From the Artist: This is my second attempt at painting with a knife (Blue Planter was my first). It shows a selection of things exposed at low tide on a beach on Vancouver Island that we saw on a holiday last summer. The purple starfish was, to us, a beautiful and amazing discovery!
I had a lot of fun trying out different ways of using the knife, from smearing, blobbing, and dabbing to tapping and feel that, with more practice, and a more relaxed attitude, I could get to like it! The rock encrusted with barnacles(?) posed most of the problems. It looks okay from a distance, but closeup inspection exposes a real lack of technique. Any advice on how to paint that kind of detail without fussing?
From the Painting Guide: It obvious depends on what your personal aim is, but more detail isn't necessarily the answer. The more painterly styles of painting have a distance at which viewing is optimal; any closer and the individual bits of paint don't meld together to make the scene and technique becomes evident.
With regard to the encrusted rock, what it may lack could well be tiny bits of shadow among the barnacles. Given the starfish and rock are casting shadows, I'd expect any other raised surface to be doing so too. Try painting some in quickly with a damp cloth to hand so you can rapidly wipe it off it it doesn't look right. Don't make them too dark, certainly no darker than the starfish's shadow.
I had a lot of fun trying out different ways of using the knife, from smearing, blobbing, and dabbing to tapping and feel that, with more practice, and a more relaxed attitude, I could get to like it! The rock encrusted with barnacles(?) posed most of the problems. It looks okay from a distance, but closeup inspection exposes a real lack of technique. Any advice on how to paint that kind of detail without fussing?
From the Painting Guide: It obvious depends on what your personal aim is, but more detail isn't necessarily the answer. The more painterly styles of painting have a distance at which viewing is optimal; any closer and the individual bits of paint don't meld together to make the scene and technique becomes evident.
With regard to the encrusted rock, what it may lack could well be tiny bits of shadow among the barnacles. Given the starfish and rock are casting shadows, I'd expect any other raised surface to be doing so too. Try painting some in quickly with a damp cloth to hand so you can rapidly wipe it off it it doesn't look right. Don't make them too dark, certainly no darker than the starfish's shadow.