Knife painting

Sunst on the marina, acrylic on Masonite, 11"x14"

Knife painting

Sunst on the marina, acrylic on Masonite, 11"x14"

Semi-Abstract Sunset

Sunsets were one of my favorite subjects when my main artistic pursuit was photography. When I took up painting five years ago, the first painting was that of a sunset. So I keep returning to sunsets from time to time and each time provides a new learning of some sort.

I started Sunset Encore with a very thin coat of acrylic colors applied on the canvas with a very wet sponge. The effect was almost of watercolor on paper and I could have stopped right there. The rest of the painting was then built up in layers of thin paint. Other than the coastline, there is no attempt to create any objective representation in this painting. The coastline anchors the sky and sea so that not much else is required to give a sense of depth.

Sunset Encore, Acrylic on canvas, 36"x24", Not for sale

Sea Drama

Sea Drama was inspired by a collection of photos from a vacation in Nova Scotia some years ago. The rugged but beautiful topography of Nova Scotia has endless scenes like this. Brawny headlands frame the water as the daily drama goes on from sunrise to sundown.

One evening my wife and I watched a scene very much like this from a restaurant window except that we could see Minke whales playing in the distant water. My indication of gulls near the horizon is a weak attempt to reflect the possibility that whales might be down below.

Sea Drama, Acrylic on canvas board, 5"x7", $25 (Unframed)

Seascape in impasto

Painting with a knife lends itself to the creation of texture that adds to the sense of depth in a painting. The thicker the paint, the richer the texture. The short open time of acrylic paint limits how long the paint can be moved around on the canvas. This requires the artist to work quickly.

For Distant Coastline, I covered the canvas with a thin layer of acrylic gesso and let it dry. Then I used a painting knife to roughly spread thick gobs of white gesso all over the canvas starting from the top. The sky and the water were painted starting from the top and the bottom, respectively, using ultramarine blue closest to the top and bottom. Cerulean blue was used closer to the horizon. With more gesso on the painting knife I spread a thin layer from the top towards the horizon. I repreated the same process from the bottom up. By varying the pressure of the knife, I was able to create the color-mixing and textures that I wanted.

By now there was enough pain on the canvas to slow down the drying giving me enough time to work the coastline. The coastline was built up with layers of dioxazine purple, burnt umber and ivory black. Very thin lines of paint along the knife edge were worked into the creamy layers of gesso. Once the outline of the coast was set, more paint was added to create depth. Finally, with a thin bead of white gesso on the knife, I cleaned out the bottom edge of the coast. This also allowed some of the land colors to be drawn into the water creating reflections.

Distant Coastline, Acrylic on canvas board, 8"X10" $90 (unframed)