As artists gain experience in watercolor painting, they become aware that different colors have more or less “warmth” or “coolness.”  Colors on the color wheel can be grouped into two families: warm (reds, oranges, yellows) and cool (violets, blues, greens).  Furthermore, each color has a warm or cool bias (whether it is cool or warm itself) depending on the amount of its neighboring color that it contains.  Adding red or yellow to an existing color will warm it up; adding blue will cool it.  When you are comparing two hues, the hue closer to yellow on the color wheel will be the warmer of the two (for instance, Cadmium Red is warmer than Permanent Alizarin Crimson).  The color closer to blue on the color wheel will be the cooler (for instance, Aureolin or Lemon Yellow is cooler than Cadmium Yellow).  When a cool color and a warm color are placed near or next to one another in a picture, they can also BIAS or INTENSIFY each other.  Thus, a cool blue feels even cooler next to a warm color, or a warm yellow feels even warmer near a cool color.  If you want a feature of your painting to stand out, paint cool colors surrounded by warm colors or warm colors in a cool area.

This temperature relationship allows colors, including grays, to be PUSHED or PULLED to add visual interest or depth to a painting (Making Color Sing by Jeanne Dobie, p. 30).  “Pushed or pulled” refers to the use of RECEDING cool or ADVANCING warm colors.  Pushing color into a cooler version of itself causes it to recede while pulling a nearby color into a warmer color makes this nearby color advance.  Armed with this knowledge, painters can create distance in a painting: the receding color and advancing color can be made to appear on different planes.  For example, to describe distance in a landscape painting, artists can “push” the background back by using cooler tones as features of the landscape disappear over the horizon.  Thus, far hills often look more blue or purple instead of green.  Also, the foreground can be “pulled” forward with warmer colors.

Difficulty can arise, however, if artists assume that all yellows, for instance, are warm or all blues are cool.  The temperature of a color is always relative, because it depends on nearby colors.  You must judge color temperature by surrounding colors.  Ultramarine Blue viewed next to Cadmium Red appears cool indeed, yet the same Ultramarine Blue next to Lemon Yellow or Permanent Rose will seem warm.

Another complication in using color well involves observing how light and atmosphere change local color (the actual, basic color of an object).  Artists should consider how conditions in the scene affect local color.  Snow shadows are not always blue and may even be golden or rosy at sunset.  A gray road drenched by rain may take on a purplish cast.  At sunrise a brown tree trunk may have a golden glow.  Try to use warm and cool colors to intensify the atmosphere in your picture.

Artists often use shading or modeling layers of color to create the effect of three-dimensional shape on painted objects.  In deepening a shadow by adding darker layers, however, you may dull or deaden color; instead, use the warm-cool interaction to achieve similar results while keeping colors luminous.  With an understanding of the “push-pull” of warm and cool colors, you can begin to form volume through color alone, creating the illusion of three-dimensional space in a painting.

Paint your object the local color first.  Then find your light source to determine what is in shadow.  One side of your object will be away from the source of light and in shadow.  If the local color of your object is warm, you can use cool values like blue to shadow.  The object will seem to TURN AWAY from the light and have two sides.  If the local color of your object is cool, then use a warm color on the side way from the source of light.  (When glazing on the second [shadow] color, make sure the first color is dry before adding the second layer.)

To be effective with warm-cool interactions, artists must be aware of the light source and whether this light itself is warm or cool.  A warm light source affects a subject differently than a cool light source.  To create volume through color alone, you will need to handle each lighting condition somewhat differently.

On bright, sunny days, the sun bathes objects in warm light while casting cool shadows.  Paint a pine tree on a sunny day with predominantly warm colors such as Sap Green mixed with Cadmium Yellow, with a touch of Cadmium Red.  The cool, shadowed side of the tree could be Sap Green cooled with Ultramarine Blue or Permanent Alizarin Crimson.  On an overcast day, the light areas of the pine might be a cool mixture of Viridian and Permanent Rose plus Cobalt Blue.  The warm shadow could be mixtures of Sap Green plus Transparent Red Oxide with small amounts of Cadmium Red or even Permanent Alizarin Crimson.  Artificial indoor lighting is usually warmer than outdoor light which is often affected by cool reflections from the sky.

