Most Disliked Art Medium

[Fusion]

What is your most hated/disliked/unfavoured art medium and why?

I'm not a big fan of colored pencils (any kind). Mainly because I can never get the color that I want and if i do its because I had to buy an enormous set. And the only time you can mix is if you press the shit out of it. Plus the texture is everywhere, and it can't be helped. Not to mention the fact that I'm completely terrible with them.

oh oh oh, and crayons. Very difficult (and uneffective) when life drawing.

[itchy_tasty]

i really hate oil pastels, i hate touching them. they are all greesy and...
i just plain dont like em.

[nicolas]

hmm, thats a tough one...Lithography! I like evrything except lithography....gotta keep the stone wet, gotta keep the stone wet....quickly roll on the ink, through the press....aaaahhhhh the stone is almost dry....

yeah, not for me thank you. One semester is enough.

Intaglio on the other hand....or even better, Monotypes....ah, nevermind

[klinesmoker]

I'd have to say color pencils. Maybe I just suck, but they never mix appropriately. Another medium? I'd say acrylics... Not enough blend there either. Then again, I have little painting skill, so.....

[bracomadar]

Yeah, any printing just seems stupid to me and I hate it too. 100 years ago it seemed useful, but now, WE GOT PRINTERS!!!! AHHAHAHAHAHA!!!! The thing I hate the most is using a potter's wheel to turn pots. Some may find it soothing, but I find it wet and messy and I don't like the way I have to sit on the things. Sculpting isn't bad, I like sculpting, but I hate turning a pot on those things. I also don’t like wire sculpting that much b/c the wire cuts the crap out of me and I nearly put my eye out every time I do something with it :pirate: (even just making an armature for a sculpture).

[MuffinMan]

i HATE clay...fuck that drying mudy material. if i were to sculpt something, i would be smart enough to ignore clay and use modeling epoxy, super sculpey, or anything else that is better than clay. it is a huge pain in the ass to keep the clay moist, it is damn impossible to keep the clay moist with out ruining your awesome detail on your sculpter. also like bracomadar said...turning pots on a wheel sucks...sometimes i go to fast and totally annihlate my awesome pot. geez, bisqueware and greenware clay is t3h shite.

[Fusion]

hah! yeah, I dropped print for sculpture because hell, if I wanted to print something I'll just load up photoshop and hit print. . . .bing bang boom. . thats how its done. All the intaglio and relief. . . .2 words people. . . .bas relief. Get to know plugins and get rid of printmaking ;)

jk, i should take it though. . . couple months of printmaking wouldn't hurt that much :[

[nicolas]

Actually printmaking is really cool (except for litho). Take it, you'll never get a thinner line than in Intaglio....the crosshatching possibilities are endless...

But Monotypes take the prize....

[rev]

i must be a freak i love litho :( i even like to do color ones with multiple stones which is a super big pain i the ass :P

[darth massacre]

Oil paints. They stink, they're hazardous and they take forever to dry.




But at the same time nothing looks or feels quite like an oil painting.

[Deco]

colored pencils as well :rolleyes:
I can never get dense color, all my attempts were looking like
kiddy's drawings :P

[brokk]

Most hated medium?

Thats easy... Photoshop and Painter, because when they crash and I didn't save what I was doing they make me wanna smash my computer!

[nicolas]

I dont understand why you guys dont like pencil crayons?! In combination with "wet" media (watercolor/gouche) they rock!!! I think its nonsense to exclusively use one medium on its own....when mixed they can be way more affected, since alot of media have their advantages/disadvantages...

anyway.....


@rev - yeah. you're a freak!!! /m\ multicolored lithos?! :x kiddin' dude...whatever makes ya happy.

[Crawley]

i hated chalk pastels. inhaling the dust while i worked gave me a headache, though i loved working on the colored pastel paper.

[thebluepuppy]

i would have to say....acrylic.

[rothgar]

It must have been all the chemical fumes, but I got retarded over litho. If you have a problem keeping it wet, recruit a buddy to sponge for you while you roll up. You really do get faster with experience though and won't need anyone before too long. I did litho on a goof during my second fish semester and wound up doing litho every semester thereafter. There are some prints I wish I still had but I wound up selling most of the editions and I lost my artists proofs to a public storage fuckup that I regret to this day.

