Painting landscapes with knives

Painting knives are fascinating instruments ! I have always felt that the medium and the instrument you choose is quite reflective of the kind of personality you are. (I plan to elaborate a little more about this in a subsequent post)
Painting knives are great for someone who has little patience, and loves to play with textures. Combine that with acrylic paints, and you have the right recipe for a really impatient artist !

I have outlined here a simple landscape painting - which took me about an hour to complete.
The painting method is a mix of impasto and glazing.

Materials needed

Acrylic paints - Red (Crimson/ Scarlet), Yellow (Ochre and Lemon), Blue(Cobalt, Cerulean), and White
Painting knives
Brush (for the glazing)
Water
Canvas




Step 1

The first step is to find a picture/ photo that inspires you or one that you can use as reference to paint. (normally I'd find a picture from photos I have taken or something that comes up in newspaper/ magazine. But this was a picture I found online and had used it to let my art class experiment with colors mixing, and I chose this as a reference photo for this painting)
I made a very light sketch of the outlines using a H pencil. the outline of the trees and its reflection was all that you need to sketch)




Step 2

I started with painting the sky. For this, I squeezed out cobalt blue, cerulean blue and white paints directly on to the canvas.

Step 3

Using a wide edged painting knife spread out the paints on the canvas - keep mixing white with blue to get a good blend of colors. Leave streaks of plain white for the clouds. I also added some patches of blue and white in the water reflection. I have not used water - but if your paint is getting dry, dip you knife in water and then spread out the paint.
(you can use a touch of red to get the purple shades as in the original photo)

Step 4

Now as the sky is getting dry (which will be very quick if you have used just paint, and no water)
start adding colors for the trees. Squeeze out Red, Yellow and Blue paints in the outline for the trees. Use the photo reference to see how to position the colors (or just use your imagination!)

Step 5
Use a thin edged painting knife to slowly blend in the colors while making sure that the small leafy texture of the trees comes out. You can also add lines with the knife to indicate branches.

You will see the greens and oranges coming out as your start mixing your colors. Again, I have used very little water and mostly worked directly with the paints.










This is how the final result of the trees look like.

Step 6

Now I added the color for the reflection of the trees. The key thing here is to maintain colors and proportions consistently (reflection colors and size of trees must be same as the tree colors and sizes); and to also not add much texture.
So I have used a flat edged knife to just thinly spread out the colors in the reflection.

Step 7

Now we start adding the glaze for the water reflection. Mix a lot of water to blue, yellow and red.
Using a flat brush (you can use soft or hard bristles) - paint over the water reflection area - first with blue. Wait for it to dry completely before adding the yellow glaze; and similarly add red glaze. I finally added a touch of blue glaze. (you need to let each coat of glaze dry completely before adding the next one - this bit is not for the impatient artist :)  - but while you wait for your glaze to dry, you can add more details on the trees/ sky, as needed)

Step 8

Add finishing details to the water (to match the reflection of the clouds); detail out the leaves.
Your painting is now complete !




That is how it compares with the reference picture !