The pigment bit in the colored pencil has a waxy base that will build up and jam/get stuck in the sharpener. Graphite doesn't. It can be used as a lubricant in some non sexy situations.

I'm rural and had a dog ol'yellered once—he loved kids, tolerated women, and would do his very best to rip the throat out of any man. I understand that sometimes the dog can simply not be allowed to go on. But man, I can't wrap my head around expecting a shock collar to work as training, and then calling it a day after it attacks some chickens. A young dog with a prey drive might not be suited for working, but could easily be somebody's pet. It would have cost so little to give it a chance to have a good life.

Ah, I made the mistake of reporting with an alt what is clearly a deluge of either bad faith bullshit or straight propaganda, and got these posts hidden from me for me. Powers that be seem to want this type of content unchallenged.

My aunt made a point of tuning into these sort of things when she was with my Trump voting grandmother. Listening and watching what a train wreck he is without the right-wing media filter I think was what ended up turning her into a Biden voter in 2020. I don't know if my aunt would have gotten through to her if she didn't have the debates and pressers to work with.

I can only upvote you once. But imagine I held down on the screen for a reaaally long time when I did it.

Critics disliked Van gogh in his time too. And he used all the traditional kit.

Art had a sort of schism once photography took off. Pro-ai art seems to get stuck on one side of it. Traditional art had a long, long run of 'good art' being well composed and skillful reproductions of realism: people, places, events—with a few visual metaphors for spice.

But then came photography. And all those people using art to look back in time had options, cheaper and accessible options. The demand for the skill to make precise replicas nearly collapsed.

What has sustained was not the technical method of making art, but the expressiveness of the artist. The spice becomes the meal. Things become more referential, abstract. It envokes states of mind often contextual to the times and circumstances the art was produced, and drawing on concepts outside of the image itself. It's not just about making pretty pictures from paint, charcoal, or photoshop.

Once you have the dadaists, Duchamps and Pollocks running around, arguments about 'correct' techniques to make art are always going to be shortlived. It's not the advancement of technology that people question. Longish ago most of us collectively decided method didn't really matter, intention did.

If you scrolled through your camera roll would you consider it art? Can you use ai to quickly copy a technique? Yes. Can it be applied critically to success? Maybe. But if you outsource the practical skill and contextual knowledge that makes good, deliberate art, what are the odds that happens?

I think if you use a pen the dynamic controls work better, and brushes are less of a pain to set up. I prefer to draw in krita and then fuck around in gimp.