My pet peeve is definately found art. I never could see what the use was gluing some shit together and calling it a piece of art.

[jester]

Just one word: crayons!

Jester

[cucaracha]

thick pencils on rough paper!

but currently - drawing with my tablet, I just don't get a line quality that equals to my traditional drawing results.

[dfacto]

I loathe tempera. >:{

[flex mathews]

hmm, thats a tough one...Lithography!


i m with rev. i love lithography. its kinda complicated in the beginning and you'll ruin alot of good drawings but once you get the hang of it its great. i know what you mean about the stones.. they re a bitch, especially when they re big. thats why i use plates.

[Chяis]

Yeah I exceptionally don't like Oil pastels, just the greasy feeling. >:{

[theincredibleandy]

oh, so many to choose from...gouache, oil pastels, chalk pastels, tempera...I'd say water-soluble oils. It seemed like it only had 2 consistencies: super thick or super thin, and it was a nightmare to control. The one painting I did with it was total ass, but I sold it and those people later commissioned me for a $1000 painting. All because of that horrendous water-soluble oil painting. Wait...

Like I said, water-soluble oils are awesome.

[JoshuaTheJames]

Poop. Most so called Fine Artists use it faithfully. :tihi: :right: :} :right: :teeth:

-JtJ

[M.C.Barrett]

All the reasons for which people claim to love acrylic paint are precisely the reasons I loathe it. It dries too fast. It kills brushes. It won't blend. It doesn't smell.
I love oils. I love the time it gives me to gently nudge the painting to where I want it to go. I love how easy it is to clean the brushes. I love the soft, subtle blending characteristics. I love the fact that it smells- creating the piece becomes a more sensorially complete experience.

Honestly, I think acrylics are a vast conspiracy to sell paintbrushes and oil-mimicing additives.

Oh, and I also hate colored pencils. They're best relegated to middle-school geography supply kits.

[Bennett]

I agree w/ most on the oil pastels, they suck and I can never get the desired effect. I also bought a set of watercolor pencils some time ago and I find myself completely frustrated and wishing I was using real watercolor when using them.

I used to airbrush, and loved it, but changing and mixing the colors was a pain, forcing me to forget the medium. I could only enjoy it if I had about4 or 5 airbrushes running at once.

[Zaknafain]

I hate acrylics. Its mostly the fact that they dry too fast (what stresses me while painting). They won't blend and they produce crappy textures.

[Elwell]

As a teacher, I would like to beg all current and future art students, please, don't use oil pastels! Especially those cheap twelve color sets of Cray-Pas that everyone seems to have (although exactly how is a mystery, as no one ever actually buys them). In over ten years of teaching I've had exactly one (1) student who could do anything worthwhile with them, and that's only because he had a very broad, psuedo-German expressionist style.

Just say no. You'd be better off with a box of Crayolas from the drug store.

[egerie]

Oil pastels too. It's not from touching them or anything is that I find them too crude for me. It takes so much effort to make something look good that I'd rather stick to another medium like dry pastels or something.
The only time I could use them was when I melted the shit out of them on and off canvas with mineral oil.
Brain cells count / 2 weeh !

[|NTeRN]

digital media. i hate that you dont get messy, you dont touch the piece and it just seems like its cheating. i do use it i just would rather paint or draw.


how is oil easy to clean up?

[M.C.Barrett]

Oil is easy to clean up because they're actually soluble after they "dry". You don't have to rush to save your brushes if you stop painting for 5 minutes. You can wipe your pallette clean with some thinner and paper towels. With acrylic, you've gotta get out the scraper.

[HugeHarHar]

I hate oil paints and all forms of sculpting.

I actually really like oil pastels, chalk pastels, acrylics, and colored pencils. So uh....

-Elwell - i guess I got lucky my art teacher has some really awesome brands of oil pastels.

