I mentioned to my brother that I had a hankering to commit some art with a palette knife, but I was loathe to use so much paint and that the Open Acrylics I use were unsuitable in any case. He surprised me on my birthday with a cache of heavy body acrylics, a craft store palette knife assortment, and a pack of 6×8 gessobord (Ampersand, of course, given the spelling). Now it was up to me.

When I got a chance to return to the easel, I figured I’d give it a go. It had been a very long time since I’d wielded a painting knife with wild abandon. There were other challenges: some colors I was unfamiliar with, knives that were larger than the board was happy with, and a board that was undersized for the subject. In other words: this was going to be fun.

I figured something to honor the Men’s World Cup that was starting at about the same time as this painting would be good. So, football it was. Since I was usually a keeper, I wanted that as the subject. Unfortunately, I don’t have any rights to @hopesolo images (the GOAT GK in the women’s game IMO), so it was off to Pixabay to find something. Sadly, no good female GK shots.

Except for some initial brushwork to set my lines, this was entirely done with the paints, knives, and board gifted to me. Considering the long layoff and the aforementioned challenges — and that I made up the background on the fly (yeah, that was smart) — I’m fairly happy with the result. Can’t hardly wait to do something larger (and with a more inspiring subject).