Technique – Lee Muir-Haman Watercolor Painting

March 22, 2022

Jumpstart Your Watercolor Painting!

Several articles I’ve read lately have made me aware of the great benefits of ‘daily painting.’ Painting every day develops creative habits and greatly improves your art. You become more skillful, productive, and successful as an artist, according to the many painters who have tried it. Wait! Don’t, like me, immediately dismiss the idea of painting daily as impossible for you. Try to keep an open mind as you read the following comments, and you may find that you are excited and inspired to begin to paint more consistently yourself.

Artist Mary Gilkerson explains: “Before you tell me you just don’t have time, let me point out a couple of things. Consistency over quantity. Consistency matters. Doing a small painting daily is better for your growth than 5 big paintings a month. 20-30 minutes a day can make a huge difference.

“The rewards:

1. Your work improves.

2. You stay motivated because ideas flow easily.

3. Small daily steps move you closer to your goals.

4. Muscle memory takes over and the difficult things become easier.

5. You paint faster with more ease.

6. You paint more intuitively and responsively rather than consciously.

7. Your own personal style will develop without you even having to think about it.”

Chris Krupinski agrees and has said she knew she wouldn’t be a really good painter by painting only on weekends, so she committed to painting two hours every day no matter what.

Duane Keiser, who is often credited with initiating ‘daily painting’ (as in completing a small painting a day) in 2004 and posts his work for sale on a daily blog, states that his daily small paintings “are about the pleasure of seeing.”

Simone Nijboer, a Dutch artist, talks about her art journey, sharing this: “For many years, I wanted to paint but did not dare to start. When I had gathered enough courage, I started painting, but dropped it again quite soon, since I had lots of insecurities, doubts, and unhelpful thoughts around painting.

“This all changed when I started painting on a more or less daily basis. I loved it so much! It might sound exaggerated, but I personally feel that daily painting changed my life.

“Creativity became an indispensable and joyful ingredient of my day, and this joy spread over to the rest of my life.”

Carol Marine, artist and author of Daily Painting, rediscovered the joy of painting when she began completing small (mostly 6”X6”) works daily during her son’s naptime. “Painting small and often gave me the freedom to experiment – every day I got to start on an entirely new project. No longer did I feel overwhelmed by the large number of things I wanted to paint – I could do them all. And I could do each one fifty different ways (or more)! If one subject or one style didn’t quite work out, well, I didn’t sweat it. I had only invested part of a day’s worth of work on it, after all.”

Stephen Berry, a watercolor artist who writes the blog Seamless Expression, has written (3/11/2022) a most compelling description of how the daily painting process has affected him. “I’ve been doing a daily painting for each of the last 32 days, and it’s been a wonderful learning experience. I can’t recommend it enough! I’ve gotten to stretch myself in a lot of ways, and although it’s been daunting at times (and logistically complex!), it’s also been a great deal of fun. So much fun, in fact, that I intend to keep going….

“At first, the painting experience was just like normal for me, but slowly, as I began to paint each day, it dawned on me that I was going to paint again, and soon. That can be very liberating! Paintings become less precious, failure less demoralizing (although still totally irksome), more chances get taken. And that means growth….

“Painting daily has provided me a space to try out new approaches— high key paintings, or new color relationships, new pigments, new compositions, etc…. I need to pick subjects I can easily simplify— and that means strong shapes and bold contrasts. And that is often very good for creating compelling composition.” Berry says he works hard to recognize what is really essential in an image and to decide just what it is he wants to paint. What is not essential, he discards. “There’s a bold, graphic quality to the final product, which I like….The changes in my compositions have been so compelling to me.” (See http://www.seamlessexpression.com/blog/2022/3/10/daily-painting-for-a-month-and-longer to read more of Berry’s blog post.)

I’m inspired! Are you? Will you choose to complete a small daily painting, or decide to commit yourself to regular painting every single day (not necessarily finishing one work daily)? Perhaps you’d like to really commit yourself to getting good at your art by painting consistently, not just on the weekend! Promise yourself to paint for 30 minutes to an hour every day, whether you finish a painting during that time or not. Return the next day to paint for the same amount of time, and the next day. By the third day maybe you’ll have a finished painting. The main thing is to figure out what works for you to get you painting more regularly, painting more than you used to.

Let me know how you get yourself to paint consistently. Do you have tips that you would like to share with others who struggle to find the time to paint? Let me know in the comments.

