painting Lake Louise and the Rocky Mountains continued....

"The palette knife is a natural for laying in the rocky surfaces of the mountains. Working with both the edge and the flat part of the knife, I can lay down base colors and then lightly drag draker color over top to create textures. Controlling these effects is what takes time and a lot of pratice to learn. It is all about using the palette knife enough to get a feel for what it can do."

"Painting is all about contrasts - keeping the background colors a little more muted helps to enhance the mountains in the foreground and sets off the greens in the tree lines.

I have started to put in some of the same color from the foreground mountains where the water is indicated - following the pattern created by the mountains above to bring out a reflective look. Once the water has been knifed in with a thin layer of paint I start scraping the canvas with my knife to blend the lake area. The scraping technique creates a more reflective look"