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Do mostly men paint in acrylics?
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Message
Posted
The question is really posed by Syd Edward - asking about acrylic brush care, he observed that all the replies to his post were from us chaps, and he wondered if the women paint with acrylics. I've never thought about that before - I know a lot of us paint in all media, that watercolour probably just about predominates on this site, but it's never occurred to me to ask whether there's a big gender divide between media....
Some of "our women", if I may put it that way strictly non-presumptuously, do, I know, use acrylics: but are most of us men, and if we are - why would that be? Not why are we men, obviously: we had very little if any choice about that. This isn't about gender reassignment - not the time or the place, and anyway I'd look silly in a frock. But if you're a woman - shouldn't take you more than a minute to find out - and you don't use acrylic, why not? And if you do, why?
In fact, why do any of us use one medium over another? I think I know why I do - the unique properties of the three media with which I customarily work - but is there a medium with which you're fundamentally uncomfortable, tried it and couldn't stand it, or get on with it, or see any point in it?
Posted
First post - woo hoo!
I use acrylics and really like them. They don't have the wonderful smell of oils but they dry so fast I find them FAR more practical. My favourite weapon of choice has to be pastels. I can't get on with oil pastels though, I don't know why I don't I just don't. I just end up feeling resentful and grumpy that they don't work for me like my chalk ones do.
Posted
I've been to life classes where we sometimes painted large scale life studies. Most people (men and women) used acrylic for convenience. On the other hand I was at a 1.5 hour life class this week and those who were painting chose watercolour. But both these observations are anecdotal and don't carry much weight, as not many men attend life classes - at least not in the classes I go to.
I've got a big selection of oil pastels, I use them occasionally and I never seem to do well with them. I never succeed in mixing them to provide interesting greens when I paint landscapes.
Posted
I paint in acrylics and in oils and I love both.
I have an aversion to watercolour that is partly borne out of a deliberate avoidance of gender stereotypes. That and the fact that it's not an easy medium to master... However, I am trying to get past both of these, although I doubt I will ever abandon oils and acrylics.
I think there is an association between women who paint and watercolour. I tell people that I'm an artist and nine times out of ten I'll get asked if paint in watercolour. (I take a ridiculously great delight in saying no.)
Part of the association is historical. All those C17th and C18th young ladies dabbling in watercolour as part of their pseudo-educational achievements.
Part of it is that more women paint at a 'lower' or less ambitious level. Watercolour is relatively cheap. Watercolour looks pretty (well, it can do). There are scads of watercolour classes out there. Loads of how-to books etc.
Many of the people who take up art as a hobby at a more mature age are female, for various reasons, and I suspect that a similar proportion of the people who take up art as a hobby at a more mature age don't (ever?) realise that watercolour is not the easiest starting medium. Or when they do, they've taken in love with its delicate unpredictability.
As to acrylics... Well, they are Modern. This can be a Bit Scary. Modern Art can be a Bit Scary.
And on top of that, you might not be able to clean your brushes!
Posted
If it's any consolation, I tend to get asked if I paint in watercolour too - though it is indeed the medium associated with women in some people's minds; isn't that, though, because it's the most commonly used medium of all and that more women than men paint - at least at the popular level (I'm trying to avoid the word I most hate, "amateur", here: because it has its own connotations and far too many of them)? There's also the fact that Queen Victoria used them, and set off a train of like-minded ladies - I'd have thought that particular vogue had passed, by now (the Empress Dowager of China, Ci Xi, also painted in watercolour: but then, as a contemporary lady remarked on seeing a play loosely based on her life, "How different, oh how very different!, from the home life of our own dear Queen!" It was probably the eunuchs that troubled her; that and a bit of quite unexceptional murder...). And, as you say - you can get a good selection of watercolour paints for not much money: brushes and papers are where the costs come in ..... then you realize artists' quality watercolours are so much better than the student and intermediate grades ..... but you're hooked by then, and committed to expenditure.
I wondered if it had anything to do with the still very snobbish attitude that prevails toward acrylics - that oils are somehow better; that acrylics are too easy - the very daftest thing I've ever heard said about a medium - that they're garish and brash (which they were, once; around 50 years ago).
People worry too much about brush cleaning - in 50 years, I've never lost a brush yet because I forgot to keep it wet; and if you use synthetic brushes, which are far better for acrylics anyway than hog hair or sable, even if you do wreck a brush it's not a massive tragedy - turn it round the other way to use as a scribe, and buy yourself a new one. Or of course - paint the Bates way, with knives. Very juicy.
Posted
Hi 438 from a fellow newbie (an email to the mods soon sorts out your name, they're really helpful).
I found myself nodding reading your post. I find myself more naturally gung ho when wielding a knife full of colour (oil or acrylic) whereas watercolour my style is quite considered and precise.
If i want to have fun my acrylics tend to see the light of day. I think I see them as play rather than work.
Posted
I have started painting again only in the last 10 months (after 40 years of work, family, houses etc). Last spring I took the plunge and booked myself on a painting course in Abruzzo, called "Painting for the Petrified" - I mainly only chose that course because a Guardian journalist said that it should really have been called "Painting for the Pissed". Anyway it was a five day course, very intensive (and a huge amount of fun!) and we weren't even allowed to touch any paint until Day 3. Then out with the acrylics, and ever since then I have thought of virtually nothing else apart from the sensation of a brush loaded with acrylic paint.
I sometimes think I should try oils but time seems short and I really want to master acrylics first. I dabbled briefly with watercolours but quite frankly found them terrifying. One wrong stroke and you're dead. Acrylics are perfect for the impatient - and the petrified.
Posted
I cant answer the question, but Robert Jones has answered a question I had; do more women than men paint at amateur level? Robert, Amateur, from the Latin, "Lover". I guess by that standard even professional are amateur, just that they get paid too. Anyway, we digress. I wonder, WHY do more women than men paint? Is it seen a soft, or cissy to paint? Yet most old masters are men! (No need to go there, I get the reasons)
Anyway, Im a man, just taking up watercolours and I dont like acrylics at all, on the whole I dont even enjoy looking at acrylic work. I find it jarring
D
Posted
Oh well, that put me in my place! I didn't know that more women painted, and it doesn't seem a soft option at all - it's the hardest thing I've ever done and I've had quite a challenging life.
I really don't think it is helpful (or particularly pleasant) to go down gender lines in a discussion, but it is interesting to know why and how people arrive at an option. I would be interested to know how those that paint in both acrylics and oils decide on a painting-by-painting basis which medium to go for. Perhaps that belongs in a different thread, sometime.