Gary Garrett palette knife painting demonstration

Painter Gary Garrett demonstrates palette knife painting in this short YouTube video, Heavy Impasto Palette Knife Acrylic Painting Demo - Gary Garrett - Castaway Island.

Working in the studio from a photograph, on an 8" x 10" surface, he used two palette knives (and a razor for scratching into the paint) and mixed his paints with a heavy gloss gel medium to create this piece.

Garrett comments on the process, "This technique sacrifices fine details for a more impressionist style of applying the paint. There's a real FREEDOM in not being concerned about details."

The entire painting took him one hour and eight minutes to paint. Palette knife work goes quickly! In answer to a question about the differences between large and small palette knives, Garrett wrote, "The larger knives are relatively more flexible as the steel is the same be it a small or large knife. When I paint with the small knives, I tend to paint with the tip only and then draw the knife down and away. It takes a bit of planning, but can be very rewarding."

When asked as to his preferences of palette knives, although he has a variety of shapes and sizes from different makers, Garrett keeps coming back to the Loew Cornell J-0 and J-11 palette knives, although he has a variety of shapes and sizes from different makers.

Mike Rooney shows how to use a painting knife

Mike Rooney demonstrates painting with a palette (or painting) knife

Mike Rooney gives a great lesson on painting with a painting (or palette) knife in the video Free Art Lesson – Mike Rooney – Palette Knives.

Notice how the painting is underpainted in magenta (effective under the greens he will be painting over it)? For this demonstration, he starts with the painting already blocked in, so that you see the abstract shapes of the landscape.

When you mix your paints for painting with a knife, you don't have to mix them completely. He points out that, when you apply them with a knife, the unmixed colors can create a kind of marbleized effect. You get the color straight from the palette – unlike the brush, which picks up color from your paint water.

Mike Rooney demonstrates painting with a palette (or painting) knife

Here he uses the knife to bring color into the negative spaces surrounding the trees. He sets the palette knife along the edge he wants to begin at, and moves the paint across the space to be painted. He recommends that you not paint all the way up to the edge of the other shape.

You can see more of Mike Rooney's work at www.mikerooneystudios.com and read his blog at http://mikerooneystudios.blogspot.com.