[Main Loop]

haha.. i must be the only one that likes oil pastels.. they gotta be used on the right surface though, and it lends itself only to certain styles.. if you like the look of thick oil paint but dont really like to use oil paint, try the pastels.. the biggest drawback to them is the same as any pastels, the art is too easily damageable.. the good ones are also a bit expensive, like 3 bucks a stick, but in reality you dont need too many different colors, its basically oil paint in a stick.. you only need about 10-12 different oil paint colors, same as pastels..

i cant say i have a most disliked art medium.. i can find a good use for everything..

[Main Loop]

As a teacher, I would like to beg all current and future art students, please, don't use oil pastels! Especially those cheap twelve color sets of Cray-Pas that everyone seems to have (although exactly how is a mystery, as no one ever actually buys them). In over ten years of teaching I've had exactly one (1) student who could do anything worthwhile with them, and that's only because he had a very broad, psuedo-German expressionist style.

Just say no. You'd be better off with a box of Crayolas from the drug store.

ah but you're using the cheapo ones.. try some senneliers or some good brands.. you might be singing a different tune afterwards..

[LaPalida]

I'd have to say elephant poo ... it stinks :\ ...har har

But seriously I don't have any (except the above mentioned), I like to experiment (except with the above mentioned).

[MuffinMan]

Poop. Most so called Fine Artists use it faithfully. :tihi: :right: :} :right: :teeth:

-JtJ

that made my day. :)

[klinesmoker]

HAHA Muffin, I might have to laugh in agreement.

[cthomp]

Poop. Most so called Fine Artists use it faithfully. :tihi: :right: :} :right: :teeth:

-JtJ
Didnt some one actualy do that once. Well i would have to say to crayola crayons, i dint like them in grade school. Or that paint they give you, what kinda paint is that anyway. lol i dont like those kinds of mediums.

[bat]

Digital. It seems totally emotionless to me. There is nothing there, give me a brush, a pen, marker, airbrush, I am happy, but digital is nothing to me.

[MuffinMan]

Digital. It seems totally emotionless to me. There is nothing there, give me a brush, a pen, marker, airbrush, I am happy, but digital is nothing to me.

do you get emotional when you paint?
if so, sounds like a mental disorder... :\

[cotron]

do you get emotional when you paint?
if so, sounds like a mental disorder... :\

because art and emotion aren't related....

[MuffinMan]

because art and emotion aren't related....

well, they can be, depending on the art.

[bat]

I meant that I don't really get moved by digital work from a lot of artists and I don't see much into it. Yes, there is skill and ability, I would not belittle the skills of others, and I have seen a digital work that is very well done, but I personally just prefer the texture, the feel and the "life" given to works in traditional mediums. I was just answering the question posed about my most disliked art medium, wasn't that the point of the thread? :\

[flash jordan]

well, they can be, depending on the art.

I think your sarcasm detector broke, you better RMA it heh.

Anyways back to the OT, I'd have to say cardboard if that counts. My 3d teacher made us do some awful things with cardboard that I would prefer not to talk about. :confident

[Elwell]

My least favorite medium is five-year-old thread.

[thespirals]

crayons???? you guys hate crayons??? thats the shit that got me StArTeD!

[Rusty]

Spaghettios

[TASmith]

Wow, this is a cool thread, 5 years old? Well I was gonna just add my own least favorites, but with all the hate on oil pastels, especially from Elwell, let's see...

This is a tutorial I put together for some high school, beginning art students: http://tarthursmith.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d11m4zr

Here are their results, remember this is their first year of painting, with little or no instruction prior. This was when I was a volunteer, assisting a number of teachers. I didn't have much time to talk with the class, and we rushed a bit to get them on to a new project, but still, I think there's a lot of promise in the medium, especially in a setting where oil paint is banned for health reasons.

[Dilated]

Well I was reading drawing on the right side of the brain today and saw a pastel by Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin similar to this

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7c/Chardin_pastel_selfportrait.jpg/455px-Chardin_pastel_selfportrait.jpg

For me it was a clumsy medium but it seems that its not completely useless.

[brianvds]

Well I was reading drawing on the right side of the brain today and saw a pastel by Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin similar to this
For me it was a clumsy medium but it seems that its not completely useless.

I have seen everything from photorealism to very loose impressionism done in pastel. It's a very versatile and powerful medium in the right hands. Which would mean, um, not my hands. ;-)

I have something of a disconnect between the mediums I like to look at and the ones I like to work in. E.g. I like well done pastels and coloured pencil works, but I can't work in those mediums for the life of me. I like working in watercolour, but I tend to dislike most watercolours that I see. Kinda weird.

