Oil Pastel Pointers

So now I finally come around to posting them.  I hope they'll help.

One thing that I've noticed is how much pressure and paper affect a picture.  Firm pressure on the stick while drawing as well as smooth paper gives a smooth, clean-cut look.  On the other hand, light pressure and "toothy" paper give a more rustic, textured feel.  Additionally, temperature determines how easily the color will go on to the paper; pastels warmed in your hand a minute will glide on whereas cold pastels tend to be more crayon-like.

White and indigo are absolute musts.  Okay, so in art, there aren't exactly any absolute musts, but in oil pastels, I have found indigo and white most helpful.  For shading, I usually use indigo with firm pressure in the darkest area, then lighten the force as I get to less shadowy areas.  Then I'll use the actual color of the object I'm drawing to go over the indigo, from light to dark.  One of the best things about oil pastels is how easily they blend.  For light areas, or to blend several colors together, I swirl on white after laying down the individual colors. 



Pressure, white-blending, and shading.

A razor blade comes in handy for cleaning your oil pastel sticks, as well as shaping and sharpening them for detail work.  It kinda hurts at first to cut away at such a nice little stick, but it really helps.  The blade can also be used to scrape away unwanted pastel from the picture.

When beginning a picture, I generally do a light pencil or white pastel outline, then lightly fill in each area with its base color.  Then I add white for light and indigo for shadows, sometimes going over these with the base color again.  I read in a book about a technique called scumbling, which involves lightly rubbing a light gray oil pastel over a landscape picture to make it all blend together.  I tried this for the picture below, and it looked pitiful, so I scraped it off as best I could.   But then, this particular picture isn't really a landscape.  I did try it on my first landscape, but it didn't work too well. I could just be doing it wrong, or on the wrong subjects.  I may give it another go in a future landscape.

Sorry about poor quality; I'm not the best photographer.

In the end, I think the best piece of advice I can give is: experiment!  Test colors together on various papers and try crazy techniques.  The results can be most fabulous.  This is art; go wild. :D