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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

      Here in the high desert of New Mexico, spring is finally starting to arrive and some of my favorite flowers to paint are making their appearance once again. Also coming up are the bundles of blue flax scattered around the yard. Although this amazing wildflower does come in other colors (and I recall having some red at one point), blue is the more common color and those are the ones that reappear in my yard year after year. Sometimes it shows up in the middle of a walkway or in the oddest places but I always enjoy the splashes of ultramarine it adds to the garden.

     It feels like an affirmation of some sort to watch the flax reemerge each spring,  since it represents such a critical part of the oil painting process. Flax is synonymous with linseed, so this is where the oil comes from that our pigments are ground in. In other words, the linseed oil in your paint originates from the same place as the flax seed and flax oil you will find in the health food section of your local grocery store. That's pretty much all our artists' oil colors are -- linseed oil and pigment. The correlation between flax and painting doesn't stop there though. While linseed oil is favored as a binder for pigment due to its strength and flexibility when dry, the rest of the plant has traditionally been valued for the stem fibers that are woven into linen --- long prized by artists as a painting support. The irregular yet durable fibers from flax also result in a less mechanical weave which can produce a more varied and interesting surface. Thankfully I don't have to press my own oil or weave my own canvas, but knowing that my art materials originate from these vivid blue clumps of flowers that grace my garden every year, is something I always marvel at.

     Although many people still think of oil paints as being toxic, for the most part it's the solvent used for thinning and cleaning up that's the bigger concern. Much of the bad reputation for the paint itself came from pigments that are no longer in common use such as lead white. For those of you who want to make use of the beautiful richness of traditional oils but have concerns about safety, Gamblin has an excellent page on their website that I am posting a link to below. I always encourage artists to do their own research but basically, unless you are sanding, spraying, grinding your own pigments or using a lot of solvents in a poorly ventilated space, there probably isn't as much to worry about as you might imagine.

     If you're interested in growing flax I'd suggest tossing out some seed in a barren location next to some gravel or pavement. Once it gets going, flax truly thrives on neglect and the occasional rain coming off of a roof in a sunny location seems to suit it just fine. More info on growing flax can be found at https://www.americanmeadows.com/content/wildflower-seeds/wildflower-species/all-about-flax

More info on studio safety  --- https://gamblincolors.com/studio-safety/studio-safety-create-without-compromise/

"Once you've started, you're halfway there." --- Horace, the Roman poet, in his work Epistles

        Paint quality isn't something every painter is sensitive to (nor do they need to be), but since it plays a role in the way I work and the techniques I use, in this post I'm going to talk about what I'm aiming for when it comes to the finished look of my paintings. Basically I would define paint quality as the surface texture on the painting once it's been completed. This is something I can recall being wound up about way back in school when I probably should have been more concerned with some other important things like values and composition. In art school our paints were laid out in strings of values and all of the mixtures tended to gravitate toward opaque so there wasn't much conversation between transparent and opaque pigments. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure there weren't the same options for purchasing transparent pigments like there are today. Working on cotton duck in layers, everything ended up having more or less the same look to it in terms of the surface. The finished paintings (mine and everyone else's) reminded me of Naugahyde -- a very bland and uniform faux leather fabric that was popular back in the day. Fifty years of innovation has done wonders for artificial leather, but I still don't want my painting surfaces to have that same look.

      One of the things I like the most about a direct painting method is that the paint quality ends up being interesting without me putting a lot of conscious effort into it. Working with knives and brushes, concentrating on shapes and leaving finished strokes as I proceed, results in paint being put down in a way that has an authority I'm not able to replicate when filling in an outline or working in layers. What I'm aiming for is a finished surface that in and of itself is interesting --- so that even if a painting was coated with flat wall paint there would still be a variety of textures that would have some distinct character. It's just part of the puzzle I enjoy setting up for myself and a way to help make every area of the painting interesting, even if not every area of the composition is intended to command equal interest.

