Palette Knife Portrait Painting Tutorial for beginners

In this post we will share an awesome step-by-step palette knife portrait painting tutorial from artist Sergey Gusey . I highly recommend you subscribe to his youtube channel here as he has awesome instructional content.

One thing that needs explaining before you read further: While you can absolutely paint with a palette knife, and many artists do, a palette knife is made for the purpose of mixing paint on a palette, while a painting knife is specially made for painting.

Painting knives come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Some are cheaply made with plastic while others are made of metal. The metal knives have more spring to them and are stronger while the plastic knives have very little spring and are prone to breakage.

Check out the painting knife set below from Dick Blick. You can learn more by clicking the link below. If you decide to purchase this set, I will receive a small commission. Thank you in advance!

Many artist’s find the prospect of knife painting to be quite intimidating and strange at first and rightly so. It is quite different from painting with a brush. Artists aren’t used to the loss of precise control. But this all comes with practice and letting go of the incessant need to be so exact and detailed with portrait painting. Remember, this is a painting, not a photograph.

PALETTE KNIFE PORTRAIT PAINTING. Russian art with MFA Sergey Gusev.

Visit Sergey’s youtube channel here.

I hope you found this Palette Knife Portrait Painting Tutorial helpful. Find more portrait painting demonstrations on our site here.