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February 22, 2022

Enviable Greens In Watercolor!

Green is one of those colors, along with gray and brown, that can create problems for painters, which may be one reason that beginners seek out ready-mixed tubes of color. After all, color mixing can be confusing and unpredictable. While the ready-mixed greens sold in tubes are convenient, the colors available for sale are generally NOT the greens found in nature. And even if you can find some greens that look reasonably convincing and provide enough variation to produce realistic and natural greens, who can afford to buy even a dozen tubes of different convenience greens?

Foliage varies greatly in color and value, with each plant producing its own variation of green. Color and value also change with distance, weather, time of day, and season. In reality, the greens of nature show infinite variety. Therefore, realistic, natural greens require the painter to be able to mix many suitable variations of green from a limited number of paints. But where do you start?

MIX GREEN WITH BLUE AND YELLOW.

The color green is made of blue plus yellow plus a small amount of red to tone the color down and naturalize it. Try this experiment: take every yellow paint on your palette, and combine each with every blue you already have. Note that mixing a COOL yellow with a COOL blue creates a bright and vibrant green (for example, Hansa Yellow Light with Winsor/ Phthalo Blue). In contrast, by mixing a WARM and a COOL or two WARM colors, you get a duller, less intense green – because both the warm yellow and blue have some red in their pigment (which grays/neutralizes the mix).

Greens Mixed With Various Combinations of Blue and Yellow.

MIX GREEN BY SUPPLEMENTING A TUBE GREEN.

Another way to create natural greens is to use ready-mixed tube green as a starting point but then to add other pigments to vary the color. DaVinci Sap Green, for instance, can be the principal ingredient in a whole range of mixtures. Similarly, you can adjust the temperature and value of Hooker’s Green, Viridian, Phthalo Green, or another tube green by adding other colors.

Greens Mixed With Pre-mixed Tube Greens.

EVEN MORE VARIETY.

You can create even more mixtures by changing proportions of each color in the mix. Catherine Gill in Powerful Watercolor Landscapes (2011) describes a very effective technique for mixing numerous related colors by changing proportions in a mixture. She makes a “mixing trail” (p. 122), using two colors on her palette. Instead of mixing two colors together in the beginning, she puts the two colors on her palette, leaving a space between them. She suggests you take a little of the first color and mix it with the second on the palette. Then, take successive amounts of the second color, and mix with the first until you have several distinct hues. The space between the two colors is the area where you make the “trail.” The colors will theoretically all be close in value because you haven’t picked up any water.

Catherine Gill also describes a “mixing hub” (p. 123), which is a collection of mixing trails laid like spokes around a central pigment. The hub allows you to create a variety of related colors. The hub pigment is in all the mixes of the hub, ensuring color harmony. And again, since you add no water as you create the mixes, values should remain constant.

Mixing Trail and Mixing Hub.

Bruce MacEvoy (on handprint.com) has suggested that to simplify mixing greens somewhat, you can create these five basic green mixtures. A BRIGHT green could combine Phthalo Green Yellow Shade (PG 36) and Hansa Yellow (PY 97). A COOL green could combine Prussian Blue (PB 27) and Phthalo Green Yellow Shade (PG 36). Combining Prussian Blue (PB 27) and Hansa Yellow (PY 97) produces a LIGHT green. WARM green comes from combining Phthalo Green Yellow Shade (PY 36) and Burnt Sienna (PBr 7). Finally, put together a DULL, DARK green with Phthalo Green Yellow Shade (PG 36) and Quinacridone Rose (PV 19).

Five Basic Green Mixtures.

CHART FOR YOUR OWN FAVORITES.

With experimentation, you will find many mixtures that work for you. Make your own chart, for handy reference, of your favorite mixtures. Check back to it later for ideas when painting.

Condensed Chart of Favorite Green Mixes.

MIX ON THE PALETTE, ON YOUR PAPER, OR GLAZE.

Finally, the way you apply your pigments to paper can alter the appearance of your greens and foliage. The first option you have is to mix your color ON THE PALETTE before you apply it to paper. A second option is to apply separate colors TO YOUR PAPER, allowing them to mingle on your paper. This technique creates a more varied, dynamic color mix. Third, you could GLAZE one color over a DRY wash of another color. Glazing and layering are similar processes. They both change the appearance of color. Glazing uses a very thin, transparent wash of one color over another color. When warm colors lie below a cool glaze, the resulting color mix is luminous, vibrant, and glowing. Starting with a cool color and putting the warm color on top gives a heavier, denser glaze.