[Helioth]

Definitely thoughts, they're so damn slippery.

[JJacks]

I hate oil pastels a lot but plaster makes me want to shoot someone.

[biglu]

um I'd say, making monotype prints

[QueenGwenevere]

Drawing with a mouse. Or a trackball.

And charcoal. Somehow it always gets in my nose, in my skin, everywhere, ick...

I ought to like pastel better, but I still have bad feelings towards it ever since floundering through a class where I kept trying to draw a full range of values using a cheap set of very pale colors and wondering why I could never make anything dark enough.

Not a huge fan of acrylic, either, but it has its uses, so I tolerate it... (it's good for underpainting, anyway.)

Wait... how old is this thread? o_O

[TerianArkwith]

Elwell, this might be a five year old thread, but some of us haven't been here for five years! Just a few weeks in my case! :D

I'm not keen on coloured pencils - the colour depth just isn't there.

I also don't like bad quality oil pastels. Good quality ones make good life drawing material I think. If you get the right surfaced paper, and draw A2 size or bigger I think they're great if you stick to black, whites &browns.

I love oil paint even thought it's a pain sometimes. I use Michael Harding and use hemp oil soap to clean my brushes & hands (it's MUCH cheaper than some brush cleaners and work just as well for me :) )

The drawing I made below was made mostly with oil pastels if my memory's correct.

[Vilya]

Guess this proves that necromancy isn't always one of the bad magics..!

I can't believe more people don't hate/dislike/whatever watercolors. Well.. I guess hate is a strong words but I just can't stand how one mistake can ruin hours and hours of work. So even though pencils and pastels are kinda meh, I have to say watercolors are the worst for me to work with. Need more patience, I suppose.

[Farvus]

For me it was always oil pastels. I tried them many times and it always ended with something horrible.
Lately though I started using black oil pastel for 5,6mm leadholder (instead of graphite). It's much more compressed than regular ones and I really like the very soft feel when drawing it. Still I use it for black&white sketches. Trying to get some realistic colors and rendering in this medium to me is waste of time.

[kab]

I hate charcoal, while it is definately a medium that can achieve good looking work, the way it feels and sounds give me nails-on-chalkboard goosebumps... *shudder*

[TerianArkwith]

Anyone tried Conte and carbon pencils for drawing here? I think they're a good crossover between graphite and charcoal. I rarely use pure charcoal but I like some Derwent charcoal pencils.

Vilya - I totally forgot about watercolours. I don't get to play around with them much which is a shame. I think they're magical - just dipping a brush loaded with watercolour paint in some clear water is hypnotizing to watch. I think it's such a shame that some people think of them as amateur medium. On other forums I've read of people's prices being forced down due to people thinking this. I would like to do artwork with them, but I'm put off by having to frame them since it's so expensive.

[papervampire]

"grande" is my most hated medium, cuz it makes absolutely no sense ordering a grande when you want a medium coffee.

[zx52hg]

On the basis of personal use then the ones I dislike are oil paints and any dry powdery media like charcoal and pastels. I find the mess and clean up that comes with them inconvenient. Spray fixative is like accidently inhaling poison gas.

Favourite stuff to use is a HB mechnical pencil, pen and gouache paint. I like the minimum of fuss that comes with gouache and the fine detail you can get.

[TerianArkwith]

zx52hg....the fun is in the fuss.....actually maybe not.....

[flash jordan]

Oh man did I really just bring this thread back from 2005? I could have sworn I found it on the front page heh.. :confident oops

[GammaRadiation-X]

I'm going to go with oils. I don't like oily things, at all, period. That stuff's enough of a hassle to clean up from the kitchen, and I'm not having it anywhere else.

I'm probably one of the few people here that doesn't like digital, but my reason is I find working at the computer really boring and unsatisfactory (I'm one of those really impatient people.). I like looking at some digital art styles, though, but those are usually faux-oil-styled or something.

