Let's talk Oil Pastels!
If you loved coloring with crayons as a child, you will love creating with oil pastels. They are the artist's crayon!
Oil pastels are similar in size to crayons, usually wrapped in paper, and available in many colors.
They are smoother and creamier than those wax based crayons and they layer better.
They are a lot less messy than their sister, the chalk pastel.
I was playing recently with a set I picked up at Hobby Lobby. They are the Master's Touch brand. They were reasonably priced, and most of the colors are nicely pigmented. I used black, hot press watercolor paper, which has a smoother paper finish .
As you can see from the study above, pastels give you the option to smooth and blend the colors together or simply leave the raw layering to give a really nice expressive technique.
I find it helpful when using any kind of pastel, whether oil, or chalk (soft or hard), to have a tub of baby wipes or handy wipes available, especially if you like to blend with your fingers. They actually work well over your fingers to help blend your pastels.
I'll post a deeper dive about pastels in a future post.
But for now, let me know if you try oil pastels. I'd love you to tag me in an IG post or leave me a comment here on this post.
Have fun creating!
Peace, Love, and Creativity,
Jodi
