Palette Knife Painting

Artist Statement

For this project, we were given a canvas to make acrylic paintings using only a palette knife. This allowed for more expressive strokes. We were encouraged to choose a photo from our camera roll that we had taken ourselves as a reference. Because we were using acrylic paint, I decided to choose a more colorful photo of a street and buildings that I had taken on a trip to Charleston South Carolina. I knew that the perspective of my chosen photo was likely to be challenging, but I had been wanting to paint this particular image for a while and felt this assignment would be the perfect opportunity. 

For this project, we were provided a 12x12 square canvas. It was suggested that we start with a red-orange base coat on our canvases to make the acrylic painted over it pop. Afterward, we were given palette knives, acrylic paint in the 3 primary colors, as well as white and black paint to make different shades of yellows, greens, blues, purples, browns, and grays.  I also used flour in my paint, so it would lay on thick on the canvas. The flour also helped add more texture and a variation of different lines. 

I was very unfamiliar with the perspective of the image, so I had to begin my project by sketching it out using a ruler before I went in with paint. I also experimented with a new art material. Acrylic paint is a material I am not used to, so I had to experiment with mixing colors to color match my image, adding flour to thicken the paint, or water to thin it, and working with the paint in layers. I prefer working with smaller details in my artwork, which was also a bit challenging with this project. I was able to use the edge of the knife for thin lines, but this was a very time-consuming process. Looking back, I would probably choose a more simple image to reproduce, but I really like how my final piece came out.