I picked up a new set of palette knives recently and wanted to try some of the new shapes to experiment with. I get in kind of a groove with a few brushes or knives at a time, and so some of these new shapes needed practice. I decided to play around with them to layer colors into a fireworks painting referencing a photo from a neighborhood party last 4th of July.
The noir sky was fun to create and experimenting with the colors on top, first with one knife, then replicating with another was a great exercise. I made two final paintings but started with a few composition and color studies on gessoed bristol board to decide how I wanted to use the knives and the colors. I liked experimenting with lots of blues and pink combinations to get the results in the final paintings.
You can see in some of the different process photos the different textures and shapes you can achieve with a palette knife. It's also fun to see the color notes for the sky from the top of the sky down to the horizon: Prussian Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Pthalo Blue, Alizarin, Cad Yellow + White.
Scroll to the bottom to see the original reference photos. :)
To see how my fireworks paintings turned out, all framed and polished up, check them out in my Finding HOME collection here.
To see how palette knife can look on a larger painting, check out this post about a custom landscape commission made mostly with a knife.
The noir sky was fun to create and experimenting with the colors on top, first with one knife, then replicating with another was a great exercise. I made two final paintings but started with a few composition and color studies on gessoed bristol board to decide how I wanted to use the knives and the colors. I liked experimenting with lots of blues and pink combinations to get the results in the final paintings.
You can see in some of the different process photos the different textures and shapes you can achieve with a palette knife. It's also fun to see the color notes for the sky from the top of the sky down to the horizon: Prussian Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Pthalo Blue, Alizarin, Cad Yellow + White.
Scroll to the bottom to see the original reference photos. :)
To see how my fireworks paintings turned out, all framed and polished up, check them out in my Finding HOME collection here.
To see how palette knife can look on a larger painting, check out this post about a custom landscape commission made mostly with a knife.
