To achieve the beautiful effects of soft yet radiant light for the piece Dawn (left), artist Robin Berry uses small scrubber brushes as well as toothbrushes to blend and blur the hard lines created by masking fluid. Berry, a potter as well as a watercolorist, refers to this softening and rounding the edges as “sculpturing” the light, a process she likens to the act of molding clay.

For large areas, Berry first sprays the areas with clean water, then uses a wet toothbrush to scrub the hard edges with a small circular motion. For smaller areas, she uses a small scrubbing brush that's wet with clean water to gently scrub the area. If you need to repeat this, dry the paper well before doing so, as too much scrubbing can puncture the paper. As you can see, this gentle touch is worth the effort.

You can see how Robin Berry created this piece from start to finish in Watercolor Secrets, edited by Rachel Rubin Wolf.