I purchased a set of four extra large Liquitex painting knives a couple of weeks ago and challenged myself to paint a complete large(30″ x 40″) landscape with each of them. I will share what I have learned as I work on the paintings.

The first painting will be completed with the Liquitex Painting Knife, Large No. 10 pictured above. For this landscape painting I selected a design idea from my most recent trip to Cozumel it is a view near the area called “el Mirador”.  A view of  the  blue Caribbean water interacting with the sharp ” iron shore” limestone  of Cozumel. For those who are familiar with this “wild” part of the Cozumel east coast this was a pretty calm morning.

So far The big no. 10 painting knife has performed well. The only problems I have encountered are related to me being right-handed.  There are areas on every canvas where I have trouble making right-handed marks.

As I complete the painting I will add a few more in-progress images and I will talk more about the tool.

Mixing color with the big knife is a pleasure it handles big piles of paint with ease and it feels good in my hand. I was able to mix and block in large areas of color in a short time. The “Scotch” in me makes me cringe at the quantity of paint I am squeezing out.  As I have progressed in this painting I have   struggled a bit with exactly what my marks should look like.  As I began refining areas of the painting it began to have the same “feel” as the Arch painting I completed a month ago so I have let it go in that direction something I called a “Van Gogh-esc” look .  It is an interesting form with the potential for color, linear and textural movement and rhythm.  It is a form that I think I will explore for a few more paintings.( Although I had a professor who admonished me not to paint this way after viewing a work with similar form that I tried as a student.)

The painting has continued to evolve as a series of dashes and blobs.  I have been able to create an interesting variety of mark shapes with the big  Liquitex No. 10 painting knife using the edges and tip. When I start my next (3rd) painting session I plan on adding a smaller trowel shape knife to help me break up and refine some of the lines in the design.

I have completed the knife work on the painting. I think it is finished. I will look at it in my studio for a few days to make sure. I am happy with the way the big knife worked since I only spent about 6.00 on it I can’t complain to much. I really liked the big handle it was easy to hold. I thought the knife had decent spring and it appears to be well built my only complaint would be that the bend or neck between the blade and the handle could be longer so it had a deeper drop so my knuckles could be further from the surface of the canvas.

I like the design, the yin yang , half  land half sea quality of the design. Like most artists when they walk away from a painting I know it is not what I had in mind exactly but the essence is there and I had the bonus of exploring the possibilities of a new tool. I can already imagine it on the south wall of my family room (at least for a few weeks).

The cool thing is I have three more big knives to try out! The next design may be drawn from almost the same location looking south as opposed to north.

Here are the first sessions result of my big Liquitex No. 13 painting knife test and review.

I liked the way I was able to mix and cover a 30 x40 canvas in 3-4 hours. The knife forces me to live with its marks. The similarity of the marks  gives a rhythmic quality to the application. Of course during this first session I am mostly trying to get the right color in  right location.

As for the composition I was just a little nervous starting this composition with so much sharp texture and contrast in the foreground. The rough and I mean ROUGH texture of the limestone “iron shore” should contrast nicely with the smoother,  lower contrast shapes of the water wave and sky.

I spent a couple more hours working on the painting with  the large  No. 13 knife and I will call it session two.  I like the mark making control this knife gives particularly for sharper edges and linear shapes.  I have been painting with oil paint for 30 years and I can’t believe that I have neglected to use this tool more often.  So far thumbs up for the big No. 13!

I am struggling a bit capturing the correct colors and values that I want …but that is what makes the act of painting so rewarding, solving the problems.

I Spent yet another morning with the big N0. 13 and this painting and I am still enjoying the somewhat random quality of the marks I can make with it. However, I think another tool will be needed to break up the regular squareness and edginess of the marks. I have come to the conclusion that it is a better painting tool than a mixing tool for me.

The painting is coming together, this third session leaves the painting almost finished. I can only see a few changes that I would like to make and then I will  put this painting aside and begin work on my next big knife painting.

I returned to this canvas one last time with The Big No. 13 knife. I added more value and a bit of modeling in the foreground rock shapes.  I also touched up a few color/value transitions that were bothering me.  I am calling this painting complete.  I am happy with the big No 13 knife; the limitations it imposed on me were mostly positive. I will use it again!

My next oil painting in this knife review series will be a approaching storm cloud painting. Two years ago Rhonda and Jewel and I were on Cozumel and it was breezy and  I thought for sure we were in for some kind of storm. But the stormy clouds just hung out over the ocean; sending patches of clouds towards land which created an awesome display of light and shadow on the beach. In my mind I visualize  a simple painting so wait and see how it turns out. The Big Liquitex knife I will be using and reviewing for this painting is a rounded No. 2. It looks like a short necked pancake turner.

