Torrit grey and Primaries...

Holy Family - oil on canvas, 11in. by 14 in. One of my painting students wished

to experiment with pallette knife painting. So, to limit the number of colours and have her experiment with non-representational shapes, I assigned the topic of "Family". The primary colours I suggested, so that the elemental, formative origins of the idea of family were to be given separate temperature and psychological association.

I showed her how to play with oil pastels in the limited colours to arrive at characteristic shapes she might associate with male, female. Size differences were to express adult and child.

I had recently gone to the Opus store, and scored 4 tubes of Gamblyn Torrit Grey. Every year, the Gamblyn paint producers take all the leftover paints from their production, mix them and arrive at a combination of grey that differs from year to year in composition and temperature. This year's Torrit Grey appears in the negative spaces of my demonstration piece - Holy Family.

Palette knife painting is quite enjoyable to do. The scraping action of placing marks on a canvas is challenging. It is possible to achieve clean edges, textured sections where underlying colour is revealed. One can draw, sgraffito method through a layer of paint to expose underlying colour and tone. The surface textures achieved can be quite subtle, or definite.

Canadian Painter, Jean Riopelle had made a body of work using palette knife as his primary marking tool. B.C. painter, Peter Aspell in a late body of work, employed the pallette knife in a most poetic manner.

My little effort leads me to think the pallette knife is a tool I'd be wise to explore further,