textures. Making a squiggly-like motion with the knife in paint will create a wavy effect. Likewise, moving the tool vertically looks like something is moving up and down. You can just put strokes by simply creating no shape just an irregular pattern.

Given below are some techniques to try for knife painting:

• Create a texture effect by pressing the blade with paint onto the canvas surface.
• Use the tip of the blade to generate small dots.
• Press the edge of the knife down to produce fine lines.
• Press the blade flat down into the paint will produce ridges.
• Scrape back into the paint to reveal underlying layers.
• Use the long side of the blade to spread paint across your canvas as you would spread butter on a slice of bread.

STEP 4: CLEAN YOUR KNIFE
After using the knife, don’t forget to wipe off your knife. Cleaning is one of the most important step after using knife. Cleaning of knife is much easier than cleaning the brush. You have to just clean the excess paint with help of rag then again wipe it with clean cloth. If paint got dried rub it with other knife or scrape it with damp cloth. Make sure to clean the knife between the colors otherwise you will get a hue of different unwanted colors throughout the painting.

The style or type decided by you to make an awesome masterpiece from knife painting.

Leave us in comment section You find it easy or difficult to make knife painting.