IN CONCLUSION.

Finding a variety of natural greens to paint convincing foliage can be confusing and frustrating. As painters, we know that ready-mixed greens are not sufficient. Therefore, you should take some time to experiment with all the yellows, blues, and greens on your palette, adding touches of red to some of your mixtures if you want to gray/neutralize a green. Make a chart of your favorite blends for handy reference. You needn’t rely only on purchased tube greens. Experiment, and have some fun!

January 17, 2022

Secrets To Creating Your Own Fabulous Grays In Watercolor.

There is no need to add purchased gray paints to your palette! In fact, grays and blacks that you can buy premixed to use straight from the tube can look flat, dull, boring. Yes, they’re convenient. But beautiful, not so much!

WHY MIX YOUR OWN GRAYS?

When you try to adjust the color of commercially mixed gray paint from a purchased tube, any intensity of the color tends to be lost. Since tube grays already contain red, yellow, and blue, whatever color you add can dull the color even more, making a muddy color very likely. Full strength, tube grays and blacks can be unnatural and look out of place.

Instead, mix your own grays, to create an unlimited variety of luminous grays that will harmonize with your painting. It’s fun! And mixing your own grays allows you to improve your paintings as you practice your color mixing skills.

Try NOT to avoid gray and neutral color. These hues enhance the intensity of nearby color. To make your brights appear brighter, use soft and subtle grays to contrast with the brights. If you are able to mix a gray whose dominant color is a complement of the bright color in your picture, your bright color can be made to ‘vibrate’ or sparkle. For instance, surround an orange with a bluish gray to make the orange pop. Or position a greenish gray near a pink to set it off. Another example would be a brown gray close to a blue. Or a yellow gray nearby a purple.

You may be noticing that I’m not talking about using a ‘neutral’ gray to create vibration. A neutral gray is created from EQUAL amounts of each pigment in the mix, and yields a somewhat dull, lifeless color. It is more useful to mix grays from UNEQUAL proportions of different pigments so that you make cool blue grays, rose grays, yellow grays, green grays, brown grays, or purple grays. By adding a little more of one color or a little less of another, and varying the amount of water, you could create and endless variety of grays.

HOW TO CREATE GRAY.

There are two ways to create grays: by mixing complementary colors or by mixing three primary colors together. (Adding an earth color can also gray a color to a degree, because earth colors contain some of each primary.) To make a darker, stronger gray, add more paint to the mix. For a lighter gray, use more water when mixing. And yes, you can mix your own better versions of convenience grays, including Payne’s Gray and Neutral Tint, in this way.

To insure that your grays harmonize with your painting, try to mix your grays by using some of the pigments already used in other parts of your picture.

You can gray any color by adding some of its COMPLEMENT to the mix. When complementary colors are combined they will neutralize each other, creating gray. (For more information about primaries and color complements see ‘The Color Wheel, Color Bias, And Color Mixing in Watercolor’, (7/2/2019), https://leemuirhaman.com/2019/07/02/the-color-wheel-color-bias-and-color-mixing-in-watercolor/.) Adding some Burnt Sienna to Ultramarine Blue, for instance, will dull it. The more Burnt Sienna you add, the grayer it becomes, until Burnt Sienna begins to dominate and the color turns to a gray brown.

Mix three primary (red, yellow, and blue) colors together to generate a gray. The gray can be varied depending on the particular primary pigments chosen and their amount in the mix. Remember to use unequal amounts to create the most attractive grays. Lighter valued primaries will tend to create paler grays but not dark grays, whereas darker valued primaries will blend easily to make darker mixes.

Further, depending on your choice of primaries, you can mix transparent, or opaque and granulating, or staining grays.

So many beautiful choices and combinations! Also try these:

* Ultramarine Blue/Permanent Alizarin/ Burnt Sienna,

* Cerulean Blue/ Phthalo Violet/ Raw Sienna,

* Sap Green/Brown Madder/Cerulean,

* Ultramarine Blue/Yellow Ochre/ Burnt Sienna, or

* Phthalo Blue/Cadmium Yellow/Quinacridone Rose.

IN SUMMARY.

Improve your paintings and practice your color mixing skills! Create an unlimited variety of luminous grays that will harmonize with your paintings.

No need to purchase another tube of gray or black paint!