When colors are in close proximity, they tend to exaggerate each other’s differences.  Complementary colors have contrasting temperatures.  Using the “push-pull” of warms and cools can help to create depth in a painting by moving objects forward or backward in space, as well as creating the illusion of three dimensions.

There are so many variations in skin tone that it seems overly simple to choose only certain specific pigments for painting skin.  In other words, you don’t have to use prepared color formulas.  Consider variables of age, ethnicity, light source, reflected light, and gender when you are painting skin color.  Skin color does NOT come in a tube; it must be mixed by the artist based on an interpretation of the colors seen.

To reproduce skin colors accurately, observe your subject closely.  Painting skin tone has more to do with the light and the environment than with any preconceived notion of what skin color should be.  You must analyze how and where the light source strikes the skin surface.  From which direction does the light come?  Is there more than one source of light?  Can you see any reflected light in the shadows?  What colors do the shadows add to the general skin color?  Is the light soft or harsh?  Warm or cool?  Brighter light will make reflected color stronger and more obvious.  Bright light darkens and sharpens shadows.

Skin color can vary from the palest yellow on through pinks, browns, and ebony.  Light skin tones appear transparent and vibrant.  Dark skin shows a range of rich, exciting colors.  Look for a subject’s general skin tone; then alter tone by diluting with water for highlights or by adding a complementary color to create shadows (for example, a trace of green shadow on a pink jawline and a bluish or purple shadow on brown or dark skin).

Facial areas like nose, ears, cheeks, chin, and tear ducts of the eyes tend to be warmer in color than the rest of the face.  The most basic way of painting skin is, after careful observation of general skin tone, to mix that color with two to three transparent paint colors.

Possible skin color combinations might be:

For fair skin—

Burnt Sienna/Cadmium Red/New Gamboge

Burnt Sienna/Permanent Alizarin Crimson/Cadmium Yellow

Burnt Sienna/Winsor Red/Cobalt Blue

For Native American or Hispanic skin –

Burnt Sienna/Brown Madder/Cobalt Blue

For Asian or fair skin –

Raw Sienna/Burnt Sienna/Cobalt Blue

For dark complexions –

Burnt Umber/Permanent Alizarin Crimson/Ultramarine Blue

Burnt Umber/Permanent Alizarin Crimson/Cobalt Blue

Burnt Sienna/Burnt Umber/Ultramarine Blue.

Apply the general color thinly in a pale wash.  When this underlayer is dry, layer more color, as needed, to suggest skin depressions and create form.

Adjust the ratios of your colors to fit your subject’s skin color and value.

When trying to make the skin in your painting lifelike and interesting, you should paint wet-in-wet or on damp paper to allow for soft transitions.  In painting skin, your layers should follow and define the shadows you observe.  You must have value changes to imply form.  Build up your layers of paint, remembering to save areas for the highlights.  Create form and depth by painting depressions and shadows, leaving highlights created by lightly painted layers.

More experienced painters might prefer to mix paint on their paper rather than premixing a general skin color on the palette.  When paint is mixed on the paper, colors are much more interesting and vibrant than the same color combinations mixed on the palette, then applied to paper, which tend to be dull.  Glazing and layering one color at a time on the paper gives skin a luminous tone.  Apply the lightest washes first; then gradually progress to the darkest washes, which you should apply last.  Build up transparent layers with Hansa Yellow Light, Permanent Rose, Quinacridone Gold, Quinacridone Magenta, Winsor Red, Winsor Blue (Green Shade), and Winsor Blue (Red Shade).

 

Be sure to use transparent colors for a clear, luminous effect.  By choosing a warm and a cool transparent color for your palette, you will have more than enough color options to produce unlimited skin tones.  By varying proportions of each color to change color temperature AND by paying attention to the order in which the colors are layered, you can create different skin tones.  (Remember that the last layer of color glazed on will determine the dominant hue of the skin.)

Nature’s colors can vary considerably depending on the time of day, the weather conditions, and the season. The effects of the time of day and the weather on color changes and atmosphere seem more obvious and easier to observe than the effects of the season. Nevertheless, each season has its own characteristic feel and look, which an artist’s choice of paint colors can convey.

SPRING colors tend to be cool. Spring is a time of fresh growth, when buds and flowers burst forth. Forest floors are becoming free of frost and snow, and bright green shoots begin to appear.

