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Artists concerned with blending and soft edges should think about using oils and not acrylics. However, try using dollops of the stuff, use plenty of water or medium and get it on the canvas in luscious amounts. Handling edges in this mode is a lot easier! (Mike Barr)
The edge of a painting is its frontier... where the artist negotiates his boundaries with the real world... where art begins and ends and where the eye enters and leaves the image. It determines, in an infinitely subtle number of ways, how you read a painting - which, unlike a book or a piece of music, has no pre-determined beginning or end. (Andrew Graham-Dixon)
Edge quality is always a challenge in acrylic but not impossible. My method lately is thin transparent glazes that seamlessly overlap in most cases, and the tool I have found most valuable in transitioning one colour into another is my Finger. Quickly, while the paint is wet, rub the edges off into the outlying area and it disappears into the layer of colour beside seamlessly. (Sandra Taylor Hedges)
It is simply impossible to control a large painting with the edge in the same way that you can control a small one. (Howard Hodgkin)
Value plays a big part in edges. Disappearing edges happen, even with different colored areas, when the value is close. Like the opposite appearance of light against dark, which makes a sharp edge sharper. It's the drawing of an egg phenomenon! (Susan Holland)
This is basic. Most of what we see is soft-edged. Lubrication (medium), ample paint, and larger brushes for blending are essential for tactile, attractive paintings. Hard edges are great for sign painting. (Marvin Humphrey)
I work in oils and like to take a dry brush, wet it slightly with medium, and draw the brush lightly and equally over the hard edge. It softens the line to where it isn't distracting. Applying more pressure in some areas and less in others gives a thinner or thicker break, which is more interesting than a uniform line. Be sure to have enough paint on the canvas so you don't 'lift' the paint off. (Jackie Knott)
An elegant way to soften edges with either oils or acrylics is to use an intermediate tone along the edge - this can add color too! (Laurel Alanna McBrine)
One of the most important processes in your painting is the edge quality of the objects, hard, soft or lost. We make a hard edge where we have the point of interest or when we want that area of the painting to stand out... An edge is the process where two values come together in your painting. (Van Waldron)
We never have hard edges on all the objects in the painting. Even when you are painting realistic (photographic), we still have softer edges throughout the painting. (Van Waldron)
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