I also don't like printmaking at all, save for the most classic of classic types, like etching and woodcut, but I don't like doing those either because tendinitis. Everything else to me takes way too long, is too complicated (Again, impatience speaking.), and the end result is just unsatisfactory.

I should try sculpting sometime, though.

[rummyb]

Ugh, can't stand those horrible, powder-y tempera paints they give you in grade school.

Oh, and acrylic. Bane of my existence.

[velderia]

Airbrushing. Oil pastels come close but most airbrushing bothers me. Especially those sucky people in the mall who just airbrush t-shirts.

Edit: Actually, nevermind. Oil Pastels. Yes. As far as using them. Although I had a really bad experience with my mom yelling at me when using her ancient airbrush machine thing. :davi:

[stabby2486]

Colored pencils, seriously, it's like the only medium that doesn't allow for taking back your mistakes. Penciling? Eraser. Inking? Whiteout. Painting/Watercolor/Airbrushing? Adding and subtracting colors. But colored pencils? You got nothing. Not to mention the blending capabilities blow even when you got a full set so achieving a full range of colors is a massive pain.

[Loathsome]

I hate anything that's dry. It makes me cringe and want to rip my skin of with forks.
Like pastels or clay. Clay isn't exactly dry but it makes your hands into sandpaper and I hate that dry feel, and even the sound. I just CAANT AAAAAAH

[QueenGwenevere]

Airbrushing. Oil pastels come close but most airbrushing bothers me. Especially those sucky people in the mall who just airbrush t-shirts.

OH GOD, airbrushes. Yeah, add that to my list of annoying media, too!

I briefly got into airbrushes as a teenager. The actual painting/airbrushing part is okay, but, ARGH taking it all apart and cleaning it for maybe 20 minutes every time you need to switch to a different color ARGH ARGH ARGH... Plus having to wear a face mask and everything, and the big noisy compressor, bleagh...

[Gerulaitis]

Squeaky-clean vectors.
Can't stand them.
Can't stand even the look of them.

[Brian.May]

Water color, I can never get it to do anything except become muddy. I just don't have a hand for the control needed for them.
Clay, I love but for throwing pots, not sculpture. I prefer a nice plastiline for that.

[GoldSeven]

To look at? Airbrush. Especially when used on Christmas market booths. *CRINGE* Worse than pickup hoods.

To use? Acrylics. Coming from watercolour, it's like painting backwards, inside out as well as upside down. ;)

[TASmith]

Acrylics are a beautiful thing when you have a carefully selected set of Golden Acrylics (function much like oils in terms of color and transparency) on a nice flat surface. My problem with them is the plastic surface quality, and for me the secret is to paint thinly enough to avoid uneccesary, sometimes distracting impasto.

Buy large quantities at a time. Put large globs on your palette - that way even when they dry, you can peel away at them, and scoop more paint from underneath. And wash brushes frequently with soap.

[Enydimon]

I hate charcoal because I can't use it. I'm allergic.

[TASmith]

Do you get a rash on your hands?

[Enydimon]

Do you get a rash on your hands?

Wherever it touches, really(which ends up being everywhere.) If there's a way to prevent that and it's a more common occurrence than I thought then I'm open to solutions.

I also used to get mildly sick sometimes drinking tap water because of the charcoal used to clean it. So who knows.

[TASmith]

Hmm. Well you could try latex gloves, which also keeps the paper cleaner, but if you're that sensitive, I'd just avoid it.

[Enydimon]

Hmm. Well you could try latex gloves, which also keeps the paper cleaner, but if you're that sensitive, I'd just avoid it.

Hmm, true. I'm sure I could be a little more careful too.

[hitnrun]

Oil paints. They stink, they're hazardous and they take forever to dry.


But at the same time nothing looks quite like an oil painting.


The longer dry times are why I actually like oils. They do take a lot longer to complete a painting with, since acrylics dry damn near instantly, but I like being able to blend. (I paint with thinned out paint, and thinned out acrylics.. Man.. 30 seconds later, dry to the touch) I had "blend" thrown at me so much in high school, in college, and in workshops that to me, it's the only way art really looks high class. It's why I dont like abstract much. I like realism.

Oh and I saw that video of the woman with the spaghetti-oh's, and I"ve never been more disgusted in my life. That's my opinion.