Hansa Light, Cad. Yellow, Winsor Blue, Sap Green, Permanent Mauve, Raw Umber.

Cadmium Yellow can be a bright spring color, especially when a little Hansa Yellow Light ( or Lemon Yellow or Cadmium Yellow) is mixed in. The cooler blues to use are Cobalt and Winsor (or Pthalo) blue. DaVinci Sap Green has a strong blue (cool) tinge. Other possible colors for a spring painting include Permanent Mauve or Raw Umber.

Spring pictures:

Sunny days of SUMMER are filled with golden warmth and numerous, lush greens. The summer palette includes warmer colors than the spring palette.

Cad. Yellow, Raw Sienna, Burnt Umber, Ultramarine, Sap Green, Perm. Aliz. Crimson.

Raw Sienna is a warm yellow. Cadmium Yellow mixed with DaVinci Sap Green is an excellent mix to use for summer foliage. The sharp, cold light of spring has been replaced by softer summer light, creating softer-edged rather than crisp shadows. Create a softer edge by painting summer shadows on damp paper or lightly blotting the shadow edge. Ultramarine Blue and a touch of Permanent Alizarin Crimson make a warm summer shadow. (Another possible color combination for a warm shadow mixture is Ultramarine Blue with a touch of Burnt Umber.)

Summer pictures:

AUTUMN is the season of reds, oranges, golds, and browns.

Cad. Red, Cad. Yellow, Raw Sienna, Ultramarine, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber.

Rich, warm colors can be created with warm golds and siennas, such as Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna, and Burnt Umber. Fiery reds made with Cadmium Red and golden yellows made with Cadmium Yellow light up the foliage. When the leaves fall, stark and skeletal trees are revealed in deep browns, which can be approximated with various combinations of Burnt Umber and Ultramarine Blue.

Autumn pictures:

 

A WINTER palette would be composed of cool colors and more neutral pigments, mixed to produce slightly muted tones, often tinged in gray.

Perylene Green, Sap Green, Winsor Blue, Payne’s Gray, Perm. Mauve, Raw Umber.

DaVinci Sap Green and Perylene Green (or Holbein Shadow Green) can be used as a base for any greenery. Alternatively, try blending Winsor Blue (or Pthalo Blue) with Payne’s Gray and mixing in some DaVinci Sap Green. For snow, leave the paper white and paint around it. Snow does have some color, depending on the strength of the steely winter daylight. Snow shadows could be blended from Cobalt Blue and Permanent Alizarin Crimson into a cool, blue-violet. Another blue-violet snow shadow combination might be Winsor Blue (or Pthalo Blue) and Permanent Mauve. Raw Umber can be useful to tone down trees, branches, and ground covers.

Winter pictures:

 

The main tool that any painter has to work with is color, and by choosing pigments with different temperatures, tones, and intensities, an artist can suggest both warm and cold environments throughout the seasons.

DON’T BE AFRAID TO ADD PEOPLE TO YOUR PAINTINGS

As a beginner watercolor painter, you probably avoid painting human figures at all costs.  After all, you don’t want to ruin your painting!  Unfortunately, some of the strongest attractions you can add to your paintings are people.  Even when the figures are small, your eye is drawn to them.  On the other hand, every picture does not need signs of life, and you may want to leave a scene quiet, serene, and uncluttered.  Nevertheless, in many cases, the inclusion of people (or animals or images of man-made objects or of everyday life) brings a picture to life, adds interest, and invites a viewer to look more closely by suggesting a story.  Figures in a painting can also help you suggest scale and perspective.  Figures or man-made objects can increase contrast by introducing a man-made color not found elsewhere in your painting, like the color of a cobalt blue car or the red coat of a person walking.

Unless you are painting a portrait, chances are that any human figures you add to your picture will be relatively small.  As Frank Clarke says in Simply Painting, “What I would like you to do is forget people and paint CARROTS!” (p. 69). The carrot is the body of your figure, wider at the top than at the bottom.

After painting twenty carrots with watercolor paint, “put dots on top of the carrots . . . . Don’t make them too big” (p. 70). The carrots now have heads!

Some carrots can have longer hair. Some carrots can be facing the viewer. Some carrots might even wear dresses. “Baby carrots” look like children, having “smaller bodies,” but with “heads as big as a fullgrown carrot” (p. 71). Once you have practiced the basic shape and feel comfortable with it, it’s time to vary the shape and make it a bit more nuanced.

