Loosen Up!

If you want to loosen up your painting, something I am constantly striving toward (much to the chagrin of my classic mentor), try a palette knife! This is one canvas in a triptik I'm working on--a first for me--which has been SO MUCH FUN to paint! It started out as a conventional painting, brush-style, and quickly became a palette knife painting for some reason. I was trying to cover more ground with the sky and then my palette knife just wouldn't stop...I love the texture of it and the challenge of being this loose and putting down the right color the first time. And the sky was great fun--I started the right side with a mixture of blue black, by Winsor Newton--a great muted blue that mixes well with white with no neutralizing necessary--and white. Then began on the left side with a mixture of cad yellow medium, cad red and white and spread it right into the blue, continuing on over for some cloud effects. Wet into wet--it really was a cool effect and one I will employ often for nice sunset skies. Be prepared to use a LOT of paint for this type of painting technique.