In contrast to the well-known, soft-and-supple, agile and nimble brush we use to perform all of the most delightful movements in a painting, from subtle to acrobatic, the painting knife is thought to be blunt, harsh and inflexible, relegated to servile and uninspired mixing of colors or scraping the palette. Many artists dread the idea of applying paint that has any degree of thickness, sharpness or brevity, although they secretly yearn for a way to obtain body in their stroke, edge to their forms, width and length to a transition of color or value, or physical dimension to their painted surface. It is time to set the knife free to let it do what it does best! Through lectures, demonstrations and specific assignments in this workshop I will show you ways to use a variety of painting knives to achieve marks, passages, edges and forms in both additive and subtractive methods. The workshop will reinforce an understanding of composition and form and will also explore methods to break up and strip down the subject, then reconstruct it in new and surprising ways. (Oh, and we will allow some of those pretentious brushes in too, so don’t fret.) https://douglasfryer.blogspot.com/