What's with a palette knife that makes a painting look so elegant? A palette knife is a blunt tool used for mixing or applying paint, with a flexible steel blade. The "palette" in the name is a reference to an artist's palette which is used for mixing oil paint and acrylic paints. Achieving a thick texture that is rich in color, blending, building surface texture, edging, detailing and scraping off layers of paint are the main goals of palette knife painting. Check out these gorgeous paintings by Kathryn Trotter who creates artwork with layering effect of thick paint and intentional pairing of colors.