Robert Genn's Twice Weekly Letter
Insight and inspiration for your artistic career.

Dear Artist,

Sometimes it's a good idea to cruise your work to see if a few soft edges might improve things. Gradated transitions, both broad and narrow, especially around the periphery of paintings, can go a long way toward a convincing sense of reality (if desired) and a professional touch. Further, they make your harder edges, particularly those near a painting's focus, do their job more effectively. Softness is also useful in obfuscating difficult or poorly drawn passages. There's wisdom in the world of fuzz.

Soft technique comes naturally to some. For others, the soft-hard push-pull has to be worked at. Oil makes soft effects easier than acrylic, but it's still possible in acrylic. Watercolour-flow wet-into-wet is pure magic. The type of support is important as well. All media are not equal at being soft.

While feathered edges and soft transitions can give the feeling of speed and painterly freshness, achieving these effects can be time-consuming and fiddly. There are several ways to get softer edges. Big soft brushes are the pro's choice. While sometimes difficult to control, big brushes allow petering pigment to skip and lessen. Fan brushes also have a lot of fans. Some tired old brushes are worth their weight in gold. Another method is to pummel or circumambulate with a hard stubby brush (almost like the application of a stencil) in somewhat dry application over dry under-painting. When all else fails, a delicate sable can tease softness into being.

Many painters, completely in tune with the value of softness, forget that colour change is also valuable in transitional areas. Gradating up or down the colour wheel--say from red to orange or green to yellow--adds additional zing and deliciousness. Attention to this sort of "aura thinking," especially in abstract work, can raise things from dreadfully dull to electrifying.

Painters also do well to look at airbrush art. Here, effective compositions can be achieved with only soft gradations and sensitive edges. Not that you necessarily want the slickness of airbrush, but the medium shows the possibilities. The human mind delights in soft mystery. Constant sharpness goes a long way toward killing mystery and is responsible for more dead paintings than this world dreams of.

Best regards,

Robert

PS: "The secret of being a bore is to tell everything." (Voltaire)

Esoterica: While accurate description is paramount for some artists, keep in mind that art also needs to be seductive. Softness is the gentle handmaid of seduction. Knowing when to be gentle is part of the art. "The eye and soul are caressed in the contemplation of form and colour," said the American instructor and author John F. Carlson. "The subtle changes of colour over a surface are transitions like music and are intangible in their reaction upon us. There is an immediate sensual appeal."

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