Above are a couple of detail images from a recent painting I'm still working on. I took these up close and with a slight amount of glare to illustrate some of the strokework I'm using to create a more interesting surface than the linen weave by itself. There's a mix of thin to thick areas, scraping with a knife, brushstrokes, thicker knife passages and a few areas of smudging. The result is probably thinner than most people would guess with some of the heaviest build-up being 1/8" or less. The areas shown above I consider more or less finished and any additions I make going forward will be minimal. In these examples you can also see a few places where I have deliberately not thoroughly mixed the paint so there are small streaks of varied or more intense color. This is what I call 'Visual Mixing' and I'll be writing more about that in an upcoming blog.

            Of course there are things that can affect the outcome of the paint surface beyond just the way the paint is applied. I've often felt that students in particular place a lot of emphasis on brushes and paints, when finished paintings are often influenced more by the support (canvas or panels) and way they have been primed. This is one of the reasons some artists favor linen over cotton canvas. Because linen fibers are longer, (and therefore produce a stronger fabric), the threads are also more irregular which typically results in a less mechanical weave. My ideal priming is one that has subtle textures not likely to get in my way, yet takes the paint well without requiring a lot of extra effort to modify that texture. I don't try to rely totally on the support and priming to create a nice paint quality but it sure doesn't hurt to start off with something that lends itself well to the end result I have in mind. It's a pretty personal thing for each artist but experimenting to find a surface that suits your painting method, technique and budget can be time and effort well spent. Some of the online art retailers offer small pieces of canvas to try out and that's advisable before buying a whole roll.  One thing I don't recommend is purchasing materials that are so precious or expensive that they're intimidating and the temptation is to save them for when you're a real artist. In my experience, it's unlikely that anyone will be able to spend their way into doing better paintings and there are good enough options to fit every price range. For more on this topic, check out my June 2024 blog post Painting Materials -- Grounds and Supports

“Don’t wait for inspiration. It comes while working." – Henri Matisse

  Before I dive into this month's topic, I'm going to share a few photos from the workshop in Lowell, Michigan. The Life Process Center is a wonderful campus with beautiful views everywhere you look. It was such a welcoming and peaceful atmosphere and the support they offer to the instructors (special thanks goes out to Kathy Bechtel) helped to make my job so much easier.  I made several visits to see the goats during my stay and all of the bird lovers in the class were enchanted by watching a family of robins who were nesting in a wreath on the door. As near as I can guess they hatched right around the time I arrived on May 18th and the photo below shows how the little ones looked on the 24th right before I left. Although it worried me with all of the traffic in and out of that door , I received an update a few hours ago that all four made a successful launch early this morning  --May 31. 

It had been several years since I'd done any teaching, but jumping back into it reminded me of some of the same observations I've had a number of times since my first experiences as an instructor. One of the things I had sort of forgotten about was how focused many students are on painting materials ---having the right brush, medium or brand of paint. I know I was the very same once upon a time but looking back on it now, much of it strikes me as misplaced energy. While I'm all in favor of artists educating themselves about archival practices, this is more like the hope that a certain product will magically transform the look of a finished painting. It's certainly possible for a particular brush or medium or pigment to become an important part of someone's self expression, but in terms of materials, I've always felt the choice of ground and painting support has a lot more potential to influence the outcome. Whether working on a canvas or a panel, the support and the way it is primed can make all the difference between a user-friendly sort of experience , or one where the surface is fighting the artist all the way. Often students in class will be surprised to hear me say that I couldn't do a painting I was pleased with on the surface they are using. Some grounds I see in classes are so slippery that it's not easy to get the paint to stay even using very soft brushes. Alternatively the surface may be so absorbent that the paint doesn't stay wet long enough to work the notes into one another. Student grade cardboard covered cotton duck/gesso panels will often take the paint well, but the cardboard isn't archival and is prone to warping or developing brown spots in a relatively short period of time, so those are more suitable for studies that are done just for practice. Unfortunately, choosing materials marked archival doesn't guarantee that they will be compatible with the way you work though. There are some very popular brands of oil primed linen panels where the priming doesn't seem to have much 'tooth' and I feel like I'm pulling off more paint than I'm putting on, so clearly it can all come down personal tastes.  

