Backcountry Trail, acrylic on canvas, 12”x9”

I painted this as part of a Skillshare class on painting landscapes with a palette knife. This is something I’m very interested in learning as it will eventually help me loosen up my work.

 

This is my 3rd time playing with the palette knife. My 2nd time (2 days ago) was part of a class on painting impasto, so I added a thickening medium to the paint that made it feel more like working with warm butter. The palette knife worked very well with that consistency.

 

But in my 1st and 3rd times working with a palette knife, including this painting yesterday, the consistency of the paint out of the tube felt a little too watery to work well with the knife. The paint was almost pooling sometimes, or if I scraped it, it scraped too thin and you could see too much of the canvas underneath. So it often felt too watery to work well with the knife. But I was watching the instructor and (of course) his didn’t look watery or thin, so I’m guessing it’s just going to take some time for me to work out the consistency.

 

I’m also interested in the impasto effect where the paint is super thick and gloppy, so I’ll probably go back to adding at least some thickening medium to my acrylic paint when working with a palette knife.

 

I’m most interested in developing an impressionist style over time, so I worked a little here to make the painting a tiny bit softer and fuzzier than the class called for. I also added my signature bunches of small flowers, since I really love having those in my paintings.