There are two ways to create grays: 1.) by mixing complementary colors or 2.) by mixing three primary colors together. To make a darker, stronger gray, add more paint to the mix. For a lighter gray, use more water when mixing.

Remember to use unequal amounts of each color to create the most attractive and useful grays. Lighter valued pigments will tend to create paler grays and will not create darks, whereas darker valued pigments will blend well to make darker mixes. Further, depending on your choice of colors, you can mix transparent, or opaque and granulating, or staining grays.

What an assortment!

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November 22, 2021

Secrets To No More Muddy Colors!

Do you struggle to create consistently bright, clear colors in watercolor painting? Are you sometimes surprised that you’ve mixed a dull, flat color from two seemingly bright paints? How can you avoid mixing ‘muddy’ color? Keep reading to find out.

WHAT IS MUD?

What exactly do we mean when we talk about mud? A muddy color is defined by Zoltan Szabo as “any combination of colors mixed too thick, or too many colors mixed or glazed together – especially two complementaries, or reflective blues with browns – resulting in a lifeless, dull and generally unpleasant color.” ( Zoltan Szabo’s Color-by-Color Guide To Watercolor, p. 13.) More specifically, a muddy color covers and obscures details of what it is painted over.

Instead of the clean, bright, transparent color we desire, we end up with heavy, dull, opaque gunk.

There are varying degrees of mud, and there are several ways to make mud. Therefore, a solution to avoid mud is complex – not one simple rule will be able to solve the problem of mixing muddy paint.

KNOW YOUR PIGMENT CHARACTERISTICS.

Knowing a paint’s attributes, however, puts you a step ahead in being able to avoid muddy color. By being familiar with whether a pigment is transparent or opaque, staining or non-staining, reflective, saturated, sedimentary, light or dark valued, for instance, you will begin to be able to predict how the paint will behave.

DEFINITIONS.

First, let’s be clear on what these terms mean!True transparent colors allow light to reflect through them from the surface of the white paper. A TRANSPARENT color maintains its luminosity or brightness, and does not build up into a thick layer. Since a transparent color lets light through, it is possible to create the illusion of a ‘glow’ of light in a painting. No matter how dark you mix these pigments, they will NOT go muddy. (Common transparent colors are Permanent Alizarin, Quinacridone Rose, Aureolin Yellow, Viridian, Phthalo Blue, Phthalo Green.) SEMITRANSPARENT paints, such as Winsor Yellow, Indigo, Da Vinci Mauve, are almost as clear as transparent paints, but will maintain luminosity through fewer layers than true transparent colors.

In contrast, an OPAQUE watercolor pigment blocks the light and prevents luminosity. While thinning an opaque color can make it somewhat more transparent, it will then lose intensity (strength). In general, you cannot see the white of the paper through an opaque paint. The more opaque a color is, the more it blocks the white of the paper, particularly if it is layered. When too much opaque is used, it can build up into a thick muddy layer. Opaque paint will also become muddy if applied with other opaques or with their complementary (opposite on the color wheel) pigments. Some opaque colors include Cerulean Blue, Indian Red, Light Red, Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Red, Cadmium Orange, Burnt Umber, Sepia.

REFLECTIVE watercolors (like Cobalt Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Cadmium Red, Winsor Red, Permanent Rose) may go muddy when used in heavy blends or when overmixed. However, reflective paints behave more like transparent pigments when diluted, allowing them to glow.

SEDIMENTARY colors, such as Cobalt Violet,Manganese Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Cerulean Blue, the umbers and siennas) have a grainy texture (often granulating) because they are made of heavier particles that sink in water. These paints can be used to create a textured effect.

STAINING TRANSPARENT pigments, such as Indian yellow, Phthalo/Winsor Blue, Phthalo/Winsor Green, Prussian Blue/Antwerp Blue, Phthalo Violet, are bold and intense. They are NOT easily lifted from the paper. Because they are transparent, they will NOT produce mud IF mixed with other transparent colors. Mixed full strength, they create rich darks.

Still other pigments, like Lemon Yellow, Gamboge, Quinacridone Rose, Cobalt Violet, Sap Green, or Ultramarine Blue, are LOW-STAINING and transparent to semi-transparent. Intensity of these colors is average, and they can be partially lifted. If you wish to lift one color of a mixture and reveal a second color underneath (e.g. by blotting out clouds or scraping paint back to create rock texture or a tree trunk), then combine a staining pigment with a non-staining pigment.

CHOOSE PAINT BY PIGMENT NOT JUST COLOR NAME.