These figures are too far away to see facial expressions or features but close enough to see body language and gestures.  Capturing body language is what transforms your “carrot” into an interesting person.  Try to paint your figures with the least number of brushstrokes possible.  There are a number of ways to suggest body language.  First, where you position the head on your figure determines the direction it is looking or moving.  A head can tilt quizzically to the side or can indicate an aged figure leaning. Then, the width of your torso depends on whether you want a front/rear or side view.  The shape and position of the torso determine body language to a large degree.  Is the figure sitting, running, waving?  Also, when you vary the shape of the lower part of the body, you suggest more body language and information about your figure.  If you divide your “carrot” in half, you can create a rectangular shape for an upper torso and then create legs with long tapered strokes.  You can have a bend at the knee if you wish.  Legs in a side view should overlap.

            And now, turn your attention to adding some simple arms.  (You don’t need to add hands or feet unless they are an important part of a gesture.)  Keep in mind that one arm is often hidden in a side view.  Make sure you attach your arms at the shoulder, not in the middle of your body, with a long tapered stroke similar to though shorter than that used for the legs.  You will want to make the arms long enough to reach mid-thigh.  Sometimes arms and legs are bent; paint arms in two strokes in this case, perhaps one part smaller than the other, or alternatively, paint in one stroke and blot one part of the arm lightly.  (Blotting will help you create a 3-D effect.)

For a standing figure to appear balanced, the feet must be located close to or on each side of a vertical line drawn from the head to the ground.  You can imply movement, however, by placing the feet so they extend beyond a vertical line from the head to the ground; for example, if the body is leaning, you will need to counterbalance with an arm or leg extending, or the figure will appear to be falling or defying gravity.

To suggest a figure is walking, simply shorten one leg or bend a leg to make it shorter and tucked behind the closer leg.  This makes the shorter leg look farther away.  A slight gap between foot and shadow can also suggest walking, as the foot will appear off the ground.

Add colorful clothing to your figures by (a) letting the original color dry and then painting the clothing color on top, (b) dropping in the clothing color while the original color is still damp, or (c) painting the whole figure one color, then blotting the area you want to be clothing.  Paint the clothing color either when this area is still damp or when it has dried.  Remember that clothing and accessories often determine the shape that you paint your figure.  Is your person wearing a hat, holding an umbrella, carrying a heavy bag, or wearing a heavy winter coat?

Although one or two figures look good in a painting, figures tend to look better in groups.  (If you plan ahead, figures can be carefully masked with masking fluid to protect their shapes.)  To suggest the feel of distance, use several figures in diminishing sizes.  If you reduce the size of figures into the distance, it is important to remember that all heads need to remain on a similar (eye) level, no matter how far away they seem to be.

The most important concern in including human figures is to get the shape and proportion of the bodies and heads to look correct right at the beginning. I would suggest drawing the figures carefully with pencil before applying masking fluid to preserve them and before adding any paint.  It is also possible to add a figure part way through a painting. Draw a simplified, tapered figure shape on tracing paper and try positioning it to see how it looks the painting. When you have chosen the spot to place your figure, place this tracing paper on a cutting mat, and cut out the shape of the human figure with an X-acto knife.  Place the tracing paper on the painting again, and carefully lift with water and brush to remove the pigment, using the tracing paper as a stencil. When the paper is dry, paint the person with feet tapering to a point if you want to suggest walking.  Leave a gap for a collar to avoid making your person look hunched.

When painting a figure, it is tempting to try to paint eyes, noses, and mouths.  However, too much detail is often a mistake, making your people look overdone or even clumsy and ugly.  Minimal detail is better.  If a figure is sufficiently distant, don’t try to paint facial features at all because we can’t clearly discern distant details, even in real life.  When figures are closer, sunglasses can be a very useful device to help the viewer read a shape as a face.  Remember: it is the shape and scale of your figure that gets across the all-important body language of a human being.

Continued from 10/30/18 post “Formats for Effective Compositions (Volume I).

Use the STEELYARD (also called the SEESAW or BIG & SMALL) format when you have a large element and a second similar but smaller object (for example, a large and a small rock or a large and a small building).  Tension and eye movement exist between the two, with the smaller mass often being a good location for the focal point.  The line or space between the two images becomes a visual link.  Since the two images are similar visually, their values also need to be similar.

