48 artistApril 2021 http://www.painters-online.co.uk
you can develop a whole new range
of styles and add inspirational mark
making to your repertoire. A painting
knife (which generally has a cranked
handle, palette knives don’t, they
are designed to mix paint) is a great
tool for adding heavy impasto and
texture. The paint can be thickened
by adding a modifier such as Gamblin
Cold Wax Medium or Winsor & Newton
Oleopasto, but there are numerous
brands for the artist to experiment with.
Choose a metal knife that has a flexible
spring to it – you will only get this in a
quality branded metal knife. Avoid the
plastic ones. Different sizes and shapes
will give different effects, so buy a small
selection to experiment with.
It’s not essential that you complete a
whole painting using a knife, although
this can be great fun. Use it for areas
that need a bit of ‘beefing up’, perhaps
a cloud structure or just to add a few
layers of texture to a foreground. They
aren’t the easiest tool to use though,
and they certainly aren’t good for detail,
but with practice some useful effects
can be obtained. Don’t layer the paint
on too thickly or it may start to crack in
the future. You can add broken colour
over a drier layer (scumbling), leaving
interesting underpainting to show
through.
Correct any mistakes by scraping
the paint off, rather than adding more
paint. The finished work will (or should
have) a lively, spontaneous and fresh
look with clean vibrant colours. Knife
painting isn’t about detail, it’s a way of
applying paint in way that is different
from a brush, and it may help those
artists who want to loosen up their
painting – too much detail can often be
the artist’s Achilles heel!Underpainting and coloured
grounds
This is often referred to as imprimatura.
I’m generally looking for a degree of
unification in my paintings, so working
on a coloured ground is an important
first step to achieving this. I often leave
small areas of this ground to show
through in the finished piece, and thesehelp to create an overall colour balance
throughout my work.
A mid-tone grey ground is a good
option as it will allow you to judge your
tonal range both up and down the tonal
scale. I like to start by blocking in my
darkest tones, then work progressively
towards the lightest areas. You don’t
have to limit yourself to a neutral grey
of course, raw sienna, burnt sienna and
other variations will all provide you with
a useful ground to start your painting
on. Selecting a colour that gives you
a degree of harmony throughout your
painting is one way of proceeding, but
quite often a contrasting ground colour
can also work well.Importance of tonal values
Although this isn’t actually a technique,
this important aspect of constructing a
painting is worthy of a few paragraphs.
I touched on this in my first article
(February 2021), but its importance
cannot be overstated. Tonal values
will occur naturally in a painting, but
the secret of a successful painting is
to further exploit these values to help
create an illusion of depth – as though
we’re looking at a three-dimensional
image, when we know that it’s actually a
flat plane.
Value is the relative lightness and
darkness of a specific colour. It’s worth
bearing in mind that simply relying on
strong colours alone is not necessarily
the way to achieve a strong visual
artwork. Tonal values are not shades of
grey – many of us get confused here. All
colours have a value and with the help
of a tonal scale such as the one shown
(left), it should be simple enough to
establish these values.
Don’t confuse tonal value with colour.
Tone or value refers to how light or dark
a colour is, from black at one end of
the scale to white at the other and the
mid-tones in between. Colour can have
an infinite number of different tones.
It’s important to have tonal contrast
and balance; paintings that have little
contrast by just relying on mid-tones
can often look flat and without life. If
you photograph a finished painting and
convert it digitally to greyscale, you will
be able to see how successful you’ve
been in mastering tonal value. Selective
use of these values will go a long way to
creating visual impact in your work.
Chiaroscuro, which is basically the use
of clear, strong tonal contrasts of both
light and dark, will achieve the illusion
of three-dimensional volume on a flat
surface, generally using a single light
source with strong shadows, giving a
clear contrast. Interiors with figures will
feature prominently in chiaroscuro, as will‘Value is the relative lightness and darkness
of a specific colour’
A value finderOIL PAINTING MATERIALS & TECHNIQUES: 3RD OF 4