Fifty years ago or so, the choices in painting supports were far fewer than what I'm seeing today. There may have been quality commercially available panels but I don't remember them and as I recall the choices were cotton duck, stretch your own linen, or make your own panels. Usually I would go to a lumberyard and buy a 4'x8' sheet of untempered masonite, either have it cut into the sizes I wanted there or divide it up myself at home using a hand saw. For smaller sizes it was usually 1/8th inch thick and for panels over 11x14 I went with 1/4 inch thick to avoid warping. It's possible now to find unprimed precut masonite, foam-board, wood or even aluminum panels but back in those days I had more elbow grease than cash and I definitely went with low cost approach. 

Aside from expense, the biggest advantage to making your own panels or canvases is having the ability to create a unique and interesting surface. It all depends on what you are trying to accomplish, but for me, having a somewhat textured yet varied paint quality in the priming was key to some of the way my painting technique developed over the years. Too much texture was a problem but a really smooth or very mechanical surface that needed a lot of extra effort to make it interesting was pretty unhelpful as well. My solution was to create a subtle texture in the ground using ready made acrylic gesso, sometimes with modeling paste added. The gesso could either be rolled, stippeled or brushed on or a combination of those. I haven't had much experience with various brands of gesso recently but back then it could vary dramatically from brand to brand. Oil or alkyd priming is another good option but whether on panel or canvas, a sizing barrier must be applied first to prevent the oil from being in direct contact with the panel.

 Although I don't recall any specific steps from that long ago, they must have been fairly sound procedures I was following because the studies on panels I've kept from that time have been hauled around, stacked against each other unvarnished for decades and still look pretty much the way they did when I painted them. 

                                               9x12

This study of a man with a hot dog cart was done on location (New York City) in 1974. My teacher's apartment was a short distance from Central Park so during class he would walk over there to find each student and give critiques on what we had been doing. The instructor, Michael Aviano, taught a palette of premixed values which was fairly limited in color compared to the selection of pigments I use today. In the studio we worked in layers with a full value underpainting but the ones we did outdoors were generally done alla prima. The gesso surface for the piece above is very smooth with wide even strokes going both vertically and horizontally.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

                                               8x10

For this study of an old shed painted a few years later, I was experimenting with more texture in the ground and also visible in places is a thin raw sienna wash underneath. The texture of the ground is heavier than I'd create for a panel of this size today but I'd say it worked OK for this piece. The brushstrokes in the priming however give the application of paint a much different feel from the earlier Central Park scene. At this point I was experimenting with a more elaborate palette, as well as a variety of paint applications --  thicker paint strokes, broken color, knife work as well as dry brush scumbling visible in the background and to the right side of the painting. 

These days most of my work is done on primed linen with a medium weave. Stretched linen with some degree of 'give' is my preference for the scraping and paint application I do with a knife. I can be very particular about how the weave and the ground takes the paint although if almost all of my paint was applied with brushes I suspect there would be a wider variety of options I'd find acceptable.  Unfortunately the #359 alkyd primed linen I've worked on for many years is no longer available ---a  casualty of recent supply difficulties and price increases. I still have a few rolls left but am experimenting (before I totally run out) with a few alternatives and modifications. There's always the option to stretch raw linen to size and prime myself but I'm holding out hope for a less labor intensive solution. 

     With all of the available choices these days for oil painting supports --panels, canvases, papers, etc., most artists will likely be able to find a ready-made surface that is simpatico with the way they like to work. If you are on a budget or have some special considerations though, creating your own surfaces can expand your options considerably. In my experience, grounds and supports are a frequently overlooked source of painting difficulties and any time and effort put into finding a surface compatible with the way you paint can save a lot of time and grief in the long run. 

"Do not imagine that I would disregard the thing that lies beneath the mask....but be sure that when the outside is rightly seen, the thing that lies beneath the surface will be found upon your canvas."  -- William Merritt Chase