Palette Knife Painting 

There were two ideas that guided the making of this artwork. First was the real picture I had of the sun setting over mountains in New Hampshire that I took at my friends ski house. I was looking to recreate that image using acrylic paint. The other part that guided this artwork was the prossess itself, using a palet knife to paint this piece. In this way the thing that guided my artwork was taking a realistic image and stylising it thought painting with matirials that could not creat ture realisum. I had to figure out how to simplify shapes, color match, and use colres effishently to creat interesting textures and points of interest. I wanted to capture the peaceful snowy landscape I feelt in New Hampshire so I used a lot of cooler tones with the pop of the orange sunset. 

I started off this piece by painting it with an orange washe as a base layer. On a canvas bored I applied a few thin layers of orange acrylic paint that I mixed with a bit of water with a paintbrush. The rest of the painting was done with a palette knife, this was an interesting tool to paint with as it does not allow for fine details, rather a focus on larger shapes and use of color. First I mixed together purel tones for the sky that I applied to the piece in smooth back and forth strokes, then I separately mixed together bright orange tones to create the center of the sunset and on the palert mixed them together with a bit of extra pink to create a seamless transition. I also added a bit of darker purples close to the sunset to create the illusion of clouds. For the mountains I first mixed a near black indego and applied it in thick strokes to create the shape of the mountains, then I went back over those shapes with a thin layer to lighter purple that created a broken up look to resemble snow on the mountains and add texture.  

Originally, my idea was to make an exact copy of the image I had chosen of the New Hampshire landscape. This included trees, powerlines, and two houses in the mid-ground. As I finished the sky and mountains in the background I realized that the power lines and trees would be a distraction and very cluttered. It would be technically challenging to make very thin lines with a palette knife and if I messed up it would be hard to fix with the very smooth and textured background of the sky and mountains respectively. This is why there are no mid-ground elements from the original photo. I like how it changed the mood of the image, the photo is lived in, this one is bleak like winter often is. I also used tones that were more intense then the original photo, especially in the sky to push contrast.