Warning! Be aware that color names can be deceptive. For instance, some ‘raw siennas’ are not really raw sienna at all, but are made from the yellow ochre pigments. A ‘sap green’ in one brand looks different, is made from a very different combination of ingredients, and of course, behaves differently than a ‘sap green’ from another company. You cannot count only on the color name to give you knowledge of how the paint will behave.

Instead, consider the actual PIGMENT used in the manufacture of the paint. Each pigment has been assigned its own letter and number to distinguish it from other pigments. On tubes of watercolor pigment, look for the pigment LETTERS and NUMBERS printed on each tube to tell you what the paint is actually made from – companies often include this information in small print on the tube. The letters indicate the pigment hue (color); for example, PB means ‘pigment blue,’ and PR stands for ‘pigment red.’ The numbers that follow the letters are those assigned internationally for that pigment material; for example, a true viridian paint contains PG18 (or ‘pigment green number 18), not something else that might look like viridian.

For example, Cadmium Red is made from PR108 (Pigment Red #108), while Pyrrol Red and Winsor Red are both made from PR254 (Pigment Red #254). A paint pigment has an individual personality and IS NOT interchangeable with or an EXACT match to other similar-looking paints. Since each pigment is unique, different pigments will vary in their characteristics, even though they may be mixed together to represent a ‘certain’ color. In other words, not all pigments behave the same or mix well together.

CHOOSE AS MANY SINGLE PIGMENT PAINTS AS POSSIBLE.

In order to have more control over color mixing, try also to have the majority of the paints on your palette manufactured from SINGLE PIGMENTS. Jean Dobie (in Making Color Sing, p. 10) recommends a “pure pigment palette” to avoid the frustration of “struggling with a pre-mixed commercial color that you can’t seem to make vibrant enough.” Again, pigment information is on each paint tube.

LEARN ABOUT YOUR OWN PAINTS.

Once you understand paint characteristics in general, you must become familiar with specific paints on YOUR palette. Without knowing about your own paints, you can’t know what to expect when mixing them together, or whether they’ll make mud. Which of your paints are transparent, staining, unsaturated, etc.? To figure this out, you can test your paints by creating a color chart. First, draw a line with a black permanent marker (or waterproof India ink). Allow to dry. Paint swatches of medium dark paint over the black line. Transparent colors won’t cover the black line. Opaque colors will. Staining colors will look quite dark. (See Below.)

Or check the color charts provided by paint manufacturers (e.g., Daniel Smith or Winsor Newton) that include a color swatch and describe characteristics of each of their paints. These will tell you how transparent, staining, granulating, etc. a paint is, and often the actual pigments used. If you’d like more in depth information about paints/pigments, go to handprint.com, https://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/waterfs.html. Another resource, although somewhat dated, is The Wilcox Guide To The Best Watercolor Paints, (2000), available at amazon.com.

SECRETS WE’VE LEARNED.

Now that you have this knowledge and information about your paints, we can get specific about how to avoid muddy colors!

1.) If you mix a transparent color with another transparent color, you will NOT make mud.

2.) Mixing a transparent color with an opaque color (when not mixed too thickly) will usually not create mud. However, when too much of the opaque is used, it can build up into a thick, muddy layer.

3.) If you combine two or more opaque colors, mud will result.

4.) Complementary colors mixed too thickly to create a very dark color can result in mud, especially if one of the colors is opaque, or if a reflective color is a part of the mix.

5.) The earth colors (umbers, siennas, ochres) usually don’t mix cleanly with other colors, since they contain black, and mixes containing them tend to result in grayed mixtures.

6.) Similarly, triads (blends of three paints, a triangle of colors on the color wheel) combine all three primary colors and can result in mud when mixed thickly from colors that are not transparent. Using EQUAL amounts of the three primaries in a mix will create a dead neutral color. Instead, have one of the three colors predominate to blend a more lively, interesting mixture.

7.) Muted color (although not necessarily muddy) results from not paying attention to color bias in your mixing. If you are unfamiliar with color bias, refer to ‘The Color Wheel, Color Bias, and Color Mixing in Watercolor (7/2/2019), https://leemuirhaman.com/2019/07/02/the-color-wheel-color-bias-and-color-mixing-in-watercolor/.

8.) The trick to avoiding mud in middle values is to remember that middle values can lean light or dark. To mix a middle value that leans light and is NOT muddy, combine an opaque and any number of transparent colors. To produce a dark middle value that is NOT muddy, mix an opaque pigment with a staining transparent. (Powerful Watercolor Landscapes by Catherine Gill, p.121.)

