I am a palette knife painter. You might know the palette knife as a tool for mixing paint on a palette, but it can do so much more than that! In fact, you can use a palette knife to create effects and use techniques that you wouldn’t be able to do with a brush. Some contemporary artists like me favor the palette knife so much that we often don’t use brushes anymore. Both oil and acrylic paint can be used for palette knife painting, though I personally prefer using oil on canvas.

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One of the best things about this style of painting is the wide array of textures that you can get with a palette knife. Sharp lines can be made using the edge of the palette knife. You can achieve the broad, sweeping strokes of impasto, or create interesting effects through sgraffito or scratching into the paint. You can even paint wet on wet—that is, painting on top of wet layers without the paint blending together. A palette knife really allows you to put layers of paint together in a distinct way compared to a brush.