Steelyard format:

If your focal point is near the center of the picture and you have arranged somewhat equally two other shapes similar to each other on either side of the picture, you are using the BALANCE SCALE format.  An island with shoreline on each side would be an example of such a composition.  (Remember, however: the focal point should never be at the precise center of your painting!)

Balance Scale format:

On the other hand, when you have NO discernible center of interest, as with a landscape vista, you could create an interlocking pattern of hills and vegetation to create eye flow using the PATTERN format.

Pattern format:

 

A DIAGONAL format is useful when you want to emphasize strong slanting lines, such as steep hills or a mountain or cliff balanced by an opposing diagonal shape.

Diagonal format:

Use the RADIATING LINES format when you have numerous lines radiating from a common vanishing point (for example, in a row of buildings on a city street or in a fence line).  (A variation of this format is the VARIABLE REPETITION of a line by repeating it, but each time making a progressive variation of it.  This pattern could be used in a billowing cloud formation or in a series of waves.  In this format the line variations can be different lengths or can be spaced unevenly.)

Radiating Lines format:

Variable Repetition format:

An “S” composition relies on line mass or value to lead the eye to the center of interest.  It uses graceful curves to suggest rhythm and movement between one area of the painting and another (for instance, in a river or path or road leading the viewer’s eye to the center of interest).

“S” format:

The ZIGZAG and HOOK/SPIRAL FORMATS are variations of the “S” composition.  Many variations are possible when you enter the picture space from different directions.  Plant foliage or a branch could lead the viewer into a painting and point toward a focal point of flowers or fruit.

Hook format:

These formats can add energy to your painting by moving the viewer’s eye around the picture.  You may find yourself using one or more of these formats at a time, and you may even develop formats of your own.  Whatever format you choose, its name doesn’t really matter.  A format’s goal is to keep the viewer’s eye moving around your painting and thus maintain the viewer’s interest and involvement in your art.

Before artists pick up their paintbrushes, they must create a composition (an arrangement or an organization) in two dimensions for their painting.  To do so, they look for shapes, values, edges, and color changes instead of things or objects like “a tree,” “a table,” or “shadows.”  Design and composition provide the framework for any painting.  By using the following guidelines and formats for placing elements in a painting, you will become a better painter.

Rather than letting a complex scene overwhelm you, use one of the following formats to help you to arrange elements in your picture (or even eliminate unnecessary elements) and to create a more strong, effective, successful painting.  Decide which of these organizational formats best suits your purpose.  Choose the format that is the closest to your inspiration; then rearrange and modify elements as necessary to make the format work.  For instance, depending on your choice of format, you can confidently move a tree or change its shape, adjust a horizon, or move furniture around in your picture.

In designing a composition, pick a format that helps create a path to move the viewer’s eye toward your center of interest.  Try to keep this focal point away from dead center or the corners or edges of your picture space.  Avoid having major shapes or lines that run parallel to the edge of the paper (with the exception of the level surface of a body of water).

One format to use in designing a painting is the RULE OF THIRDS or TIC-TAC-TOE plan.  Dividing the picture plane into thirds, both vertically and horizontally, creates intersections of these lines; those intersections are good spots for effective focal points.

Rule of Thirds format:

 

The PYRAMID or TRIANGLE composition will give your painting a feeling of strength and stability.  The center of interest, perhaps a building or evergreen tree, should fall within the triangle or near its top.  This triangular shape moves the viewer’s eye around the composition.  It is possible to combine this format with a THREE SPOT or CIRCLE composition.

A THREE SPOT composition is useful when you need to organize repeating shapes of differing sizes, such as rocks, trees, or buildings of diminishing sizes.  Repetition and continuity are a major part of the THREE SPOT format.

In a CIRCLE or “O” format, a circle surrounds or frames the center of interest (for instance, overhanging trees surrounding a path).  The focal point will be located on or inside the circle but NOT in the circle’s center.  Framing the main subject keeps the viewer’s eye in the picture.  This format can work well with the RULE OF THIRDS or TRIANGLE composition.

Circle Format:

 

The CROSS format can help you solve the problem of having mostly horizontal lines in a painting.  By adding a vertical tree, you can effectively break up an overemphasis on horizontals (for example, in a painting of a sunset).

