palette knife

The Process

The best way to explain the process of how Raette paints is to watch it unfold. Below are a couple of short YouTube videos. The two videos are of Raette painting small paintings of specific locations in Glacier National Park. These two paintings were created from photographs.
Below the videos is a series of photos that show how her large format painting, “Glimpse” was painted.

Raette’s tool of choice: Palette Knife

View from Logan Pass – palette knife oil speed painting demonstration

Mini Sperry Trail – palette knife oil speed painting demonstration

“Glimpse”
the process

Glimpse is an inspired landscape, meaning was created from a combination of over 20 photographs, memory and imagination. It has many elements of Glacier National Park, but is not a specific place within the park. Raette does not have a completed image in mind when she paints, rather multiple elements that she includes as the painting comes together. It takes at least two weeks of sort of meditating and gathering photos before she even begins a painting of this nature. Once a clear “layout” is in mind she begins with a very rough sketch on a primed background. She paints from background (usually the top) to the foreground, (the bottom). It usually comes together fairly quickly, once the homework is done, and half the fun is allowing the painting to unfold as it is created. That is where the joy is.
“Glimpse” was painted 1/2 with a palette knife, and 1/2 with detail brushes.