9.) You will also tend to make mud if you have chosen to use a pre-mixed tube of gray or black instead of mixing the color from single pigment paints.

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May 15, 2021

Know Your Edges!

Edge quality in a painting is important! Proper use of edges helps to direct the viewer’s eye toward your chosen center of interest. An edge is the border between shapes, the transition from one shape to another, where contrast occurs between shapes. By adjusting the degree of contrast along the edges of shapes in a painting (in addition to the contrasts of value and color), an artist can control eye movement and focus. Edges also suggest the mood or atmosphere of a subject. A hazy, humid picture might have many soft, fuzzy edges, and generate a mellow feel. Or a painting of a cold, crisp winter day might have numerous numerous hard edges.

Soft, Hard, Lost Edges – ‘Flowing Forward’ Watercolor

When we talk about an edge in painting we mean how it appears to the eye. Keep in mind that an edge in a painting may NOT be just an actual physical edge (like the side of a tree trunk, building, or rock). An edge can also be the transition between sunlight and shadow, between wet sand and dry sand, between a ripple and calm water.

Types Of Edges And How To Paint Them.

There are, in fact, several types of edges. A good artist tries to incorporate, in each painting, as many of the types as possible to create variation and interest. A HARD edge forms a clear, crisp, abrupt transition between shapes. The contrast of a hard edge will attract the viewer’s eye; perfect to use at the focal point or between light and dark areas. Some hard edges are good in a painting, but using only hard edges will result in a flat image without depth (e.g. as in a woodcut). Hard edges are painted on DRY watercolor paper.

Hard, Soft, Lost Edges – ‘Red Bumpers’ Watercolor

In contrast, an infinite variety of SOFT edges exist. Softer, less-defined edges are used to de-emphasize, and are useful in the background or distance, within a shadow, or when you want a shape to recede further toward the background. Soft edges are gentle and a bit blurred; perfect when painting fog, haze, or mist.

The relative wetness of PAPER and brush will determine finished softness of the edge and the extent of the spread of the watercolor pigment. Try to learn to judge the wetness of your paper by observing the amount of sheen. More shine means more wetness, less suggests a damp or drying paper. It is also good to test the result you want to achieve on a test sheet/practice paper (made of the SAME kind of paper you’re actually painting on to approximate similar results).

Soft and Hard Edges – ‘Swamp View’ Watercolor

Keep in mind that controlling edge quality has as much to do with the dryness of the BRUSH as with how wet the paper is. A brush overloaded with paint will lessen your control and may flood an area in your painting, whereas a brush with too little wetness will not allow the paint to move easily. Further, when the brush becomes wetter than the paper (from added water or wet paint) you will be in danger of creating an uncontrollable ‘cauliflower’, ‘run back’ or ‘blossom’ in your painting.

A LOST AND FOUND edge is a broken or interrupted edge that will tie the shapes to the background or other objects in the painting. It will connect shapes, allowing them to partially flow into one another.

Varied Edges – ‘Barn Interior’ Watercolor

A LOST edge is an edge that has disappeared. One shape has merged into another, as in a dark shadow. When the values of touching shapes are the same, the edge between them tends to vanish, whether soft or hard, even when there is a color change. Lost edges force the viewer to invent any missing information, and can be quite interesting. By creating shapes of equal values, you will be able to merge edges. In other words, nearby shapes of similar value tend to have less obvious edges. But adjacent shapes with more value contrast will have edges that are well defined.

Lost, Hard, Soft Edges – ‘Red Geranium’ Watercolor

When To Use Different Edges.

Sometimes the subject matter of a painting will tell you whether edges should be hard or soft, but no rules apply. Think about placing hard edges at your center of interest, where you want the viewer to look, then de-emphasize other less important areas with softer edges. Soft edges describe a subject in more general terms, while hard edges provide more detailed and specific information. It might be appropriate to paint a soft object, like a teddy bear, with soft edges. A cut glass crystal bowl, however, will have numerous hard edges. Distant objects often are painted with softer edges, while closer components could have harder edges. Make choices about your desired mood for the painting, deciding what types of edges are appropriate in the same way you choose your values and colors. For instance, an evening painting might be low key, painted with mostly cool colors but some contrasting warm colors, and a lot of soft or lost and found edges along with a few hard edges for emphasis.