I am one of those artists that doesn’t really like the texture of plain gessoed canvas. I like something a bit smoother, so I usually add a coat or two (or three) of molding paste and smooth it or keep it rough. Mainly, I’ve been keeping it rough because I have a hard time laying down a smooth coat of paste.
I’ve tried wetting my cheap little plastic palette knife and the paste, doing several coats, as well as several other tips… nothing seemed to work. UNTIL… I finally bought a few nice metal palette knives. Rather small. Almost tiny.
As I began prepping some new canvases today, I thought, let me try this tiny knife. It can’t possibly work better than the larger one and even if it does, it will take forever, right? Think again.
I laid down those coats of paste on some nice size 16×20″ canvases in a heartbeat. Nice and smooth. And used so much less paste! I found slightly dampening my knife worked even better. So, if anyone out there is having the same issue as me in prepping those canvases, make sure to try a metal knife.
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