My first observation after using the No. 2 knife for a few hours is that  it is not a mixing knife for the palette! It performed better as a blocking in tool but it would not be my first choice for that task either. It is a painting knife When I started making subtle value adjustments and edges I found that the No. 2 performed quite well. I was able to manage vertical and horizontal edges better than I had expected based on the rounded shape of the knife.

My second session with the No. 2 knife went well. I was able to make some nice small small marks with the knife. My only concern with the painting is I have some value adjustments to make between the two large shapes in the painting so I need to decide how to proceed with transparency or opacity?………. I chose opacity.

I modified the values in a couple of places and after an hour or so I  put down the big painting knife and brushed in a lone figure on the beach.

This composition is quite simple…. which means it may but tougher for me to complete. I will add the finished painting as soon as it is done. As for the No. 2 painting knife I thought it was very versatile as a painting tool and as I indicated above I could not mix with it.

Ok!  This is the last of the  Liquitex knife review paintings. I am using the Big No. 6 for this oil painting and again I am working a composition from the east side of Cozumel.  As I  blocked in the painting I determined that the No 6. was not an efficient mixing tool, so I did my mixing with the No. 10. I  found that the paint scraped on fairly easy on the bare canvas leaving a trail along one edge of the stroke no matter how careful I stroked. This characteristic I don’t see as a problem in my work but some painters might find the ridges annoying. I had excellent edge control (see the horizon). However, I did struggle with more organic shapes,  the angled, hard edged shape of the tool made it difficult .  Again, as with the No. 13 knife, I think the limitations may enhance the abstract or suggestive quality of the final product.  I came and added another layer of paint using the No. 6 knife.  I liked the way the knife performed.  The composition seems balanced and calm (like the morning I was there).  there are a few color changes That I may make  but all in all  I feel pretty good about the painting.

If you are interested in owning this or any other paintings in my blog or if you would like me to interpret your favorite scene contact me.  Check out the win a painting link before you leave. You may now purchase prints and cards of some of my painting s at  Fine Art America .

I spent the first good day of summer here in Utah hiking and sightseeing with Rhonda out on Antelope Island. Antelope Island is part of the Utah State parks system, it is known for its wildlife.  We saw lots of antelope, waterfowl, a couple of hundred buffalo and a lone coyote. The most numerous wildlife we encountered were the no see um biting gnats. They were in our ears and hair withing minutes of our arrival. I was glad we had purchase nets to put over our heads and some insect repellent for our exposed skin. I would not have enjoyed our visit nearly as much and we might have had to cut it short. I was reminded of Humphrey Bogart in the African Queen when the flies were eating he and Katherine Hepburn alive. I was grateful that we were only hiking and photographing on this trip. I am afraid I would have given up painting before I even got started….. there is nothing quite like an oil painting filled with dying insects.

I saw some interesting orange flowers, scarlet globe mallow, blooming in the midst of the sea of purplish-green June grass surrounding the trail. There were  scattered sage brush and boulders punctuating the scene so I decided to work those ideas into a painting. ….which is what I am working on now. I have spent a few hours with this painting and I am still struggling with the color and the texture. The color scheme is a secondary triad of orange, violet and green. This is a color scheme I have rarely used particularly when no single color is dominant. The textural feel I am building with the strokes of the palette or painting knife have an interesting movement from the bottom of the meadow shape up to the boulder shapes. I hope to have this painting completed soon. I will post the completed painting along with the in progress view I have included here.

The completed version shows more development of the value and texture in the foreground I have included a detail of the knife work below. Based on the completed version shown above I have invested in several new painting knives, including some fairly large tools that could be sued to flip a burger or a small pancake. I am excited to try them so check back soon and see the resulting experiment. The image I selected to try out my big new knives is an east coast view from my trip to Cozumel. You may now purchase prints and cards of some of my painting s at  Fine Art America .

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November couple of years ago my wife and I went down to the San Rafel  Swell area of central Utah to hike a couple of slot canyons that pass through the titled mass of Navajo sandstone that runs north and south through the east side of the “swell”. We had just finished an afternoon out and back hike through Crack canyon and we were driving back towards Temple Mountain. As the sun was going down it illuminated Temple Mountain with golden light. I was lucky to have been there.  We camped that cold night south of Goblin valley near the entrance to the  Ding and Dang slot canyons. It was a perfectly clear night and I made a couple of photographs of the stars. The next day we hiked through the two slot canyons, which were a bit more technical than we expected and then we made our way home. I painted this 30 x 40 knife painting as soon as we returned home I exhibited it at the Springville Museum of art in December of 2008. After the exhibit I brought it home and stored it. Last week I was digging around in my studio and it behind some other works and brought it into my room and hung it I think I like it. It takes me back to the San Rafel and its desolate sublime beauty.
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A few years ago I did a little plein air oil painting in a little grove of aspens above the Aspen Grove area of the alpine loop (near Sundance, Utah). It is a favored location of mine. I painted this location a long time ago way back in 1975. That painting was made for one of my favorite high school teachers, Al Davis. That old painting was a winter time view and it was a watercolor. Last time I talked to his daughter, Nancy, the painting was still hanging in her mothers home. I think of Al every time I drive past that spot. Another memory I have of that spot happened in 1977. my younger brother an I we on a winter camping Nordic ski tour. It was a full moon that night and we skied by the light of the full moon. We set up camp very near this little grove of trees and nearly froze to death. According to the weather it had been -40 degree Fahrenheit. That night. cars that were parked in the Sundance parking lot had frozen radiators. I learned a couple of things on that outing; I did not really like winter camping and checking on the weather forecast prior to any outdoor activity might be a good idea.

