Hard and Soft Edges: Controlling the Eye

Two paintings can have identical shapes and values and read completely differently based on their edges alone. Edge control is one of the quietest and most powerful tools in painting, and it is almost entirely invisible until you learn to see it.

The edge vocabulary

• Hard edge: a crisp boundary. Reads as a sharp form, a cast shadow, or a point of focus.
• Soft edge: a gradual transition. Reads as a round form turning, or a surface out of focus.
• Lost edge: where two shapes of similar value merge and the boundary disappears entirely.

Edges direct attention

The eye is drawn to the hardest edges and the highest contrast. Put your crispest edges at the focal point and soften everything as it moves away, and you control exactly where the viewer looks. A portrait with hard edges on the near eye and soft, lost edges in the hair and shoulders feels alive; the same portrait with uniform edges everywhere feels flat and tiring.

Edges describe material

A soft edge reads as skin, cloth, or cloud. A hard edge reads as metal, glass, or plastic. You can change what a surface appears to be made of without changing its color at all, just by tightening or softening the edges of its highlights and shadows. Chrome is chrome because its edges are brutally hard.