How to Clean Palette Knives

Aug 12

Acrylic paint has been my preferred medium for many years. Because it is a water based medium, the viscosity of the paint can be manipulated to become extremely thick or thinned to a transparent consistency. The process I use for my paintings include applying several layers of paint. Each layer has to dry before applying another. Acrylic paint dries within minutes which gives me the opportunity to continue working on a piece for many hours in one sitting. I use many different tools when creating a piece and one tool I use consistently is the palette knife. Palette knives come in various shapes and sizes and can be used to carve into thick paint and apply textural effects. Oftentimes the palette knife is the only tool I will use to create a painting.

But like many artist tools, they must be handled with care. I have ruined many palette knives over the years. Many times I would have so many layers of dried paint on the knife that the blade broke off before it could be cleaned. After replacing them, I learned very quickly how important it is to take care of them.

On my instagram page I get many questions from my followers on how to properly maintain the palette knife. Specifically, “How do I remove dried paint off of a palette knife?” The best thing to do is to wipe the knife clean as you use it, but sometimes this is not possible. Scraping the dried paint off could damage the knife. So I prefer to soak my knives in Murphy’s Oil Soap overnight. An important step to remember is to add just enough water to only cover the blade of the knife.

Below are the steps I use to clean my palette knives.

1. Gather all of palette knives with dried paint.