A palette knife is used for mixing paint, for applying thick impasto and for scraping back areas of wet oil colour in order to make corrections It should ideally have a forged blade that diminishes in thickness towards the tip giving it great flexibility The handle is sturdy, comfortable and firmly attached to the blade Such knives are expensive and often painters use palette knives that have a simple pressed blade Steel blade knives are used with oil paint
A palette knife is a knife with a broad, flat, flexible blade, used in cookery and in oil painting. A knife with a thin flexible blade, used by artists for mixing, scraping, or applying paint. a knife that bends easily and is not sharp, used for spreading a substance, for example in cooking or painting