Tuesday's Tips and Techniques for Watercolor Painting

Lost and Found Edges 

To create drama in your watercolors you can add lost and found edges.  Also known as hard and soft edges.

The first blue shape consists of all hard edges or found edges.

The center green shape is a mix of found edges and lost edges.

The purple shape on the right was painted and all the edges were soften and have completely lost the hard edge.

To create a lost edge, I paint a swash a color, then use a clean brush, barely damped with clean water and work from the outside dry paper area, scrubbing toward the swash of color.  Lightly scrubbing the hard edge will help soften it up, you will loose the hard look and it will soften and fade away.

For some people it takes a bit of practice.  Use a scrap of watercolor paper or practice on a painting that did not turn out so well, practice right on the front or flip it over and use the back of the paper.  Add some lost and found edge shapes.  Who knows, maybe that painting you didn't think was so great will look fantastic with a few added shapes of lost and found edges.