A friend at work was looking for a painting of Aspens or that Sundance area and I thought of that little stand of trees and started to work.  The results are included here I made a 16 x 20 version for my friend at work and I made a large scale work that has more of a golden tone.  I have exhibited the larger work a couple of times.  I am now offering some prints of the larger versionimpressionist paintings aspens paintings aspens art

I was happy about the results. Viva la palette knife!

I continue to enjoy oil painting with my knife! This oil painting of Utah Lake from the Buffalo peak trail is an interesting example of the perspective of disappearance as Leonardo da Vinci described it. Everything gets lighter and more blue as it appears to recede into the distance. We now call it atmospheric or aerial perspective , however the effect is the same now as it was for Leonardo the process makes us believe for a short time or perhaps longer that we are seeing space as opposed to the reality of the flat canvas. Understanding how to make or suggest space is one of the keys to landscape painting whether it be “en plein air” or in the studio. Art students should know the rules of aerial perspective described above They should also consider overlapping, and the rules of placement and scale every time they draw or paint the landscape.
I saw many potential compositions along the trail to Buffalo Peak and it only takes me 30 minutes to drive up there. So check back soon and see what kind of space I can make of those vistas.

PS don’t forget the insect repellent when you go out drawing and painting during the summer. The itchy welts on my legs will remind me.

I oil painted this knife study based on a snapshot that I took a couple of weeks ago while Rhonda and I were hiking on the ridge trail above little deer creek. The ridge trail and alpine loop are areas where I have painted many paintings during the last few summers. One of the paintings I made in this area was part of the Midway Plein Air festival.
I am thoroughly enjoying painting with a knife again its almost as if I am carving the painting. The knife helps me suggest the landscape as opposed to describing it which is something I find myself doing when I use a brush.
I was up on Buffalo Peak yesterday again in the late afternoon with some of my family. Everyone was surprised at how green everything still is. Normally it has started to dry out by mid July at that altitude(7800-7900 ft). I plan on working the vistas in that Buffalo Peak area for the next couple of weeks so I better buy some green paint.

It has been a while since I have been able to paint. A short list of distractions both good and bad which have kept me out of the paint might include; slot canyon hiking, holidays, hikes, 5K runs, playing with grand children, bike rides, professional conferences, final testing, graduations, home repairs, flooded basement(I am not kidding) the list could go on. Finally I was able to get out and draw and photograph some landscapes to paint. Last week I went to the ridge trail above American Fork Canyon an area where I have painted before on several occasions. This week went up the Squaw Peak trail above Provo and did several drawings in the Buffalo Peak area. I have painted near there before but I was impressed with the location and I plan on working there again soon. I have included a studio study which I made yesterday (July 15th 2010). The main problem I was trying to solve aside from capturing the essence of the place was the mass of yellow balsam root flowers and the texture their very green foliage presented. I think the palette knife helped me capture the “feel” of the foliage. I am still working on ideas from Cozumel and Arches hopefully my schedule will let me squeeze them in soon. Below is a mostly silent video of this painting being made.

I stayed home from my day job on Friday and had a few hours on my hands so I painted a 20 x 30 oil painting which is pretty much what I do. What makes it unusual is that I sat down to paint with a couple of brushes and began the under-drawing with a brush and when I started to mix up a tone with my palette knife something told me to put the paint on with the knife. I did not touch a brush till I signed the painting. Those of you who have seen my work for several years know that many of my plein air works are knife paintings. However it has been almost a year since I painted solely with a knife.

Knife painting allows me a textural or tactile quality that I rarely find with a brush.

As I have stated before,  I was awe struck with the powerful beauty of the Caribbean Sea pounding the east shore of Cozumel, Mexico. I can’t help but try and capture it. This knife painting gave me something….. now I need to build on it.

I have not forsaken my Moab and Arches work in fact I feel that the same energy I get from the palette knife in the beach painting may help me in the Arches.

Enjoy the video its in HD! ( Thanks to Daniel) Watch my Ebay store for smaller plein air works and a couple of mid sized works. Contact me if you are interested in any work on this site.