TIL a $3 palette knife from a thrift store changed my whole painting style

I picked up this beat up metal palette knife at a Goodwill in Austin for 3 bucks, just figured it'd be good for mixing. But I slapped some leftover oil paint on a scrap canvas with it and the texture came out totally different than any brush I own. Now I'm kinda obsessed with how much control you actually get with the edge, and I'm wondering if anyone else has had a tool they grabbed for one thing end up totally shifting their process.

2 comments

2 Comments

the_jason28d ago

You ever have that thing where you buy a random cheap tool just for some basic task and it ends up opening up a whole new way of working? Totally get that feeling, man. Sometimes the weirdest finds really do shake things up the most.

abbyr9628d ago

The thing about palette knives is they're actually not great for mixing paint compared to a regular brush or a stiff spatula. The metal edge tends to push paint around instead of blending it smoothly, so you end up with streaks. But that's exactly why they work so well for applying paint directly, you get those sharp lines and thick layers that brushes just can't do. A lot of people grab one thinking it'll save time on mixing and then realize the real magic is in how it lays paint down. It's a total different way of thinking about the canvas.