Cross format:

Use an “L” format to organize a strong vertical dark mass on the side of a painting by incorporating a similar dark mass or shadow pattern across the bottom of a painting (for example, a large tree casting shade along the shore of a brightly lit pond).

The “U” or BRIDGE format is useful when a picture includes two different-sized sides that are reaching out to each other, with the focal point located somewhere in between.  The eye is kept busy moving back and forth between the two sides.  You might us this format when you have trees or buildings (or two shores on a lake) that frame your center of interest.

Bridge format:

To be continued as 11/6/18 post titled “Formats For Effective Compositions (Volume II).

Even experienced watercolor artists may have some gaps in their skill set. One basic watercolor painting skill that every painter should have under control is FADING OUT a color, also called SOFTENING AN EDGE.  (See other “Basic Watercolor Techniques You’ll Want To Learn”, my blog post dated September 11, 2018,  for a quick review of what you may want to be sure to include in your painting repertoire.)

The most important prerequisite to understanding how to soften an edge is learning that different degrees of wetness exist. In watercolor painting, these differences in wetness determine the effect a painter gets and whether a painter’s efforts create the desired effect. WETNESS is the basis for most techniques in watercolor. With too little water, the paint will not move easily, whereas with too much water, a painter will not have much control of the paint. Whether an artist’s techniques work or not will depend on the artist’s AWARENESS OF and ABILITY TO CONTROL the amount of wetness employed.

Many beginning watercolor students have quite a bit of trouble understanding how to judge wetness and its effects in watercolor painting. While experience helps you to learn how to control wetness,  even experienced painters need to follow the laws of physics. If painters try to fight the law of hydrodynamics and force the water to do their bidding, they will struggle! This rule is fairly straightforward, but it is not to be disregarded. Simply put, greater wetness ALWAYS flows into lesser wetness. It doesn’t matter where or when. For example, paint or water will flow OFF a brush onto a surface if the brush is WETTER than the surface. Paint or water will flow from the surface onto the brush if the brush is DRIER than the surface. There will not be much flow at all if the two areas are of similar wetness. There will be flow only if one area is much wetter than the other. Use this knowledge to control your edges in painting and to soften an edge or fade out color.

The technique called “softening an edge” or pulling out or fading out color uses a brush that is damp and LESS WET than the painted area to be softened. When softening an edge, you are not actually moving any paint. You are using water to encourage the paint to move on its own. Painters try to put just the right amount of wetness (not too much or too little) in the right spot at the right time to allow the paint to ‘sigh’ into the wetness. The dampness makes a path for the paint to soften into. You want to produce a smooth, graded effect.         

FADING OUT or SOFTENING AN EDGE is done by running a damp brush along the edge of a painted shape while the painted area is still wet. This approach works best if the paint area is very wet (just painted) and the brush is less wet (just damp). With the clean damp brush, dampened with very clean water, try to lay a line of dampness down just barely touching the edge of the paint. DON’T reach into the painted area and drag color out! You are trying to lay down a damp strip that will attract the wetter paint, so barely touch the edge of the paint. If you go too far into the paint with your brush,  your brush will act like a sponge, soaking up and spreading the paint around – not your intention. It may take several passes of the damp brush in order to moisten the paper enough. Once the paint begins to move, make your strokes further and further away from the paint.

What kind of brush is best for softening or fading out an edge? Natural fiber brushes are much better for softening than synthetics, because synthetic brushes are less able to hold a large amount of water AND have a tendency to release all of the water they hold at once. A synthetic brush will tend to dump too much moisture at first, leaving the right amount partway, then having little moisture left and running out toward the end of trying to soften a large area. The result can be a blossom at the beginning of softening, nice fading out toward the center, and no change in an edge at the end of a stroke with a synthetic brush.

It is best to get to fading or softening quickly, because as the paint dries, it is less likely to move easily, less likely to flow. (This technique is somewhat different from painting wet-in-wet or wet-in-damp, although both produce soft edges. ‘Softening an edge’ allows the artist more control in the sense that one side of the paint stroke is preserved as a hard edge while the other side is softened – perfect for rock crevices, folds in fabric, a snow bank, rolling surf, or flower petals.)

Soft edges convey distance.

Soft edges create a sense of movement. 

Soft edges suggest depth and shape.