Hard and Soft Edges Start Here
When Jessice Fields (Ep.67) uses her palette knife to make a mark, she is very aware of how the knife first lands on the page and then how she pulls it up.
Why?
Because understanding the difference between those two in your palette knife or brush, can make all the difference between hard and soft edges.
Fields is very aware that where she first lays down her knife will be a hard edge. Where she pulls it up, a soft edge.
This means she needs to think ahead and decide where she wants hard edges and where she wants soft, and work accordingly.
Put it to Practice:
Your brush will also meet your surface and create an edge quality.
If you have a brush that comes to a sharp point or edge, and you're working wet on dry, your cleanest line will most likely be where that brush hits your surface.
If your brush doesn’t have a sharp point or edge, that line will be more broken.
This will then vary based on how much pigment you have on your brush and how wet the paper is.
So the next time you work through a study, really pay attention to the type of edge your brushes create. Think about how it lands and then where it lifts off again. Is that helping you do what you want to do? Or is it making it harder? Could you adjust how you lay the brush down to change it for the better?
There will always be some unexpected things happening with your brush. That’s part of the fun! But you can learn, generally, what to expect and the other options you have.
And once you learn how to handle your brush, you’ll have a lot more control everywhere else.