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One of the questions I get the most often is 'What palette knife do you use?'. The correct technical description for what I'm talking about here is probably 'painting knife' but since I use the same knives to mix on my palette too, I pretty much use the terms interchangeably. Since I first found a favorite knife to paint with there's been a change in model number and more recently, a 'flex' option added , so I'm going to go over what is is I'm using, why I like this particular knife and how to make sure you're getting the same one if you want to order it.

It was probably a couple of decades ago that I started working a lot with a knife-- sometimes putting on more paint with knives than with brushes. Oddly enough, the smaller and more confined working areas in my paintings are more likely to have been done using a knife. Without resorting to thinning the paint, I'm able to put down small shapes and detail while using as much control as I would have if I were working with a small brush. There's also a lot of scraping going on and occasionally the classic troweling on of thicker paint that people most often associate with knife applications.

I haven't done an exhaustive trial of every brand and shape of knife available, but of the ones I've tried, far and away my preference is for one made by Holbein. Originally it was labeled #10 . When I learned that model was to be discontinued, I bought all I could find and still have a number of brand new ones stashed away. Fortunately the same shape and size was continued under a different name and now is called Holbein MX-03. While many of the art materials I use are fairly low tech and inexpensive, these knives for me are a splurge that is worth the extra expense. Most painting knives are stamped or cut out of a flat piece of metal where the thickness doesn't vary so they have a more limited flexibility. These Holbein standard flex (a.k.a. soft flex) are ground down so that the metal gets thinner toward the pointed end, and this allows for more variety in the way they can be used to apply paint.

On the left you can see one of the old Holbein #10 versions and on the right is a brand new MX-03. These 2 knives have slightly different handles but the blades are identical when new. The difference you see in shape for the one on the left is due to the gradual wearing down of the metal after being scraped across a few miles of canvas. Eventually the edges get more concave and irregular and the point more narrow. The dimensions are 5/8th" wide by almost 2" in length. I've never found any advantage to using one that is broken in vs. brand new although they do get dramatically sharper along the edge and can become almost like razors.

Here are some examples of the 3 basic ways I generally apply paint with a knife. The first is troweling on a thick layer although in my work it is rarely thick enough to be the typical stroke that many would associate with palette knife painting. In the second example I have scraped on the paint. Using the underlying white ground showing through instead of adding white to lighten a color helps preserve the full range of chroma that's possible. The thin lines and dots to the right are done with the edge or tip of the knife. I might use this technique for stems or small highlights. As an example, I would have used the edge of my knife to create the top planes on some of the objects in the painting above. Applying paint using a knife can create a 'shelf' or small build up of paint that catches a bit of the physical light hitting the painting and can help enhance an illusion of form and depth. 

Because some of the effects I'm trying to capture are often very subtle, my preference is to use knife work on stretched linen where the support has more 'give' and the stroke work ends up being a bit softer. One big upside to working with knives is they are easier to clean than brushes. The downside is these knives are expensive (around $55 at the time of this writing) and if dropped they can dent rather easily. I always try to emphasize to students that none of your materials are ever going to magically transform your paintings into masterpieces, but I can also empathize with the enthusiasm to try something new. If you plan on ordering one of these knives like I'm using there is one thing you need to watch out for: With the new line of MX knives, some are labeled either Standard Flex ( Soft Flex) and the MX-03 knife is in that group. There is another knife exactly the same size and shape however that is just a slightly different number. That one is MX-13 and labeled 'hard flex'. It's probably a very nice knife too but will be more like the typical painting knives you are probably already familiar with. The Holbein MX-03 Standard or Soft Flex is the one that will allow easier manipulation of the paint.

Always try to keep in mind that above all else, what will make the biggest difference in your paintings are the seeing skills you develop. The artists I see who truly make progress are the ones who approach learning as a process and focus on that rather than the end result.

"Nothing important comes into being overnight." --- Epictetus

"Having lost sight of our objectives, we redoubled our efforts." --- Pogo