I wanted to merely practice my palette knife technique without having to focus on all the elements that go into making a painting, so I decided to paint this quilt pattern, as a musician would practice scales. I thought it would be simple and I would probably knock out a couple of these tonight. Ha!! The maniacal laughter you're hearing is me, contemplating how much work it was to even get the drawing onto the paper, let alone to make sure the colors were in the right place, not to even mention using the knife to get the paint into all the little spaces. This is probably a good time to note I have a truly renewed admiration for quilters!
I started at the upper right, and you may be able to see that I was quite focused in the first few upper right squares to get the paint on smoothly. After several squares, I wanted to hang it up. But I stuck it out, soon realizing that the nature of palette knife is that things are not going to be perfect and that's why we use the knife. So, slap on some more paint and get on to the next shape!
Remind me next time I create an exercise to practice the looseness of palette knife technique, I should be painting rainbows or something else where I can make sweeping motions with the knife!
I want to remind all the artist bloggers out there that the important thing about this month's challenge is NOT to end up with 30 paintings. The important things are to learn more about your working methods, your materials, your preferences, and your sources of inspiration. We don't want anyone finishing this challenge being burned out on painting. Please be kind to yourselves and give yourselves a break when doing so would be wise.
6 comments:
Love your exercise but its not for knife painting freedom... but trying to be exact with the knife... which is also important... I like it very much... with straight lines etc... you can turn your piece around... may try something like this on the weekend...with my new knife...
Omg I love this. I've thought of doing this but always managed to talk myself out of it. Great colors!
I love this painting and more especially the colors.
Hey Meredith.. you sure did choose a very difficult subject for this. But I am sure you have become more precise with your knife and this practice will pay off in your future works. I looks forward to seeing more knife works from you. I like to use the knife in my backgrounds for scumbling sometimes. I like the unpredictable outcome of it. I have only one knife (the small pointed one) and I feel I dont have so much control with that one. Regarding your comment on my blog, I have noticed that as I keep painting, I find myself thinking more before I apply paint to canvas i.e is the colors the right value, temperature etc. due to this I am taking longer to finish smaller works as well. So I guess time depends on the complexity of the subject more than size. sorry for the really long comment :)
I was positive that I posted a comment.......hope all is OK!!!
Love this little study... more this morning looking again...
Thanks for your comments everyone, and sorry I took a couple days to publish some of them--I have been dealing with headache/back pain for a couple of days, which I why I have been taking a break from painting and following blogs. I'll write more later, have to leave for work soon!
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