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This three-day workshop will focus on enhancing self-expression in painting by use of the palette knife, spatcher and wedges. By adding these tools to your cadre of brushes, you can find a new kind of freedom of stroke. The knife brings more intense color. The wedge and spatcher enhance edges and smooth swipes of paint. All add textural changes to your work and can broaden your painting vocabulary.

Day One: Focus on color mixing and these different tools.
I will introduce the differences among the tools by executing two small paintings of the same subject as I briefly review issues of composition, value, and color mixing. We will then start with a color mixing exercise, new to my workshops, to broaden understanding and appreciation of colors. Attendees will paint two small works of the same subject. We will then work from still lifes to enable me to understand how you approach your work and discover how I can best assist you in color relationships, values, use of the available tools, edges, and ultimately how best to support your way of seeing and painting.

Day Two: Painting landscapes from photos or continuing with still life paintings.
This morning’s knife demo will portray how free oneself from the restraints that photos can impose and further our understanding of warm versus cool colors as well as emphasize the importance of edges. Attendees are then free to continue with still lifes, work on landscapes or a subject of choice from their own photos, using at least two of the three available tools. In a short workshop I will only have time to simplify proper perspective and light on buildings, so it is best to bring either a naturalistic scene or one with a limited number of buildings. For those who want to paint outside/plein air, there are scenes right outside of the studio available.

Day Three: Hone in on a personal form of expression and create a piece of finished quality.
There will be no demo. Do you want to paint impressionistically with a huge focus on color sensitivity? Do you want to paint expressively capturing the essence of movement and emotion in your work? Do you want to explore pure abstraction, or do you want to just add more of yourself in your representational direction? It is up to the individual.

Materials:

Oil or Acrylic paints:
Phthalo Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Purple Dioxazine, Cad or Quinacridone Red, Cad Orange, Cad Yellow Medium, Lemon Yellow, Zinc Titanium White or just Titanium (no greens, browns, or blacks)
Optional great other colors: Transparent Orange, Cobalt Teal, Gamblin’s Radiant Blue or Kings Blue or similar.

Painting surfaces:
4 small (8×10”) and 2 to 3 16×20 (or similar)
I like ampersand Gessobord (or similar), but canvas boards, canvas paper (Stonehenge is great), premade canvases, etc. all work

Pizza boxes or Raymar boxes for transporting wet paintings home. If you are flying, talk to me about shipping them when dry.

Brushes (I use acrylic brushes or soft synthetic even for oils) sizes 4, 7, 11 (or similar)
Palette knife/s – My personal favorite is Blick’s RGM #50 (or similar)
Princeton Catalyst Wedge (I like the palm wedge but they have good ones on brush handles and/or FX Spatcher/s of choice or similar (check out Jerrysarama). I do not recommend the ones with fancy cuts unless wanting to go totally decorative. I would work with the flat edges ones to begin with.

Palette or Pochade of choice. If you don’t have one you could use Grey Matter’s palette paper

If using acrylics:
bring Retarder and bring gel medium if you so choose. I usually use acrylics directly without medium.
If using oils:
bring your medium of choice. I use Galkyd and Gamsol mixed.
Rags

Photos that you might like to paint from

If you want to paint outside but don’t want to bring an easel and pochade, email me to reserve an inexpensive portable easel and fold-up table top. cynthiarosenart@gmail.com

Instructor Bio
Cynthia Rosen is an award-winning professional palette knife painter and experienced instructor whose work is widely exhibited. Learn more:
https://www.cynthiarosen.com/